What's Next?

What do you do if you can't sit still? What do you do when every bone in your body is telling you go out there and do something? How do you live when everyday life just isn't exciting enough? How do you cope with an innate desire to do everything? Especially when you're stuck doing nothing.

In May 2018 I decided to start up a new YouTube channel titled “What’s Next Christine?”. The aim of the channel was to try various new projects in specific time frames to demonstrate how we can learn new skills in time if we dedicated ourselves to them. Being the hobbyist that I am, I thought it would be a great challenge and that I could tick off a few items of my bucket list through this grand project. However, I underestimated the brevity of the tasks ahead and my resources were limited so I didn’t actually go through with the intentions of the channel. Instead, now many ideas sit in my notebook untouched, waiting for the day I am able to go through with them. As for the channel, it remains and serves as my main personal account since my old one is flooded with too many subscriptions to channels I no longer care about.

Now, it’s safe to safe that my idea was provoked by my inability to want to sit still and my want to try everything at least once. The latter is not too bad; however, the prior has me questioning often what I am doing with my life and just why am I so dissatisfied with the norm of life. I can’t sit still. And often wonder if it’s in my nature or something prompted by the environment surrounding me. Doing seems to be the way of the world, because if you’re not doing, then you’re not living. At least that’s what I have been prompted to believe. I used to describe myself as a hobbyist when I first joined dating apps and didn’t want to respond with a lengthy list of all the things I like to do or have tried. In school the teachers would label me as an allrounder because they didn’t have the time to list out the various activities and schemes I participated in at school. When I was around my agemates I’d sometimes be labelled an encyclopaedia for stating random facts or nuggets of knowledge that I knew about different things. Knowing this about myself definitely suggested that my dilemma is a result of my nature.

But is it a problem? Trying new things is fun. Challenging yourself can be life changing. However, you can run the risk of overwhelming yourself with too much if you’re not able to just chill and do things one at a time, at the right time for you. I find that I exhaust myself at times when I try too much all at once and I’m currently on a journey of finding balance and excitement at the same time. In order to help myself along this journey, I’ve enacted a few things in my life in order to do the most, without doing the most damage to myself.

Step 1: Having an interactive to-do list

Having a to-do list has helped me become more productive in general and has allowed to be more organised. I find that when you are more organised you able to find time to do those extra things. Having an interactive to-do list is even better because you can adjust your deadlines and goals based on how things are actually going in your life. Rather than having pages of uncompleted projects staring at you, you can start your projects and move at a pace that’s right for you and you don’t feel as overwhelmed by the task at hand.

Step 2: Becoming more resourceful

As I mentioned, resources can be hard to acquire and sometimes you have to think outside the box when you want to try something. From renting out equipment, to accessing trial subscriptions to useful programmes or investing little by little. It’s very possible to try new things when you don’t have the most in your bank account. Do your research thoroughly and be open to alternatives.

Step 3: Having a little patience

I have always struggled in this department. I’ve forever been running before I could crawl; a symptom of not being able to sit still. I’ve had to teach myself lessons in patience in order to dilute the desire of wanting to have already done everything. As much as I want to be someone who’s tried/done something, rushing to do it isn’t the answer. If I want to enjoy the journeys of every venture, then I need to be patient and do things when the time is right for me to do so.

Now that I’m a little bit more enlightened and a tad bit more organised, I can happily say I’ve begun to try some of the things on that list of mine and so far, so good. I’m always finding new things to add to the lists as it’s in my nature, and although I don’t know how much time I’m guaranteed, I’m confident I’ll get to do it all and then some.