if I didn't need money or attention...
I stumbled on this post from Derek Sivers which asked the question of what would you do if you didn't need money or attention.
This bit in particular was thought-provoking for me: "And then if you stopped doing all these things youβre doing just for the money or the attention, what would be left? Who would you be if you didnβt do these things? If you were completely satiated, then what? After an understandable period of relaxing, what would you pursue?"
Because that's everyone's default thought isn't it?
I wouldn't want to do anything, I have the freedom to sit around in my underwear and binge watch Netflix or play Pokemon Pokopia...
It's asking how we will eventually have a need to find some use for ourselves.
For me, I'd like to amend the question slightly because I always find myself not wanting to do something because of the time it would take to become 'good', so the question for me would be:
What if didn't need money or attention and had all the time we needed?1
Of course, this question is meant as a way of working out what you should be doing.
The only answer I ever come up with involves creativity.
I'd want to create music, art and write2.
But then you start to wonder, would I want to travel? Experience the world? What does that mean for me? If I didn't want to travel, would I want to move to a different area? Somewhere more rural perhaps? Who's around me? Would I want to be surrounded by the same people?
I remember an ice breaker we had to do at work that involved a similar question of "if you won the lottery, what would you do with the money?" My answer was buy a property on the Isle of Skye and spend my days creating.
I'm constantly worried about the sort of person I am, not in terms of good or bad but in terms of how I'm contributing a legacy (if you can call it that) and how that impacts self-worth.
I can't complain about my life, I'm certainly very fortunate and grateful for the things I do have, but a question like this always gets you thinking about dreams, goals and whether you're being 'true' to yourself.
I know it's meant to inspire, but I think for some of us, it'll only act as a reminder of what we wish we could achieve and the things that will hold us back and while some things we can overcome, we continue to under-estimate the amount of luck it takes to get to a point of freedom while completely fulfilling your sense of self-worth.
Perhaps you have a different answer or thoughts around this, if you want to tell me over email, you can do so here.