Yesterday was a long day. I woke up to a text that arrived at 4:30am that my 10am flight, located 72 miles away from where I was sleeping, was canceled. The good news is they rebooked me on another flight. The bad news is that the flight didn't depart until 9pm.
My first instinct was to flip out.
I had coaching calls planned for when I landed back in Seattle. I wanted to pop into the office at a startup I am involved with. I wanted to pick up my son from school. And more importantly, I wanted to be home for dinner. None of that happened the way I envisioned it.
Instead, I had to pivot and figure out a new plan for the day, which clearly was no longer controlled by me solely.
I realized something at that moment.
I'm terrible with white space.
I'm really great with every hour of my day meticulously planned out to the point where I'm mentally bursting at the seams, but as soon as I have free time, I start to panic a bit internally. I don't know what to do with myself.
I started to list out my potential options: go have breakfast, go for a walk, pop open the laptop and start working, or wander over to a casino. I literally did a combination of everything before getting on the road by mid-day.
And it really shined a light on something: I have become so used to overscheduling and overstimulating myself to be busy with work, consulting, coaching, Patreon, checking in with people, and more — that I don't know how to just relax.
It sort of scared me for a minute because the second I had white space available, my brain kind of scrambled like an egg.
But that's where I get value. I need to be going 24/7, and when that switch turns off for a minute, I struggle — to be honest.
I like to think it's because I've found something I love to do, and I've found a way to make money at it and a career out of it, too. It took me a long time to get here to some degree.
I've really pushed my therapist on this whole concept of my inability to relax. The one thing we continue to come back to is this: if I am happy, and the constant schedule that keeps me moving, stimulated, and stretched too thin is providing value for me, and it's not interfering with the real things in life, then keep going.
I know it's not for everyone, nor would I ever encourage anyone to try to go at the pace I do.
But here's the big light bulb: it's not work if you love it, and I love it.
I've worked less in other periods of my life and been miserable.
It all comes down to the fact that if you are doing things you love, it's not work. It's joy, it's fulfilling, and it's where you get your stimulation.
That white space I had to all of a sudden fill was tough, but it was only tough because I don't find value and joy in that white space. I find fulfillment in chaos.
If you don't know where or what you find fulfillment in, that's okay. You will. You can't force it — I believe it has to naturally arrive through the course of your journey. I just hope you find it, because once you do, it changes everything for you.