I remember when I first read MJ DeMarco's excellent book, Unscripted, back in late 2017. ("Excellent" is an understatement though.) If nothing else had opened my eyes to the socially acceptable yet baseless behavior constructs before that, this book did. At once. Immediately. I quit my job a few months later.
Yet, while the scripted life gives me the creeps today just as it did back then, I seem to be unable to expand the idea any further than the cliche script of good grades - college - job - mortgage - marriage - children - frugal saving until 75. I find myself regularly wondering if this is all there is to life: working for my company according to a self-set schedule every day. And if I don't feel like working when I get to the office in the morning, something must be horribly wrong.
Except that expecting myself to want to work upon arrival at the office is hardly any different from the construct of working for someone else, in the framework of that job I quit in 2018.
Sure, it's my company, I can decide what "work" means within that company. I can change fields overnight if I want to. On any given day, I can do work projects I feel like doing; I rarely have to do something I don't want to do as I can do them later, when I feel like doing them.
Except that increasingly often I find myself thinking I should be doing those projects I don't want to do. That if I don't feel like doing them, it doesn't matter - I must push myself to do them anyway.
I've written a script for myself, yes, but now, the script has become a tyrant, and the situation is exactly the same as in the traditional society scripted life.
It's a script inception.
Fuck script inception!
Now that I can see the situation for what it is, I (and you too) can rewrite the script. Nothing - NOTHING - requires you to go to the office and work in the morning. You can do it at night if you feel like it. You can watch movies all day until 5 pm and then, when the sense of urgency finally inspires you, you can pick up the project and work excitedly until fatigue forces you to retire for the day, leaving you looking forward to the next day, when you can continue the work.
You get to decide how many hours of work is enough. Heck, in some professions, you can't push it longer than four hours. Or two even. It becomes mere water treading after that.
Fuck water treading!
Also - in some professions, watching movies or playing video games or building Lego houses is actually beneficial to your ability to work. So even the downtime is uptime.
Also also - it's your life. You're allowed to "waste" it in the eyes of the society. Most likely your unique success path comes from doing things that come naturally to you.
Check your script regularly. Rewrite it. Update it. Mold it to your changing circumstances.
And most importantly: rewrite it to fit your changing self.
RK
