Yesterday, completely out of the blue, I decided it was adventure time. I strapped on my rollerblades, pointed myself west into the city, and set out to see how far I could go.
My adventure turned out exactly how I hoped it would. I navigated residential areas, parks, bike trails, and dormant construction zones. I discovered smooth and winding longboarding hills, an adorable splash park, dozens of beautiful viewpoints, and storms of falling yellow leaves. I navigated by dead reckoning, paying to attention to street numbers or signs, and got my bearings from the tops of hills, like a modern-day voyageur traversing a landscape of raging concrete rivers.
The morning before the adventure was spent at The King's Interdisciplinary Studies Conference. Classes are cancelled for two days, and all students attend seminars, sessions, and speeches in the gym, then write a for-credit pass/fail paper on what they learned. The keynote speaker referenced the 10,000 hour rule, and put it into the perspective of making a 2-hour per day commitment to practicing something. His money quote was "you need to pick something that you can imagine doing for 2 hours a day, every day for 10 years, and still truly get joy out of it".
The adventure provided a few solid solitary hours to think and discuss this with myself. I tried to think of what I would want by 2 hour a day activity to be. I had to go all the way back to the very basics of the question: "what do you like to do?" Whenever I'm asked this question, I answer with "sports and music", which I think is a pretty decent answer. As far as I can tell, those are two of my favorite, if not my two very favorite activities. But what I realized yesterday is that I don't actually do either one of them very much.
Over the first few weeks of the semester, I've settled into my day-to-day pattern. As it turns out, I've spent probably less than 15 minutes a day, on average, on either one of my two favorite things. Instead, my free time has largely gone toward watching movies and TV shows, playing video games, and wasting time on the computer. I spend at least a couple of hours every day on some combination of these things. But yesterday, looking out across the river from the top of Connors Hill, I decided that it had to stop.
I mentally drafted and signed a pact with myself. It has two sections, one outlining the three things that I will no longer waste my spare time on, and the other outlining the three things I will replace them with. This is the pact:
Section 1) Things I Will Not Do Anymore
A) Movies and TV
- No more watching movies or TV shows unless it serves a direct social purpose. That means I will not watch by myself, or even if my roommates are sitting around watching in the middle of the day. I will only watch if it can truly be described as having a direct social function.
- The exceptions: I can watch all Oilers and Eskimos games, from the start of the 30 minute pregame show to the end of the postgame recap.
B) Video Games
- No more playing video games unless it serves a direct social purpose. That means no more playing by myself. I will only play multiplayer games with a direct social purpose.
- The exceptions: Game nights at Nolan's, COD with the roommates, Pokemon training for a specific tournament.
C) Computer
- No more wasting time on the computer. This includes, but is not limited to: obsessive facebooking, Reddit, stumbleupon, smogon articles for no specific purpose, flash games, etc.
- The exceptions: email, necessary facebook, specific skype dates, blogging, reading friends' blogs, and my five Oilers blogs (Oilersnation, coppernblue, BlackDogHatesSkunks, Lowetide, and mc79hockey)
- Activity directly related to Section 2, such as researching music or dating science, is encouraged.
Section 2) Things I Will Replace Them With
A) Physical Self Betterment
- Playing an organized sport, such as intramurals, Hicks Hockey, shinny hockey, King's hockey, curling, or indoor soccer
- Individual physical activity, such as running, rollerblading, longboarding, skiing, snowboarding, or working out.
- Any activity in preparation, organization, or planning for one of the above.
"No citizen has a right to be an amatuer in the matter of physical training... What a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable." - Socrates
B) Social Self Betterment
- Managing social circle at King's. Apartment visits, King's events, general hanging out.
- Managing social circle outside King's. Anything involving friends from Vegreville, Shad, or MacEwan.
- Activities outside and beyond King's. Bowling, laser tagging, pub night, Whyte Ave, Oilers and Eskimos games, house parties, volunteering, shopping, exploring in a group.
- Researching and practicing dating science. Reading Magic Bullets or other resources, fighting approach anxiety, practicing openers and sets, day and night game.
"... there is no magic bullet to get the women of your dreams. There is no one thing, or even ten things, that you can do that will all of a sudden allow to you reach your full potential... If you've taken care of the fundamentals, any reasonable system can work." - Nick Savoy
C) Musical Self Betterment
- Actively practicing technique on voice, piano, guitar, and drums.
- Expanding Vocal, piano, and guitar repertoire.
- Anything with the intent of getting to play with others.
- Researching, discovering, obtaining, and listening to new music.
"The wise musicians are the ones who play what they can master."
- Duke Ellington
So if you catch me wasting my time on anything in Section 1, slap me across the head and tell me so. This is my life, and it's ending one minute at a time. There's only so many adventures left in me.
