Get busy

Hobbies, occupation, art, sport, everything goes to spend time. Have an hour or two free every day when you’re still mentally fit? Time to learn something you’ve always wanted to learn or try out something new just for the sake of it.

Have some free time but your brain is a wreck and can’t focus? Some sports can be done on autopilot as do other occupations.

This part will list several possible occupations, both physical and intellectual. They also serve as introductions to short- and long-term life goals.

If the next part reads like a boring listing of various activities, that's because it is. Peace of mind is tremendously easier to achieve when said mind remains occupied, and if you've got a lot of idle free time then there's no dodging the part where you consider which hobbies and activities to practice.

If you’re already set on that aspect, you can skip to the chapter Turning into Buddha right away, just keep in mind you should not only have activities, but they should occupy both your mind and body. Do also have several short- and long-term goals set.

Ideally, you find what you love and spend all your free time on it. However, finding what we want to dedicate ourselves to can be a hard task. Or the things we love are complicated to focus on full-time. I want to be a writer but need to work a job to pay the bills until I get there. Beer aficionados might discover a liver problem by indulging in their passion. Sleep fanatics will find out they have to get up and work a job to keep the comfy bed. Stuff we love isn’t always the right way to fill free time. Sometimes it matches, but not everyone has that luck.

Prosaically, it will be less about finding your forever hobby, and more about discovering occupations you enjoy and can picture practicing over long stretches of time. You’ll need more than sports, as the body needs downtime, and you must occupy said downtime too. For that purpose, we will skim over the possibilities that exist in terms of sports, but also intellectual and artistic pursuits. Having a well-rounded set of activities with matching goals will be a good start to keep yourself occupied and focus on achievable goals.

Later, we will discuss basics of meditation and stoicism, both to deal with intrusive thoughts and to let go of unneeded wants.