A Chill Day with Friends & Some Interesting Thoughts

Yep, that’s me in the middle hahaha.

Yesterday was one of those chill days that somehow changes your mindset a little bit. We talked about a lot of things, including a project that I think the three of us see with a lot of potential.

We went to a Star Wars themed coffee shop, and honestly, it felt like the McLaren’s from How I Met Your Mother hahaha. It felt like one of those places we could start visiting often, just to talk, chill, and relax. One of the things I find really interesting about the time we spend together is how our thoughts and ideas converge in a very natural way. Everyone is on the same page, but in their own way, and that creates some really interesting conversations.

This new hobby was born thanks to them.

At the beginning, they showed me how writing can be a way to feel relieved, to understand yourself, and to take a moment to process what’s going on in your life. And if you really stop to think about it, when was the last time you wrote something by hand?

Maybe it was years ago.

If you are a student, writing is probably still a normal part of your life. But once you are out of that routine, it becomes something very easy to forget. With all the possibilities, distractions, and noise around us, writing can slowly disappear from our daily lives. And that is something I’m trying to change for myself.

A few years ago, I started making small changes to disconnect more from social media. I don’t like spending too much time on those apps, because they can easily consume a big part of your day. There were days when I realized I had spent the last four hours watching reels or shorts 💀, because I don’t really use TikTok hahaha, and I felt like I was just wasting my time.

The worst part was that I still had things to do that day, so I ended up sleeping late because of it. I didn’t feel productive at all.

Back then, I didn’t have as many things going on as I do now. These days, I’m doing a master’s degree, a specialization, I have my job, and I also have my business, so yeah, I’m usually busy.

But at that time, I think I didn’t even have a formal job yet. I was making YouTube videos, building my business with my brother, and helping my mom with her businesses.

Still, I felt like I was wasting my time.

So I started making little changes. I uninstalled some apps because I knew that whenever I got bored, I had the habit of grabbing my phone and opening Instagram or Facebook almost automatically. So I removed them and only kept LinkedIn.

Yeah, LinkedIn is still a social network, but at least I was seeing more productive things there, like innovative ways to add detail to 3D work, new technologies, creative projects, and things related to what I do as a 3D artist.

Then I made another change.

I loved the feeling of not wasting my time, so I started reading. I bought some productivity ebooks on my phone, and also some ebooks just to relax during dead times, like Coraline. Such a piece of art, highly recommended. 10/10. 👌

And this whole idea actually started because of one of my friends in the photo.

At a party two years ago, hosted by my other friend in the photo, I saw both of them again for the first time in probably three or more years. We used to meet sometimes on Discord, but we didn’t talk that much and our schedules never really matched for x reason.

That party was really chill, and I remember it as a really good memory.

That day, my friend showed me a notebook where he was writing his ideas and thoughts. I saw that activity as something very relieving. Later, we talked more about it, and at some point, he shared his notebook with me and told me to write something.

At first, I didn’t know what to write.

Then he told me something curious. He said that when he shows his notebook to people, a lot of them say they haven’t written anything on paper in years. That’s actually the same thought I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

He also told me that the people who don’t know what to write are usually the ones who end up writing the most, because they start with how they feel and what they are thinking.

And that was exactly my case...

At that moment, I wrote about a difficult situation I was going through and how I wanted to find better solutions for myself.

That small action changed something in my mind because I saw the potential as a new hobbie...

I started doing those little things more often, and right now, I barely use my phone. When I do, it’s mostly to answer whatsapp messages or play something like Clash of Clans or Pokémon GO hahaha. But even with games, I barely enter, and they don’t really require that much time from me.

Also, I’m an Android user, and I have a lot of the Samsung ecosystem. But these changes I started making also made me think differently about technology and how I use it...

At first, I have to be honest, I was still finding new ways to distract myself. One of them was YouTube hahaha. But I think the important part is to keep trying and stay consistent.

Or maybe a better way to see it is to be conscious of your actions and what you really want. It’s not as strict as seeing it as discipline, but it can have the same impact. It’s more about being aware of yourself, your habits, and the little decisions you make every day.

That’s actually something my friends and I talked about yesterday.

And going back to the original idea, that personal evolution also made me start thinking about changing to the Apple ecosystem.

At the beginning, I was completely against Apple and almost every product they made, I was a totally hater hahaha. I used to compare specs and think, “How is it possible to pay that much for something that doesn’t have this, this, and that?”

But that is a topic I want to explore more in another post, because I think it’s interesting how my mindset changed. I’m usually a person who sticks to an idea unless someone or my own research makes me question it. And in this case, that happened. I questioned myself.

Yesterday was a great day, and I feel happy that I’m giving myself these spaces to relax, think, and actually live my life.

I love the quote of Avicii told on "The Nights" Video Musical that is:
"When I was 16, my father said, 'You can do anything you want with your life, you just have to be willing to work hard to get it.' That's when I decided when I die, I ought to be remembered for the life I lived, not the money I make."

That thought is really powerful to me, and I even have a tattoo connected to that meaning. Avicii and Juice Wrld helped me grow a lot in different moments of my life, and now I carry both of them with ink on my body, Of course, I’ll show that later in a dedicated post.

Thanks for reading my post :D