My fracking time
I spent over an hour looking at gaming computers online. It’s a guilty pleasure. I can always hide behind “boys and toys”. I lost an hour of my life hiding from myself.
This morning my first riders were two consultants going to their client. Eavesdropping. One was the senior. He was fighting two wars: one with his peer, another consultant with the same client, and one with his junior. The junior consultant was also fighting a war of “I want to get your job” while answering with “yes, sir.” They both were losers in the most important war: with themselves.
I fight this war every day. I oblige myself by making fun of my own person at least three times a day for one reason or another. Also every night ends with a reality check, an unforgiving benchmark of my expectation towards what I really accomplished during the respective day. It doesn’t end well most of the time.
I lost the desire to compete with others, especially in a corporate environment, a long time ago. There is no long-term gain in this. My only enemy is me. To be exact, the “me” from one hour ago. If I don’t know more than what I knew an hour ago, if I didn’t make something during this hour, I just lost the irreplaceable: my fracking time.
If I consider thinking about future actions time well spent, I just wasted one hour thinking about a useless computer. I should know better! I’m surrounded by people hiding behind technology and other tools for social recognition while doing nothing. Again and again I have to remind myself that a lot of the businesses changing the world started in a garage. I can write on a $400 laptop as well as I would write on $2000 one. I play one or two games per year. I’ll get a better deal for this weakness buying a PS4 and the two games.
I’m my worst enemy and it’s infuriating because I know the right choice and I keep doing the stupid one. I’m never going to get back the hour I lost dreaming about spending money on something I don’t need to indulge that part of myself which is always in the way. Every cent I’m spending on a new mouse, new laptop, new smartphone is a cent less I spend on Facebook ads for promoting my company’s products.
I-the-company should fire I-the-employee three out of seven days a week for how much fracking time and money I lose.
Note: fracking – Battlestar Galactica reference.
Short disclaimer: The Journal of an Uber Driver is a work of fiction.
Long disclaimer: The literary exercise to define a nowadays character for a novel led me to create these 25 blog posts. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Any opinion expressed about Uber should not be interpreted as having a negative connotation. I admire the company as an incumbent of the platform economy and I am a registered Uber driver for research purposes.