The Type A Pursuit of Hobbies

Facing with Doing Nothing After Putting In My 2 Weeks Notice

Spring is finally here.

Feeling like winter lasted forever, I forgot what a sunny 20°C feels like in New York. The sun is radiant, the sky is beautifully blue, and the optimism feels endless.

Similarly to the shift towards warmer and sunnier weather, I find myself in a transitionary period.

I just gave my two weeks notice. I’m quitting.

Now, each remaining day of work is a slog.

There are no more carrots to chase after: promotions, resume bullet points and raises are no longer the incentive. There are also no more sticks either—being fired doesn’t do much aside from shallow damages to ego and expediting the leaving process.

The excitement for working on projects has been replaced by excitement for the work day to be over. Now, I look forward to listening to daily news podcasts and eating catered in-offices lunches more than anything else.

A normal person at this time would probably enjoy the time to relax. Maybe meander through hobbies, explore cafes around the city, or laze on the couch with a binge worthy TV series.

Me? I’m a bit lost with what to do with myself these days.

Having so much of my identity and time filled by work, being productive, and improving, I feel it off-putting to not sink an ungodly amount of time into work.

I am no longer in a perpetual state of busyness, but the exact opposite. I am in a perpetual state of doing nothing.

While it’s probably good for the soul to just do nothing after such a long time of work obsession, it frankly feels a bit uncanny.

I’m left to fill up the holes in my self worth that work no longer patches over and find a place where my type-A obsession can fixate on next.

My efforts so far as been plowing time into what was rendered casual hobbies from work: reading, writing, and gymming.

I find myself juggling reading several books at a time, exploring sentence structures when writing in my journal, and breaking down the little deficiencies in my lifting form.

When my mind and muscles inevitably become cooked under the weight of sentences and barbells, I shift to the once forgotten hobbies of my younger self: window shopping sneakers, gaming, and indulging in World Ward 2 stories.

I quickly find myself in deep work looking for good deals on a pair of used Yeezys, watching guides and esports for League, and consuming memoirs and TV shows of the US marines in the Pacific during 1945.

From an external observer, my behavior appears unchanged. Instead of stressing about progress at work, I now stress about the books I’m reading, the articles I’m writing, the weight I’m lifting, and the shoes, the games, and the memoirs I’m consuming.

The context is now trivial but the effort level has not changed. And in a weird way, I feel obligated to dive into these hobbies as seriously as I did work.

I wonder if this is a common affliction for those who are productivity pilled and very type A.

They do what’s natural, which is working hard on something.

And when that something is gone, they need to fill the hole in the fabric of their existence somehow.

They need to feel useful. Like they’re improving. That they are being productive.

So they then drown themselves in whatever interesting thing they can find.

Rest and relaxing does not come in the form of putting less effort, just in the form of different contexts.

The approaches to serious and un-serious pursuits are mirrors of one another.

Everything somehow becomes serious regardless of long term life impact.

I wonder how rested I’ll be after this transitionary period until I dive head first into another meaningful pursuit.

Regardless, I’m going to keep the obsessiveness and plow on with my hobbies.