Unordinary weekend | 879
By: Lukasz Laniecki
Tags: Work, Writing, Passion, Weekend, Family

My Author Journey, Saturday, November 11, 2017

# 879 (countdown)

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We spent two days with our family in the south of Poland. I worked as much as possible — not as much as I wanted, but as Gary Vaynerchuck says Anything is better than zero or One is greater than zero. So even if I can’t stick to my routine or if I can’t work as many hours as I normally do, I still prefer to do something instead of nothing.

Took some photos in the garden and one in the graveyard. Not a big day but still — something. It all counts. Even if it took me only 10 or 15 minutes, those 10 or 15 minutes matter. They are part of my overall experience. Even in this short time I can learn.

I enjoyed this photo session as it was something very different from what I normally shoot in Warsaw.

Then we went back to Warsaw, which meant I spent 3 hours and 15 minutes (start to stop — definitely one of my best, if not the best time start to stop on this particular route) behind the wheel, which feels like a total waste of time for me. That’s how much I don’t like driving a car, especially when it’s dark and all you see are only those couple dozen meters of road in front of your car.

Driving it in traffic is not at all pleasurable for me. Although I consider myself a decent and safe driver (not a pro, but not just a regular driver either — I’m good at anticipating other drivers’ weird behaviors which gives me an upper hand on the road) I guess it wouldn’t bother me at all if I had no driving license and used only trains or planes or taxis, or self driving cars for that matter (or had chauffeur). You need to think for many drivers who are with you on the road or else you’ll crash. Sometimes even this won’t be enough.

You need to be lucky on the road too. I often think that the worst thing would be being in the wrong place in the wrong time and you can drive safely but you’ll nevertheless get hit by a car which span out of control after crashing into something on the road or something else happens which has nothing to do with your driving skills. Maybe I think about it so much because I already had two such events in my life — no matter what driving skills I possessed and despite best my efforts to think also for other people on the road in this particular case it meant nothing.

It feels weird when you are with your family and are the only person who thinks about working, wants to excuse himself, take his laptop and start writing. I do it only when other family members are busy doing something around the house or with their kids and probably nobody would even notice I’m not there with them. Or that’s how I like to explain my need to dash off, even for a quick moment, to do something (even the smallest of things — write one sentence or reply to a comment or message on Quora or Instagram, or go through the photos from my last photo session, or post on Instagram).

I know they think it’s weird. It’s weird to them that I would go to bed early (around 10 pm) so that I can wake up early (3 or 4 am) and use the time before anybody wakes up to work (usually it means I end up having 3–4 hours of work that way). But I would like more. Especially when they find out that I spent all this time in the bathroom because I didn’t want to wake them up (and I didn’t want them to wake up earlier than they usually do so that I can have as much time for myself as possible — the maximum amount of time). That’s the light version (when I manage to sleep for 5 or 6 hours). This time I went overboard and went to bed at 2:30 am (after writing from 11 pm) and woke up at 6 am (and wrote for another 2 hours).

Recent progress on my third book: 0 min yesterday and today.

Recent progress on my fourth book: 0 min yesterday and today.

My recent answers on Quora:

Answer to Do you leave a job that pays higher to pursue your passion?

Answer to How can I choose a career, if I’m undecided of what to do with my life?

Answer to What should I do with my life and future career because I am just lost?

Answer to I believe that successful people take advantage of their particular skills to succeed in life. Some are able to find what they are really good at — their passion — and they invest in it. If you work on it hard enough you can bring more value to the world. How did you find out your true calling?

Answer to Can I switch my career from a civil engineer to software developer at 36?

Answer to People are making me feel guilty for not wanting to have kids. Accusations such as I am selfish, or that I can’t be happy if I don’t have them, and that it is the only purpose to life. Should I give in?

Answer to What advice would you give a young man about to turn 21 years old?

Answer to Is it normal that I’m already a teenager but I still don’t know what job I want to have as an adult?

Music for this writing session: Jai Wolf (various tracks on Spotify).

My today’s favorite.

My today’s photos on flickr Bytom, November 11, 2017.