Worthwhile

January 13th, 2023

Compared to undergrad, I have a lot more time on my hands. And with more time comes more existential questions. Here are two such questions I’ve befriended this year:

1. Is what I’m doing worthwhile?
2. Is the worthwhile thing I’m doing being done effectively and efficiently?

Although these questions started in the domain of my work, they’ve since infiltrated my day-to-day life. I ask myself if thinking about these two questions does me any good:

• Pros: They’ve made me more self-critical to refine myself and better position me to achieve what I want in life
• Cons: They’ve made me an overall more anxious and unhappy person

I used to crave the freedom to do whatever I wanted, however I wanted, and whenever I wanted. Now, I find myself shirking away from that freedom because I question whether I’m making good use of that freedom in the first place. Do I even deserve personal time if I don’t spend it well? Maybe it’s better if I just use that time for others: friends, family, students, peers, relationships, etc.

For example, I used to love learning solely for the joy of it. If you know me, you’ll know that I spend a decent amount of time browsing Wikipedia, watching OCW videos, reading textbooks, programming, etc. When I think about my most enjoyable summer breaks in college, these activities filled up most of my time (and I don’t regret it). Learning for learning’s sake was good enough, but ever since I started thinking “what good does learning x do for me,” approaching learning has a new element of anxiety. All of a sudden, “spending time” became “wasting time.”

I know that continuing this way of thinking will make me miserable.

Fortunately, I think I’ve pinpointed the root cause of this misery — it all comes down to an ill-defined distinction between activities for work and activities for leisure. When I frame it this way, it actually makes sense to ask myself those two key questions. After all, why shouldn’t my work feel worthwhile, and why shouldn’t I try to do it effectively/efficiently? On the other hand, when it comes to activities that I purely do for personal enjoyment, these questions of “worthwhile-ness” and “efficiency” are just plain silly.

Cheers to another day of figuring out my work-life balance!