I feel like I’m on that track these days. In the last 2 years or so I’ve maintained my passion for my work and the aspects of it I feel are a craft, but I’ve gradually begun feeling much less urgent about it and far more interested in feeling good about what I’m doing and how I do it.

I went from scrambling to fit things in, terrible sleep, never fitting in exercise, eating poorly, not seeing family enough, etc… To getting only slightly less done in what feels like half the time, sleeping better than I have since my early teens, eating better than I have in my life, enjoying a ritual of sunrise walks and pre-sunrise runs, vacationing more, diving more, tending to hobbies, spending more time with my family…

I know it sounds cheesy as hell but I read a lot of stoic philosophy a few years ago and I think it made something click. I’d read bits and pieces before, I certainly wasn’t a stranger to the philosophy, but reading a few pieces in particular pertaining to time and the limitations of control in life really resonated with me. The more I thought about it, the more I read and reread it, the more it has seemed to guide my behaviour. I’m not a Stoic by any measure, but I’m grateful for what I’ve taken from it.

Everyone has their own priorities in life, so people who have “wasted their younger years” might have been happy during that time. From my years of meeting random people, I’ve been more fascinated with people who took a lot of time offs and didn’t grind for the career. Especially people in their 60s/70s with a lot of life experience sounded like they feel more “fulfilled”, than some career chasing SVPs. Even with those, they’d mostly talk about non-work stuff.

Long story short, life is fairly different for everyone, thus min/maxing DPS like you’d do in an RPG probably won’t work. Everyone has retroactive regrets, but we can’t really say whether throwing money on weekend getaways or working on a side project over a weekend is objectively better.

There is a middle ground between being homeless on a beach* and deciding to work 4 hours on a Saturday just to get stuff done.

My point is that the reason I can take this attitude now is that I have spent 25 years getting to the point where I am paid well and I can negotiate my time so that I don't have to work evenings and weekends.

* if I was going to be homeless, living on a Mexican beach sounds like a pretty good option.

> - Colleagues (across multiple jobs) who show up with this attitude and, quite clearly, do absolutely nothing on average. Nowadays, I push them out if they land on my team. Don't worry, they usually pick up another gig fairly easy.

Sounds like it's working out great for them, where's the downside?