Day 7 of the #200wad challenge. 

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” - E.B. White

This quote couldn’t have resonated more, at this time when I’m on a personal solo retreat in Bali. 

I’m often in a dilemma when planning out my day here. Improve world, or enjoy world? Work, or play? The first 1-2 weeks was work and more work because I was trying to launch the Grant Hunt chat bot. But now, I seem to have balanced things out better - working a few hours in the morning till afternoon, then heading out to explore some beautiful rice fields or Balinese village, take walks and fly my drone.

That’s purely from the perspective of how I schedule my time. But lately, I could feel my own internal compass shifting. And valuing and weighing things differently. Since the 200wordsaday platform doesn’t allow me to display pictures, I’ll have to use words. Now picture a see-saw, and on the left side sits “Improve the world” while on the right side sits “Enjoy the world”.

Previously, improving the world was everything to me. All my decisions weighted heavily on improving the world. I was biased towards doing, towards action. And I was ambitious. I wanted to achieve. A lot. Perhaps too much. So much so that enjoying the world took a backseat. That led to cyclical brownouts, eventually leading to burnouts. 

This year, however, I’m feeling increasingly tilted towards the other side of wanting to enjoy the world. I started to feel less anxious about not working as much, even slacking off sometimes! Fun became more important. I planned out all my trips this year way in advance. I looked forward to them. I tried new hobbies - pottery, drone videography, learning Japanese, chasing anime episodes (DragonBall Super!) on Sunday morning.  

“Passing through middle life means becoming more and more what wants to be expressed through us.” - Ali Schultz

Perhaps it’s from turning 40 soon. Maybe midlife has a way of readjusting what’s important and meaningful. Priorities shift towards “what wants to be expressed through me”. No matter what, I’m definitely enjoying this change in the seasons.

The world can wait.