Some people say, "Do something for yourself every day," but that's not what they mean. They don't mean "go fix yourself a sandwich" or "go buy yourself new shoes", or if they do they shouldn't mean that at all. The only thing you can really do for yourself every day is to accomplish something that is important to you.

Accomplish something for yourself every day.

Too many people go through their lives not accomplishing something on a daily basis. They think, "I feel restless and bored, I should go watch a movie or maybe buy something," but that is only going to make you feel entertained. You don't feel restless and bored because you're not entertained enough: we live in a world of 24 hour a day/7 days a week entertainment. There is no shortage of entertainment in our lives---in fact, there is so much that sometimes it can cause anxiety just trying to decide how to be entertained.

You're reading this on a computer, or some other device, right now that can entertain you in at least a hundred different ways, but chances are one of you (or most of you) still feel restless and bored. Why is that? It's because a lack of entertainment isn't the problem. Accomplishment is.

It's hard for me not to get judgmental here, because there are some things out there that are clearly not very good hobbies. I've talked about how my parents are "pin traders" at Disneyland, where their hobby consists solely of buying products from the Disney Corporation and talking about them with other people. Is that really a hobby? According to Wikipedia, yes, collecting is a hobby, but seriously. What are they accomplishing for themselves?

"Look at all this shit I bought! I am so awesome!" How does that work? Do people who collect things actually feel a legitimate, lasting sense of accomplishment and pride in their work? I somehow doubt that. I know from experience that buying things can make you feel temporarily elated, but it's a hollow feeling that is often fleeting.

To me, I think, and this is rather the point of this lecture, that a good hobby should make you feel like you are progressively getting better and better at something. Accomplishment and satisfaction shouldn't just come all at once, like when you buy something or go watch a movie, but slowly over time. You get better at guitar over time, much like you do at other good hobbies: building models, playing games (like chess or soccer, not like Halo*), flying airplanes (models or otherwise), cooking, and everything else listed on Wikipedia.

I've watched my parents retire without a hobby set out before them and it's a rather sad thing to witness. I think baby boomers in general seem to have lost sight of the value of having a legitimate hobby to occupy your time and fill your life with a sense of accomplishment. During the week days all they do is sit on the internet and sleep, and then during the weekend they go to Disneyland to talk and trade pins with other sad old baby boomers. What kind of life is that? I have a hard time believing that they have any real sense of happiness in their lives.

Witnessing this I have been desperate to lay down hobbies that I enjoy in my life. I don't want to hit 65 and realize that I don't do a single damn thing that brings me any real pleasure. I started with 'semi-extreme sports' like freeline skating and unicycling, but that didn't hold my attention much. Well, maybe that's not true: I really started with this website, in an attempt to get myself to regularly do the thing that I really feel good about---which is writing, obviously, and listening to music and sharing it with others.

But even this wasn't enough for me. This is maybe half an hour to an hour out of every day (if I am rigorous). So what else could I do? What else can you do? How does one even figure out what their hobby should or could be if you haven't any clue to begin with?

You have to ask yourself this: what do you love / what would you love to do / in your heart of hearts what is it that you really want to be? If you can't answer that (it's a tough question), try this: when you're jealous of the skills of someone else, what skills are you jealous of? There's nothing someone else can do that you can't do yourself, even if it's "running" and you're missing a leg (get one of those springy legs, those things are dope as shit). There's no shame is hijacking someone else's hobby or skill, 'cause there is already a hundred thousand other people out there already doing whatever it is.

There's a tremendously stupid remark people sometimes make about how "you should love what you do" in regards to your job. That's stupid. We're not all equipped with the ability to be professionals at what we love to do. I love to lay in bed all day, but no one is going to pay me to do that just yet, so what's the answer there? The answer is: hobbies. Do what you love on your own time, and your job will start to seem more bearable. Your job isn't your life (and those people you work with, they aren't your friends). Don't let people tell you that it should be.

Anyway... think about it. Next time you're going to go home after work and just turn on the TV, maybe do something else instead. Do that thing you've been meaning to get into. Dedicate yourself to it. Accomplish something real, tangible. Even if only you know about it, it'll be enough to get you out of that rut you've been in.

I promise.

* I make a distinction here some may argue with: "How are chess and soccer better games than Halo?" Well, the answer is timelessness. Halo is a game which will fade into obscurity and no one will eventually play it anymore. You can get really good at it, sure, and beat other people and feel better about your sad woman-less life, but eventually there will be no one left to play. Halo is a fad, not an actual sport or a serious game. Chess has survived hundreds of years, and other sports are much the same. If you acquire skill at chess or football, you can be playing those and perfecting your craft at them for decades and still be able to find opponents who can challenge you no matter how good you get. Halo, or other video games, not so much. ^

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There's a profoundly ignorant comment on the SongMeanings page for this song. It reads as follows.

anyone can play guitar, but that doesn`t mean they should. just like anyone can make a record, but that doesn`t mean they should.

