I wanted to write something about “Things That Matter” by Joshua Becker, after finishing it over holiday break in December.

Overall, this book was really great. There were some areas that I didn’t fully agree with. This isn’t a book review, but I wanted to focus on the parts that caused, as a friend of mine calls it, thought nuggets.

Becker has a chapter on the concept of leisure and how we think about and approach leisure. He says leisure is treated as something to run to permanently as opposed to something that we use in a more productive manner that encourages rest and restoration so that we can focus on the things that actually matter.

We treat work as a “necessary evil” to get away from as soon as we can, and then once we retire, we think that we can finally enjoy our lives. This is the wrong way to think about work and leisure. He writes, ” Please don’t view your work as something only to be endured or escaped. Instead, rethink your work.” I think of my students who groan on and on about hating school or wanting to stay home and play video games. I also think about myself and the countless other adults who look forward to breaks, weekends, and vacations (if we take them). Work should provide some sort of meaning, which is not always easy to come by, but at the very least, we can redefine how we view our work.

When you think about our finite time, waiting for a special time (as given to us by our employers and government) to finally live is kind of sad, don’t you think? Saving money to retire and finally do what you want, seems pretty joyless leading up to that moment. On top of that, our system in the U.S. isn’t the greatest to ensure all older adults above retirement age can actually retire or enjoy retirement without financial worries.

If you are in a position to be able to rethink your view of your work and to see it in a positive light or to look for work that more aligns with your sense of meaning, then do it. Of course, there are those that have it far worse because of cruel, bullying managers (I’ve been there) or soul-rotting work. However, many people can make changes even within their own minds, such as finding something to look forward to or being more actively engaged at work. Admittedly, it’s tough. I enjoy my job, but it’s tough. Not every day feels great, but I make sure to note all the great things that happened, and make sure they outnumber all the bad things. Perspective.

Last week is an example of that. I love my students, but being middle schoolers, they can press buttons. They can stomp on nerves that I didn’t even know I had. People who have been in the teaching profession for far longer used to tell me that teaching middle school was an acquired taste. I can see why. Middle schoolers are like taller kindergartners with potty mouths. Friday was particularly stressful, and I went to bed at 5:30 pm. I reminded myself, though, that tomorrow would be a new day and a day to rest.

I always look forward to my mornings, and, in fact, I view each new day as a refresh. I might write in my journal or do something (like reading) to de-stress before bed. However, I’ve noticed when I wake up the next day that on most days, I feel much better like what happened the day before happened way in the past and not yesterday. I try to reframe how I feel into something more positive, and I always look toward students or classes that are uplifting, or just downright silly. For every student having a bad day and making it tough for everyone, there’s another student bringing a smile to everyone’s faces. It’s easy to focus on the negative, so I try to recall the positive, too. I’m not dismissing the negative. Sometimes I work to work through feelings I have an not eat me alive, but what I mean is that I don’t forget that positive things are happening, too.

Actually, in a Japanese nonfiction book I read, Chie Ikeda mentions writing down five things that went well for you instead of the usual three. Writing more positive things forces you to dig deeper into things you hadn’t considered before.

When we see work as something positive, the desire to run away from it lessens, and we can use our free time in a better way, more restorative way.

Becker also mentions the paradox of how although we can’t wait for the weekend, we also chain ourselves to our jobs by not taking time off, saying that “we care about our time off both too much and not enough.”

What ends up happening is that we strain ourselves and become spent and burnt out, but we’ve also become used to living our lives that way. In my own life, I ended up seeing free time as survival mode, never actually recharging myself–never actually enjoying the time off. Free time was stressful because I wanted to spend it the “right way,” but I never got satisfaction. Working was much easier to do.

Rethinking your approach to rest helps, I’ve noticed. You rest better so that you can work better: “Recharge so that you can be your best self and do your best work when you get back,” Becker says. I took this to heart because I’m not going to retire by the time I’m 40, and I can’t simply quit working because I don’t want to; like many people, you have to work. At the very least, we can think about how we spend our time at work and outside of it so that we can make the most of it.

I’ve worked a lot in my life. For the past 8 years, I’ve worked two jobs trying to make more money even though the money I had was enough, but I had never-ending desires for more. As a result, I was often stressed out, but I had stuff (even though I hate clutter…. the buy-purge cycle I underwent meant a lot of wasteful spending).

Just very recently, like just before my first post to this blog, I quit working at a tutoring center that had become a source of stress instead of a source of joy. I love working and the meaning I get from it, but the value of it was no longer there. When I let that job go, I was able to better focus on the mess I made of my primary job and my time off so that I could start living better.

Becker mentioned that work is done to simply make money. I mean, yeah, it pays the bills, but seeing work as only a means to money makes the entirety of it unfulfilling as a result. In January 2022, I ended up quite depressed, suffering from negative feelings of my job (and the passing of my cat). So many of Becker’s points reminded me of different points in my life. That particular job, which I’d been at for two years during the length of COVID pandemic, was not about fulfillment, but about paying the bills. And I mean that as I needed the job after COVID sunk my tutoring business, and I couldn’t live off my savings. Overtime, the need for money wasn’t enough to save me from filling empty. As a result, I would sometimes use spending to make me feel better through retail therapy.

I’m in a better place now. I’m still working on the consumerism thing, choosing to consume knowledge instead and to participate in “soul nerding,” which is far more nutritious than the distraction of the internet or shopping. I have also been writing a lot more for this blog, including several unpublished drafts waiting to be revised and published. This is part of how I spend my time off, something that gives me meaning outside of work, too. When I get to work, I feel better having done something that brings me joy and gives satisfaction.

This past weekend, during my free time, I took a short walk in my neighborhood. For the past couple of days, I was fatigued and overslept. Sunday morning, I woke up with what I call an anemic “brain fuzz,” so I made sure to eat a healthy breakfast and stayed away from electronics. That culminated in a walk in the cold, which felt great. The inspiration to walk came from Sarah Wilson’s book and also my remembrance of all the writers I’ve enjoyed reading who have also felt it best to walk at times of illness or writer’s block.

Walking is something I seek to add more of in my leisure time. I certainly have gotten away from nature, and this simple act is restorative. I’ve thought about adding daily walks after work to clear my head and reduce fatigue and stress so that I’m more pumped to read instead of being too tired to do so. I don’t want to be tired during my free time. Although sleep is important and is restorative, being too tired to use your brain effectively can lead to bad habits, such as watching Youtube videos instead of reading or writing.

Becker’s book made me rethink a lot of my own habits and attitudes. Even if I didn’t agree with all of his premises, I took many things he said to heart and am making the necessary changes so that, in my life, I can focus on the things that actually matter.