Recently, I have been focusing on relaxation. I am relieving the fatigue that has accumulated in my life. It seems I was more exhausted than I thought.
As I relaxed and felt better, I recognized my nature: I am not so bad at monotonous tasks. Let’s talk about it.
How to continue a certain activity
Sometimes, we want to continue one activity for a long time. It gives us consistent skills.
However, at the same time, we want to avoid meaningless, monotonous tasks. Doing the same thing makes us bored. We like discoveries.
That makes us want to know how to balance them.
For example, I always lost interest in my productive activities after a certain period. I got tired of game development after 3 years. Writing books and application development became difficult for me after about 3 years.
That made me think I am bad at such repetitive work. I thought logical people could not do similar tasks for long.
However, I also knew there was a contradiction. I have been able to continue blogging for over 10 years. I enjoy walking and cycling as hobbies, which have also continued for over 10 years. Why can I keep going?
Relaxation told me why. We are not as bad at meaningless, monotonous tasks as we think. Having more stress than we can tolerate makes us tired. Today, I will explain it.
Two kinds of activities
By adjusting the stress to the body’s tolerance, we can continue a certain activity, even if it is worthless. In other words, focus on your physical stress rather than mental rewards. That allows you to keep going.
There are two kinds of activities, as follows:
- Empathic activities (passionate activities): We pursue meaning. They excite us. However, a lack of purpose makes us lose motivation. We tend to do them as our main jobs.
- Logical activities (relaxation activities): We pursue efficiency. They calm us. Even if it is meaningless, we can continue it if we can relax. We tend to do them as our hobbies.
If you are empathic and logical, apply your activity as the latter. That would allow you to continue it for a long time.
Intense empathy that hinders us
Overly intense empathy makes it difficult to continue with one thing. In other words, the reason we cannot continue is not due to logical sense; it is due to empathy.
This is because empathy makes us do it too much and get tired.
To explain it, let’s look at my example. After staying at my parents’ house, I have started several chores. One is to pull weeds in the garden. It was a symbol of a meaningless and monotonous task.
However, I noticed I can do it continuously. This is because I decided to do it as one of my relaxation activities. I walk for about 30 minutes in the afternoon, and after that, I pull weeds for about 10 to 20 minutes. Since I didn’t bring my bicycle to this house, that is my current refreshment.
We can enjoy various meaningless activities as long as they calm us. In my case, walking, cycling, and weeding are all exercises without certain goals. Although I don’t intend to achieve something special, they free me from the stress of pursuing my goals and relax me.
I can naturally adjust the amount of activity according to my body’s stress. This is because we know they are meaningless. We don’t overdo such activities.
That is why I can continue weeding in moderation.
Living more on logical activities
On the other hand, if I consider it an empathic activity, I will try to make it one of my main jobs, seek meaning, and contribute to others as much as possible. That will exhaust me.
That is why I cannot continue weeding if I am overly empathic.
That awareness told me why I gave up my past activities. I pursued meaning too much in my main activities. That tired me out and made me lose interest.
In other words, we can live more on logical activities instead of empathic ones.
Logical activities have their own style. We never overdo them. We do them in moderation, depending on the stress on the body. Instead of doing one main job for a long time, we distribute various tasks throughout the day.
That style allows us to continue one thing while improving our lives. We can balance continuing and relaxing.
Some say that turning your hobby into a main job makes you lose interest. It may apply to people with intense empathy.
Conclusion
That is why we are not as bad at meaningless, monotonous tasks as we think. Having more stress than we can tolerate makes us tired.
We can continue that activity by adjusting the stress to the body’s tolerance.
This logic might allow you to balance your passionate activities and relaxation.
Thank you for reading this article. I hope to see you in the next one.
