The Battle Between Lazy & Hustling

I wanted to write about my battle with laziness. Every now and again you hear about these people who can go hard all day. Here and there I get the chance to work with folk who’s energy and drive are way past what I am bringing to the table these days.

The last few years my drive took a real hit. I used to habitually grind out 16 hour days. This affected my relationships, and unlike all those wild success stories, I didn’t figure it out. There was no crazy influx of money that made it all worth it. Now I’m still grinding many 16 hour days, but a lot less of them. Some days it’s only 6 hours.

Even calling them a full 16 hour day is ridiculous. I manage to waste a lot of time lately. I get distracted with nonsense like Facebook or sometimes I just sit there for like 15 minutes doing nothing. Just existing in the moment, but still doing nothing. As I approach the later part of my 30’s I really question my habits a lot.

The guilt of taking time off

Every week I have my plan of what I want to do. It’s ambitious and it’s filled to the brim. If I were to achieve every item on my list every week, I’d be a lot farther along in life than I am. Instead the week plays out and life throws me off. My energy is not consistent and I have a lot of my day where I shift into these lazy lulls.

Then I feel guilty about wasting time and try to compensate by completing a task. Even starting this blog was a response to a distracted, inefficient moment. The problem with this guilt is that it makes it very difficult to enjoy recreation. I even multi-task video games with tasks like rolling joints. If I come across a cut scene in the South Park game, let’s get some prep work done.

Recently I was listening to Seth Godin going on about how he doesn’t have a TV in his home. He was pointing out how video games and TV are not relaxing activities despite what we think. They are recreational, stimulating and distracting but they don’t relax us in a biological sense of the term. Not the way meditation or the absence of stimuli will do.

He almost advocated for creating a planned state of boredom. This is not the same thing as when you wake up with no plans, and you are bored, and hope someone else comes up with a plan for you. This is when you go, my brain needs that 30 minutes to recharge or my old ass can’t make it through the day.

A lot of my naps consist of me lying on my back half asleep working through a problem. This may sound weird, but whenever there is drama or tense interpersonal problems, half-asleep on my back me, will work out the best solution far faster than awake, alert, overstimulated me. The sleepiness fights off the emotions and my subconscious mind puzzles away.

The existential reality of recognizing I’m not the one

Let’s be real, talent is not what makes people succeed in games like music and art. It’s a lot more your ability to network and reach out. I have been unable to convince the majority of people to support me. Until I can create enough bridges that my name is brought up constantly when opportunity is present, I can’t even pretend to be the star of the show.

There are many life circumstances I face that keep me from working more on my goals. Other people managed to face similar circumstances and make working towards their goals the solution. Anu Budz and his studio/content grind is a visible example. I still have a solid 15 years to go do some of the amazing things I want to do. The truth is, working wiser is going to be the path to success.

Still, I go to shows and see all these people bringing their friends and family. While I know I can sell tickets to events, actually getting a whole section to pull up for me regularly has been hard. I went to a lot of events last year where I rode solo. It feels like I’ve missed the mark in some way if I can’t regularly get people to roll with me to things.

To a lot of people I’m not that easy to be around. I work hard on being funner, but in rooms full of people there’s a lot of stimulus. It’s extremely hard for me to follow vibes and behave accordingly. I can also become an asshole when I get caught up in my feelings.

I don’t remember where I heard it, but the gist of another podcast point recently was that if you are an asshole, no one wants you around. They don’t invite you to things. They don’t care how good you are. I believe I’ve spent a long time trying to blend into the wrong crowd and stuck out like a sore thumb. Once I find my crowd, I will be able to pull up much deeper and start to make more claims for clout. In the meantime, I’m just an artist who writes blogs, podcasts and here and there meets people way out of my clout class.

Working harder gets harder as I get older

I need more love and sleep in my life than I ever have needed before. Love keeps me grounded. Knowing there are people around that care for me, that I care for helps me keep going. I want to share the victory lap with them. There will be people in my corner when that day comes.

Some people find me difficult, other people understand the wave.

The other problem I face is the need for exercise and sleep. It takes a lot of time for both. I also realized far too late that working out and being healthy is part of my job as an entertainer. It isn’t really about the vanity of looks. It’s about the energy and focus gains that come with exercise. Eating healthy also has benefits. I’ve reached a point where eating too much garbage makes me feel lazy.

LIke, trying to fuck after stuffing yourself at a buffet is much more difficult than fucking after a moderately sized healthy meal. I don’t make the rules, life is what it is.

When I was younger I could operate a lot stupider. Now I am facing the consequences and trying hard to morph the right habits. A lot of people find their stride at my age and by 50 are killing it. To do that means I need to be smart with my time. Right now I need to clear out my debt ASAP. But l also need to start focusing on 2025 now. I need to make sure everything I do builds toward something like how Marvel builds out a cinematic universe.

Unfortunately while I have these motivated spurts, I also lose steam. Then I’m only accountable for myself. I think I want to set up some kind of group of restless outcast hustlers who want to work on projects together. Like we all plan our proposals in a room smoking weed and bumping Montreal Hip Hop while scheming on greatness.

That would be fun. It would also help us get more work done.

Maybe I just need a change

I swear I finished writing this blog and within 5 minutes was drifting off into other things. I’m supposed to be working on some sales pitches I can send out later today. Instead I’m just sleepy and hazy.

I don’t know what it is that will recharge my battery. The charge was much lower last year and has improved a lot. While I complain about doing nothing, I still did get things done today. I’ve just not been focused. I miss the lock in for hours straight until the task is done vibe.

Part of me is feeling incomplete. I once thought this was a social issue but it’s not. There is just a hole inside of me that feels empty. I try to fill it with work and improvement. I spend hours focusing on my blessings and the wonderful parts of my life. I still just feel kind of like there is impending doom around the corner. That everything I’ve chosen to do is pointless because I made the wrong choices.

Maybe I’m low on dopamine or something. Either way I just wanted to express, more to myself than to you, that focus is necessary. I may not like all the work ahead of me, but I need to get it done. Only I can prevent the forest fires in my life.

Live Long and Prosper Everyone