Random Spiel, Disconnecting A Small Piece of the Art Hobby
I recently started pre-residency at a psychiatry department and it's different environment to adjust compared to my previous job as a resident under the pathology department. If my old work requires me to spend talking less to people and just minding my own business in the hospital's lab or histopathology section, the new job requires me to talk to several people on a daily basis. This post isn't about hyping up the new work.
So other than being back to the usual days of getting busy outside Hive, there's that steep hill I need to climb in order to adjust with the type of work. I haven't fully embraced the bulk of the workload but I anticipate how demanding it would be for my time over the next couple of years. I'm not quitting art, I'm just toning down the amount of time spent doing it. If I did quit it, I probably just quit my other social media art accounts and posting on Hive too, because why not? I've always been hobby posting and it's hard to be motivated by the payouts, it's nice but not a strong pull to make me stay, maybe it's an artist thing? because the other artists that joined around the time I did on Hive left even when they were well upvoted by curation guilds, it's not the money, just other priorities that need more attention.
I've been scheduling my posts. Had the posts done in batches in advance then release them into the wild. It's what kept this account looking alive for weeks from broken motivations and propped up with struggling intentions to remain active. I'll probably continue the streak just to challenge how efficient I can be with my time inserting some hobbies with the current workload.
On the other hand, there's the general Hive and HivePH communities that keeps me going, it's not the platform, its the people in it that matters. I'm not packing up until I see the people I stuck with leave. But I'll be available less. I'll just rationalize it as the longer I stay, the more Hive I accumulate and maybe do the thing in the future.
The post ended here.
Rant Section:
The amount of messages on my inbox related to work started to spike again and this is in contrast to the low frequency of notifications I had months back. Prior to applying for work, I got told I had to attend to different webinars for training, certificate this, compliance that, meet someone here and do that. This is on top of my current set of webinars trying to learn different skill sets outside healthcare. I'm still shitposting my art stuff and Hive things in between. But it seems like the world demands a piece from you until you can't really give a lot of people your time of day.
My own life hack about living a busy life is how much it's an absolute screener to filter out activities that hold no value. I tend to be particular about ego centrism when it comes to my dealings with people. What's the least inconvenient method for the other person to move that has to do with me? What do they want from me? How much resources will it cost them to do it for me vs me to do it for them? or all themes under what's in it for them? Why put much focus on how people's perception of things? because it's really not about your convenience that is their priority, most of the time. I'm not saying people are self centered all the time because people are capable of being altruistic. I just put my money on it happening most of the time if I was betting on strangers and acquaintances.
Because when people approach you, most of the time it's just asking a piece of you benefits them. I don't find this transactional way of doing things off putting as it's exactly how things have been done ever since people decided to build a society. You're no family or friend if you didn't reciprocate favors, it's just the way it is. The difference is the amount of expectations placed upon you because of how others perceive you. I'm a doctor, I get asked for favors monetary or social favors at work. Family members leverage my profession like some sort of privilege pass and it makes me cringe inside. I die inside every time that happens. Whenever I introduce myself to strangers, I just say I'm a unemployed blogger or a unemployed nurse, rank down your social standing points not to stand out otherwise you'll get treated differently. I say this from experience as I 've seen how people treat me different when they know my background and I hate the special attention especially in the rural areas, it's a cultural thing.
It's not prudent to throw an attitude to people at work or even personal spaces lightly, because the profession has this halo in it. Everyone is expected to be nice by default but if they fail this part, it's fine unless they hold a social standing that expects them to be more controlled about their conduct. Imagine a politician or a celebrity being rude. It hits different compared to ordinary people throwing a hissy fit. It's like that while being a doctor on the job, though some doctors can be more carefree about their negativity, I have more self control for bullshit when patients lie to your face, tell you all the mean things, manipulate you, spit on your face, blame you for things you had no part of, and at the end of the day, you still have to adhere to be professional code of conduct when other people would have it easy being free to express their negativity without social backlash. That's why it's dangerous to generalize a profession when one bad actor isn't a representative for all.
When you're used to people having no expectations about you, it's hard to imagine being relied on. I got my own personal time be intruded by work as part of the lifestyle. Not saying I didn't know what I signed up for, I knew it beforehand but shit becomes a lot easier if family and friends understood why I want to just spend more of my personal time without involving people. For kids that grew up with doctors for parents, they probably understood how busy the job is when their parents are called past midnight about a patient referrals so they have to suddenly report to work. This whole work life balance thing is recent so boomers making the policies have yet to adjust with the times.
When I finally freed up some time to be less busy, I realized that the people I usually interacted with shared the same previous lifestyle and are trapped in that loop of busy. So now I'm stuck with few options to self improve or pester those that are living the life I tried to escape. I guess it's the same experience as those that lived their lives pursuing the FIRE movement, they regretted pursuing their careers more to have time with people they aim to spend their time with but are unavailable.
Thanks for your time.
I feel the same saying "I'm a teacher" - there's a whole set of judgements there, and similiarly, our time is thieved and we're blamed for everything arguably going 'wrong' in the students lives (by society, students, and parents). I'd rather say I was a freaking housewife. Hell, I'd rather BE a housewife.
It's always hard being trapped in that busy loop. Certainly teachers say a lot of 'no' to social engagements because of the demands of their work.
I'm a fan of scheduling too - I 'bulk' write - saves my sanity and gives me a few days off platform. It's nice coming back and interacting with people. I still don't know when I'd quit that - I think I've realised it has to be all or nothing - a complete powerdown - disappearing - but even when I've started that I've lasted like two days and feel drawn back here. I'm gutted every time someone entirely quits.
It's weird being punished for wanting something natural like having money to spend time with other things and yet we work for money to have more money mindset and then maybe more time for important things later. I found the scheduled posting efficient for time as it lets me think about other things like comment more or curate more on the sidelines. Hive can be like that when you are invested with the people in it, even when I'm not logged in on site, I just check over discord out of habit just to see what's up with everyone. That's why there's more to this platform than just money and yet money somehow finds a way to get into our social interactions which creates an interesting dynamic.
Glad to hear you're back into career mode especially in Med!
Back to reality, felt like a long dream/vacation
Good luck on pre-residency ! That is quite a switch from something that deals with pathogens to talking to human and helping them with their issues.
That is what I am doing quite often as well although it truly depends on the people I am interacting with. I don't think people need to know much about all the things I do because just like you, there are people in my circle that likes asking for money and so far, I've been saved from being asked that way since they think I am just some type of loser without money 😂
It's been an adjustment and the nature of work is like a 360 from the old one, feels like I'm relearning stuff I abandoned more than 3 years ago, like studying college all over again.
Dress average or down, pretend you don't have any cause people really are superficial when seeing strangers. I've been spending some time walking in the business parts of downtown, not the high end parts, I've spotted the upper middle class folks hiding in plain sight but you wouldn't think they're loaded because their clothes were too plain, had holes, and just had an ordinary overall attire. But what gives these people away were their scent / hygiene , white teeth (because you got to have a lot of spare money to even have room for dental cosmetics), the slight accent and dead giveaway called refined vocabulary. They can fake their looks but not their manners and I love this mini game of walking around town spotting them among us.
When I was younger, I thought having a lot of contacts on my phone book helped, I still do but the quality of social network mattered too. Now I like to limit the number of people I put in my personal circle as it limits my incidences of lending money which more than half the time I expect won't be coming back anyway.
Good afternoon and greetings and hopefully today is quite enjoyable for us all. Interesting article that my friend pointed out.