I had the one-in-a-lifetime opportunity of being a full-time, certified NEET; that is, someone who is Not in Education, Employment, or Training. Between the ages of 16 and 18, having dropped out of school, my life subsisted of playing video games and binge-watching YouTube videos. Between ages 12 and 15, while officially in education, I either played the role of class nuisance or slept through my classes. Over seven years, I worked my way up to peak "NEET-ness". Having since transitioned to a "normal" life as a productive member of society, I want to share a few key learnings that have indelibly shaped my life philosophy:
- Retirement, as I tasted it, is overrated. My seven-year pseudo-retirement made my life too easy and directionless. It stifled my resilience to do things I don't want to do. This is a problem because too much of what I view as a good life involves doing things I don't want to do (exercise, holding my temper, chores, et c.). The difference in happiness doing what I want to do and what I don't want to do is smaller than I thought.
- How I feel at the end of the day is more important to my wellbeing than how I feel in a given moment. I enjoy a day spent blissfully exploring the world of Skyrim more than I do sitting in a café, writing blog posts, but at the end of the day, one results in a sense of extraneousness, and the other results in a sense of pride. I can tolerate the tedium of hard work, but I can't tolerate a sense of wasting my life.
- Life is already the ultimate video game. Life has immense freedom, extraordinary fidelity (graphically, FPS-wise, acoustically, et c.), and the same work-reward cycles inherent in video games. When I spend time exploring a labyrinthine dungeon, vanquishing a difficult boss, or climbing the leaderboards, it's rewarding and contributes to my self-esteem, but only within the limited world of the video game. It vanishes soon after I stop playing the given video game. When I do similar challenges in real life, like graduating from university, the reward stays with me for my lifetime. And I have to play the game of life. Instead of splitting my time between the game of life and video games, continuously resetting my video-game esteem as I complete one game and move onto the next, I'd rather just choose life as my one game and build my esteem there.
- Both directionless retirement1 and video games, fundamentally, are not utilitarian or productive. To me, they are another form of doom-scrolling. Another form of idle gossip, gluttony, or lazing. I view them as cardinal sins. They do not make the world better, nor earn me a partner, nor raise myself a family, nor better my health, nor sharpen my brain. Theoretically, they can be enjoyed in moderation, but neither are conducive to "moderation". Video games are addictive, while a traditional retirement is a wholly religious shift in lifestyle and identity.
As you consider my thoughts, bear in mind that these are my personal takeaways and they are not an individual prescription to any reader. They can seem extreme or without nuance, and that's by design: Binary perspectives make decisions easier, and nuance can be so infinitely complex as to cause analysis paralysis.