Holiday and my upcoming plan

Feb 12, 2024

We need a holiday without any specific goals or extensive planning, much more than we might think. This year, I’ve come to truly appreciate the benefits of such a holiday.

In our daily lives, we often use plans and goals as a way to soothe ourselves. While they are helpful, they come with a downside: they numb our anxiety and create an illusion that everything is under control.

However, this sense of control is deceptive if we can’t see beyond our anxiety to the deeper places within ourselves—where our true feelings reside and where our innermost thoughts gather.

This time, my anxiety is particularly acute. My novel is nearly complete, my travel essay is in the editing phase, and soon, I will need to start rewriting it. With no new goals on the horizon to pursue, I am left feeling frustrated and directionless, unsure of my next steps or where my passions lie.

This is a difficult question, one that I haven’t confronted in a long time. Caught up in the constant release of company products and the relentless pursuit of personal advancement, I may have lost my way.

Previously, I was captivated by productivity and the concept of a “second brain.” My apps and tools were all aligned with themes such as:

Information gathering and structuring Productivity methods and record-keeping However, after developing several prototypes and numerous unfinished projects, I find that this area is gradually sapping my creativity and intellectual energy. I’ve fallen into a vicious cycle: seeking profound insights but ending up with nothing but mundane and repetitive thoughts.

This problem has only gotten worse over time.

It’s true that my journey into product development and exploration began with a focus on personal productivity and information collection. While this is still my passion, I currently feel that I have little new to offer the world in this area. I find myself more of a consumer than a creator at this point.

Acknowledging this has been beneficial, yet facing it has required a courage I never knew I had. It feels akin to challenging deeply ingrained cultural taboos.

Nevertheless, I believe it is time to move forward and embark on new learning journeys.

Here are the principles I plan to adopt in my future explorations:

The technology I aim to develop should “benefit workers, create markets, and boost human productivity rather than replace it.” I am still exploring these possibilities within AI. The content I create will focus on my thought and exploration processes. Ideally, I want to produce work that will still be valuable to me when I revisit it a year later. From now on, I will set aside all personal side projects related to productivity and shift my focus to other areas. However, this doesn’t mean I’ll abandon these concepts entirely. I’ll revisit them once I have a truly worthwhile insight to develop further.