On My Mind Monday
The other night, I did something that shouldn’t feel particularly remarkable. I spent the entire evening on my sofa. I didn’t even turn on my computer.
I wasn’t sick, I wasn’t upset, and I didn’t have anything preventing me from working. I just decided that tonight, I wasn’t going to do anything.
Well, I did watch some TV, so technically I did something.
But you know what I mean.
And somewhere during that evening, I started thinking about time. Which is a little ironic because I had just decided not to spend it thinking about anything in particular.
I’ve always had a lot of things I want to do. Ideas, projects, things I want to learn, things I want to try. And I genuinely enjoy most of it. That’s probably part of the problem, if it even is a problem.
Because when you enjoy what you’re doing, it’s easy to fill every available hour with something.
Lately, I’ve also been making some decisions about my different projects. I have this little YouTube project called Curiously Miscellaneous, with an AI character named Curio. It’s playful, it’s fun, and I love creating it.
But right now, I’m more interested in a couple of other projects. One where I’m exploring 70 years of artificial intelligence, and another where I’m having conversations about how AI affects our everyday lives.
So I’ve decided to let Curio wait a little.
Not stop. Not abandon. Just wait.
And that made me think about how we talk about time.
We’re always trying to find time for things. I need to find time to do this. I wish I could find time for that. As if time is hiding somewhere between the sofa cushions, waiting to be discovered.
But maybe I’ve been looking at it the wrong way.
I didn’t find an extra evening to spend on my sofa. I took one.
And I haven’t suddenly discovered more hours for my other projects. I’ve decided to spend fewer hours on something else.
That sounds so obvious when I write it down.
Of course, I also know that having the freedom to make those decisions is a privilege. Not everyone can simply decide to take an evening off or rearrange their commitments. I’ve had times in my life when that wouldn’t have been possible either.
Perhaps that’s another reason to appreciate being able to do it now.
I don’t think I’m becoming less ambitious. I still have more ideas than I’ll probably ever have time to explore. And knowing myself, I’ll come up with another three before this week is over.
But I’m starting to think that giving something my time doesn’t mean I have to give everything my time.
And maybe taking time for nothing at all is also a perfectly reasonable decision.
I’m not entirely sure where this thought is going. I suspect I’ll still spend far too many evenings in front of my computer, following some interesting question down another rabbit hole.
I rather like those rabbit holes.
But I also liked my evening on the sofa.
And perhaps I don’t need to choose which one matters more.
Just which one I want to spend my time on today.