What a load of pretentious and judgmental bullshit. That's like me going "Ugh, I don't like Insane Clown Posse, they shouldn't make music." That's just not right. Just because you don't get it, or don't like it, or don't want to listen to it, doesn't mean you have the right to tell people they should or shouldn't be doing something. Anyone can do whatever the fuck they want, and that guy who said that can go fuck himself.

There's also a moron on there saying that Pablo Honey is "obviously a sophomore album", which is funny since it's Radiohead's debut. There's also someone saying that "radiohead didn't put any work into this song, it's just verse-chorus-verse". This is pretty much why Radiohead fans are dumb assholes who don't know shit. It would be nice if Radiohead were this good again, but whatevs. We all can't be Jim Morrison and just die right before everyone gets tired of our wankery.

In first through third grade I had an on-again-off-again playground romance with a girl named Sarah. Up until about fifth grade I had a crush on a girl named Sarah who lived up the street from me, but she was always interested in my slightly older (but not a grade higher) neighbor. (Who tried to fight me once, all dramatically, in front of her. I grabbed his arms and swung him around a little bit, and somehow he ended up with a nosebleed, at which point he ran home crying. She called me a jerk and ran after him. Life has always been so unfair.)

When I was 13 I met a girl online named Sara which resulted in a lot of probably dirtier-than-it-shoulda-been cybersex and phone sex for at least a couple of years, which is kind of weird to think about now, ten years later. We still talk, though now it's all talking and not so much touching ourselves while panting into the phone at each other, and she tells me now she's dating this eight foot tall Asian guy (and has a son who has to be at least six by now). I don't know.

My last ex-girlfriend was named Sarah. (Hi, Sarah! [Sometimes she leaves comments mocking me. I think they're sweet.]) I'm sure there's numerous other Sarah's that I have been attracted to at one time or another that aren't significant enough to remember. There are a lot of Sarahs in the world. If you judge by film, literature, and television, you could safely say that there is no one in the world worth loving as much as a Sarah. Or maybe I'm crazy and I'm attuned to the name for some reason so I notice it disproportionately.

Am I crazy? Isn't everyone always named Sarah? It's always some dude who is like, "Come on, Sarah! Just give me one more chance!" or, "That Sarah girl, there's something about her." There's too many. It's overwhelming.

It also completely obliterates any chance for stereotyping the name. I can't say there is one unifying characteristic about all of the Sarahs I have known in my life. Some were complete opposites of each other. Names carry weight!

Holy shit, someone has proof of this! Check out this totally rad chart! Look! Brad is "High School Jock" at 63%, stronger than any other. So crazy. Wait... I wonder what Sarah is?

Sarah - Sunday School Teacher: 19% - Cheerleader: 16% - Business Executive: 15%

Well, that's weird. I've never known a Sarah who was any of those things.

In high school I think I was reaching some sort of height in my depression, but I was fighting back against it as hard as I could. I was listening to a lot of Radiohead and trying to be high on something as much as possible. I became attached to the idea of hitting on this girl I'd seen around. I think she was a little funny looking, because everyone called girl wolf girl, but I didn't really get it. (Maybe this is some sort of Black Hole type situation that I can't actually recall in which I was attracted to some weird looking girl. Maybe I thought that if I lowered my standards to super low I could achieve just about anything. I really don't know. All I remember is that I thought she was cute but other people said bad things.)

I would wake up in the morning and read my horoscope excitedly, hoping for positive things, and I would blast this song through some earphones and become all overwhelmed with a rush of good energy, like I could do anything and it would be awesome, like I actually had confidence to do whatever I wanted and the horoscope always said something that made me believe I could talk to this girl or punch someone in the face. It was rad. When Mr. Yorke wails, "It's going to be a glorious day, I feel my luck could change," my heart would melt a little. I knew I was nuts, deep down, but I liked it.

I did manage to talk to her, eventually, when I got myself into an argument with a mutual friend in front of her. I'm pretty sure she wasn't cute when I got up close to her, because I never really felt much like talking to her again after that. Or, she looked about two years older than me and I felt like a little boy and decided to give up. Whichever. I don't really remember. I am so unreliable with these things.

I don't particularly care for the song these days.

Site Note: I've got blisters on my fingers!

Author Note: I spent a good 15 minutes proof reading this and editing it and extending it and then, due to some weird random tab confusion, I lost all my edits completely. It was awful. I almost cried.