One thing that I have a lot more of after quitting my job is time. With the abundance of time comes the question of what to do with it. Like nations with newly discovered natural resources, resource curse is something I need to avoid. Already I am seeing negative effects with my new found time, for example it's amazing how staying in bed for 12+ hours everyday can make you feel dull and tired for the rest of the day.

Unfortunately time is unlike money, and I cannot set aside some of the time in a saving account somewhere and withdraw it later[1]. Another way to avoid the resource curse is by investing the gain into areas with future sustainable growth, which I am sort of doing with my side projects. Another area I wanted to invest in is my relationships, not in terms of dating[2], but more about growing existing relationships, or at least not let them go stale.

Let it be known that I am horribly bad at keeping in touch. I barely keep tap on anyone from high school and college. While newer technologies like Facebook is supposed to keep us "connected", I didn't think so highly of substituting actually "connecting" with "mutual stalking". So for a while, I actively unfriended people on Facebook if I didn't think I will run into them again.

But I digress -- this isn't about Facebook.

While I am happily trading loss income for time, I am well aware that most people are making the logical choice of trading time for income. As such, their available time is more limited. Which means most of the time when I am available to do things, or just chat, other people probably aren't.

I've always had a distaste of annoying people, and last thing I want is becoming one myself. Every time before I contact someone, I consciously think about if the other person is busy[3], when was the last time I messaged them, and more importantly, am I going to be annoying. Or if I suggest meeting up and doing things, are they going to think they've seen me too much.

Fortunately there's a small group of friends who are usually up to do things, and I find myself seeing them a lot more often than I did. Outside of that group though, I definitely find myself connecting to other people less and less, which seems contrary to what should have happened as my free time increased.

[1]: Well, in a sense I could, by getting a job now and taking a break later, but that defeats the purpose of having a break now.

[2]: In "Predictably Irrational", Dan Ariely wrote, "for many people the workplace is not just a source of money but also a source of motivation and self-definition... And employees who take pride in their work feel a sense of happiness and purpose." Regardless of what other people may think, not having a job certainly cuts into my self-esteem and my self reflected desirability.

[3]: Which is one of the reasons why I hate the new Android Hangout app.