Allowing Myself to Rest (Day 7)

Date: August 7, 2026

Last modified: August 8, 2026 (03:33 UTC)

Today was the last day of my immersive Chinese classes at National Taiwan Normal University, although I will still be in the country for another week or so. At the end of class today, I simply went home, took a three hour nap, and then started up Europa Universalis IV again after not playing for eight months. For those interested, I started a Muscovy campaign. I have never actually formed Russia, so I’m trying to get that achievement. Currently around 1500 and trying to figure out how to do the Poland-Lithuania war… seems like it’s going to be genuinely impossible, but I’ll figure it out. I’m pretty behind on tech but I should catch up soon. For me, this was a genuinely radical act!

One thing I have always prided myself for is my business. I like always having work to do, I like having a page long list of to-dos, I like the feeling of being productive. Having any sort of free time makes me extremely anxious as I’m not using it for any productive purpose. So the idea of intentionally ignoring my to-do list of responsibilities just to sleep and play video games is something foreign.

It’s something I’m trying to do more, though. After months of deliberation, I decided to drop my French class next semester and my French certificate at large. This means that next semester I’ll be at 18 credits instead of 21, and for the rest of college I’ll only need to take 12-15 credits. I do have to say that I did feel a lot of guilt making this decision. I know realistically it’s probably better for my grades and my long-term productivity as I don’t have an additional responsibility, especially since I’ve lost a lot of my passion and reasoning to learn French recently, but it makes me just feel like I’ve given up once again.

One of my friends told me “I don’t know anyone who likes to give up as much as you do,” and as much as I hate to admit it, they are right. I have a hard time actually sticking with things, and once it gets hard I give up almost immediately. I’ve been trying to make myself more disciplined and more ready to take on challenges, but anytime I need to back down I feel like I’m just back at square one and that I’ll never be successful. It probably doesn’t help that I want to go into academia and how prevalent the “publish or perish” mindset is.

I still have a bunch of tasks I need to get done. But those I will do tomorrow, and for now, I’ll try to let myself rest.