My mental health has improved quite a bit over the last five years. While I still do struggle from time to time, the lows aren’t as low and I can handle them better. I still struggle though – feelings of loneliness, despair, anxiety – worrying about the past, and the future. Stress about work, money, kids…that hasn’t gone away.
Some days I barely function after work. I feel bad but I also don’t have the energy to do much of anything at all except turn on the TV and stare at my computer or phone. I like looking at cars online, new or used, for hours at a time while binge watching series and movies on Netflix, Hulu, etc.
I recently read Arnold Schwarzenegger’s book ‘Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life’ and it was really inspiring. Sitting around watching TV and dreaming of cars is not useful (unless I decide to be a car salesman, which I think would be a neat job). I work hard building my business. I go to therapy and work on my personal life all the time. But boy do u waste time not being useful.
What I aspire to do is work on the things I keep dreaming of doing and hobbies I want to do. So at least my “down time” is either rewarding personally, or useful personally. So to help me get inspired, I present to you the following “list” of stuff I’d like to do that would make me really happy if I could find the metal and physical energy to do so. I have the time, I just need to make the time. In no particular order, some random things I’d love to do.
Ancestry Dot Com
I built most of my family tree a few years ago on Ancestry.com and it was neat as heck connecting dots, learning about my relatives, and marveling at the history of it all. Last week, by chance, I got a record player that my great grandfather sold out of his record store a hundred years ago. This renewed my interest in my family history. I researched a bit online and found some new pieces that I could add to the online family tree. My goal this year is to renew my subscription and spend a month or two working on the tree.
Photo Albums
I have a ton of family and a few vacation family albums I want to create. I love making photo albums, it really feels fun and creative to me. Plus it’s neat looking back at the pictures, they always seem like good times and smiles. I do one album per year since boys were born, and so far all I’ve ever one are two albums, so I have well over a dozen to go. And I want to do one from my ski trip earlier this year. For reference I print my albums on Shutterfly, but sometimes the more designed ones I’ll use Blurb with and Adobe In-Design plug-in for full control. Just remember to flatten your pages and save out at a PDF if you use Blurb.
Yard Sale
I have so much crap I need to clean out and reclaim my garage and basement. This one I’m definitely doing. No questions asked. As the weather gets warm I can go through things and hopefully (maybe with a help of a friend) I’ll allocate much of the stuff to a yard sale. Mowgli and I get pretty good traffic on our street for yard sales, we could do pretty well I bet…
Video Games
Ok, Arnold would not approve of this one, but yeah I keep dreaming of playing video games. I grew up playing computer games, and then console games. There are about a dozen games that look interesting to me. It’s just finding the time to play. I also would love to have the cash to get a steering wheel and play racing games. I dreamt of a wheel when I was a kid and now that I’m past the halfway point of my life, maybe I better start working towards getting one before I keel over. I’m also thinking of getting a simple gaming PC laptop so I can play some games that are PC only. Mowgli thinks this game ‘Stray’ looks fun!
Painting
I really should get back into painting. I haven’t painted in probably close to a decade. It was always my dream to have studio space, and I achieved that only to find that didn’t necessarily equate to contentment or happiness. And my basement now is just as depressing as the one in which I started painting decades ago. But I should figure something out, because painting can be therapeutic, creative, and relaxing for me. It can even be energizing. I probably need some new fresh paint but I’ve got everything else. There’s not much stopping me here.
Travel, Off-roading, and Camping
As soon as my finances are in order, and assuming my jobless ex leaves me with any of my earnings, I’m going to travel. I want to go exploring again. I want to go see National Parks. I want to take my boys places here and far. It would be neat to rent or get a travel trailer and camp out. And my Jeep is finally in good shape, so I’d like to go take it off-roading again this year. Traveling inspires me and is the best part of living. This is what I work hard for and I hope I can do more of it.
Car Models
This one popped up today. I saw an Instagram or Facebook post of this really detailed miniature car model and it had me thinking back to when I was a kid. I used to make a ton of car models. I still have many of them in a box somewhere. My thought is this might be fun to get back into. I really think I’d like to have an office or little shop to work in. And like my photo albums, this might be more of a “retirement” hobby. But it would be fun and I bet I could do a pretty good job now with the talent and resources I might have now vs. when I was a kid.
Video Reviews
This last one is definitely useful. I’d like to start a side gig doing online reviews on YouTube. I think I would be good at this and it would be interesting to test out gear and share my thoughts. I need to get rolling on this one. I keep procrastinating. Plus all the video gear is neat, I could definitely see a little studio in one of my bedrooms. Stay tuned!
I’ll hopefully be better off after the divorce is finalized and that will help my mental state quite a bit. I’ve been looking forward to moving on for four years now and hopeful and optimistic for what lies on the other side of this nonsensical process.
Checking off boxes doesn’t bring happiness but still I aim to get to a happier place. A place where I can be more useful with my time because I have hope, inspiration, energy, and all the other great stuff, sounds fantastic to me.
What hobbies or activities, useful or not, do you miss or want to start?
Comment below and let’s get going!
nine apple trees 