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Unfiltered Lives

A home for honest, personal, and relatable stories about love, friendship, family, career, growing up, failure, growth, and everything that makes us human. The messy, funny, beautiful, complicated, and sometimes uncomfortable ones. Real stories. Real people. No filter.

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Why Busy Lives Won’t Make You More Productive

4 min read2 days ago

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One of the most classic pieces of advice to kickstart your life is to go to school, get a degree, and land a good-paying job, and that everything will work out after that. It’s the kind of hopeful and natural progression that enraptures the minds of so many other people that this kind of talking point never leaves the public zeitgeist.

Particularly when it’s directed towards people looking to start up a business or “follow their dreams” and dream about abandoning the cushy job they have some day.

But I was recently reminded by how shallow and bad this advice is when someone asked me how to combat procrastination despite having a degree and a job.

Shouldn’t we all have control over our own lives if we follow that cookie-cutter formula?

For a lot of us, the path of getting a job and working through it for decades or even a few years is all we know. This sense of familiarity reinforces this idea that we ought to have a day job at all times. Even when pursuing our dreams, the actual dream is to double dip and have enough time in the day to pursue those passion projects whilst working.

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Eric S Burdon
Eric S Burdon

Written by Eric S Burdon⁠

I write (and sometimes do videos) about self-help for those who don't like self-help. Complete with the occasional memes and riffs on the industry that I love.

Unfiltered Lives
Unfiltered Lives

Published in Unfiltered Lives

A home for honest, personal, and relatable stories about love, friendship, family, career, growing up, failure, growth, and everything that makes us human. The messy, funny, beautiful, complicated, and sometimes uncomfortable ones. Real stories. Real people. No filter.