After the NSCoder Night I stayed talking with Diego Freniche about a possible project for next year and also about those dynamics that we get into sometimes when we work too hard to the point of getting the feeling that we are not enjoying life.

As you know, I had been thinking about it for some time, but this conversation definitely convinced me that it is not worth working so hard, and that if I am so “smart”, I should apply some of that intelligence in working not more, but better.

That, oddly enough, starts with not taking the job so seriously. Because even though I am a privileged person who loves his work, work is only a part of my life and, as such, it should only take up a part of my time, NOT almost all of my time as it has been in recent months.

We all have an excuse to work more. I’m the king in that because my personal situation is quite complicated and “pushes me” every day to work more and more as a way to turn around the mistakes of the past, but the sad reality is that it’s not working.

Working without rest really won’t get me where I want to go first. What it will lead to is making the right decisions every time, for which I need to be rested and happy, so that my coconut works perfectly.

So I’ve made a commitment to myself: I will have a limited time to work each day and I won’t try to artificially lengthen that time to compensate for my lack of concentration or inspiration. If the day ends without having met the goals, I will just suck it up, call it a day (not a lost one), get on with the rest of my life and worry about being more “focused” the next day.

That’s it. No regrets. Accepting that, like it or not, that is the natural way forward.

---