You're Better Off Busy

How Comfort Undid Me - and How Fatherhood Rebuilt Me

One of the most lasting effects of COVID - for me, anyways - was the absolute thrashing it gave to my work ethic. From the start of the shutdowns in early 2020 to things generally opening back up in the summer of 2021, I went from an ambitious grad student who liked kickboxing and spending time with family & friends in his spare time to a pretty aimless shut-in.

See, as scary as the first few weeks of the pandemic were, I quickly settled into what you could call ‘extended vacation mode.’ For all intents and purposes, I was pretty set: my apartment was comfortable and secure, my finances were in good shape, and I had a great set up for watching tv and playing video games. The only real responsibilities I had beyond the walls of my apartment was staying in touch with my girlfriend (now my wife) and finishing my final semester of grad school, which was still very much in the process of figuring out how to do classes online. All and all, it amounted to me doing maybe 1-2 hours of work per day, at most.

Pre-pandemic me vs. Post-pandemic me. The takeaway here is that the right photographer can make anything look good, no matter how much you refuse to take care of yourself.

I essentially had unlimited free time, extremely low expectations from the outside world, and a seemingly infinite supply of video games and streaming services to dive into. I could stay up for as long as I wanted, do whatever I wanted to do, eat what I wanted to eat, and, best of all, do it all while staying only in my underwear all day.

Late night game session with the boys? Hell yeah. Knock back a six pack of beers on a Tuesday night? Why not, I can just keep my camera off during online class tomorrow. Binge all of the new season of The Mandalorian in a single day? Who am I to say ‘no’ to Baby Yoda?

If I’m being entirely honest, for the first few months, it felt like a bachelor pad paradise, living the dream of what 8-year-old me said I would do when I grew up. I just didn’t realize how much I was setting myself up for failure down the road.

Now, before someone starts spamming ‘First World Problems’ in the comment section, yes, I realize how good I had it. In the year and a half that followed, I floated my way through my final semester of grad school to get my degree, managed to drift along through a few jobs related to my field, was in a positive & healthy relationship, and no one I knew died from COVID. Sure, I wound up gaining 30 pounds, grappled with bouts of depression, struggled to focus on even the most routine work, and regularly had stretches where I didn’t step outside for days at a time, but hey, so did everybody else! Compared to how many people fared during the pandemic, I was one of the winners.

The real problems started emerging when things had good and properly opened back up. As it turned out, a good chunk of the population was very ready for things to get back to normal. I was not one of those people; I was far too comfortable to be bothered by things like reconnecting with people and 40 hour work weeks. Yes, I enjoyed getting to see my girlfriend daily, and I begrudgingly returned to the office on a hybrid schedule, but I had grown quite comfortable with my habits of six-hour game sessions and staying up til 2:00 AM on weeknights.

Some pandemic choices were better than others. The man-bun was not one of them.

After I got married in 2022, I made burning the candle at both ends work for a bit. While I prioritized spending time with my wife, I also ritualistically sacrificed sleep in exchange for time to stream shows and play video games, joined a couple of political hobby groups so I could say I was busy contributing, and occasionally sallied forth to spend time with family and friends in Austin. Heck, I’d even go to the gym every now and again, even if it was only to satisfy my wife’s urging. Sure, I was regularly exhausted, but I got to keep most of my pandemic laziness intact, so it was an acceptable trade.

Then, in December 2023, I became a father, and it all came tumbling down.

Now, you’re reading a Substack with the word ‘Fatherhood’ in the name, so I’m guessing you’re probably aware of the time requirements of being a new parent. For those of you who might be unfamiliar, it turns out that infants can, in fact, be a lot of work, and for whatever reason, they have little to no regard for your sleep schedule, or, in my case at the time, lack thereof.

You can probably guess where this led: while my paternity leave helped strike the balance at first, I was already consistently exhausted by my rat’s nest of routines, and the addition of a newborn meant I struggled to keep up with everything: with the baby, my relationships, and my responsibilities, both at home, and, once I went back, at work.

Things came to a head in Spring of 2024. Our son was beginning to sleep longer through the night. I convinced myself that I’d gotten through the worst of it, and that my habits didn’t need to change. I’d made it this far, what could happen? Then, over the course of a couple days, my son showed me exactly could happen by refusing to sleep multiple weeknights in a row.

I was operating on - maybe - four hours between two nights, and the exhaustion finally got to me. I made two mistakes at work: first, sending an errant email to the wrong person, and more importantly, failing to catch it until the damage was already done. This eventually led to a ‘mutual decision’ to part ways. Now, I will say that I do feel that decision was made pretty harshly - I was a new parent after all - but that’s at-will employment for you, and I embrace that the responsibility ultimately rests with me.

What followed wasn’t an overnight transformation so much as a series of come to Jesus moments - in a couple of cases, quite literally. At first, the only thing that matched my self-loathing for not having a job was my resentment of the possibility of having to change. Fortunately, I - slowly - began to recognize my mistakes for what they were. Turns out that when you’re in the middle of a three-month job hunt, things have a way of getting put into perspective.

There were long conversations at the kitchen table after the baby went down, honest assessments of where my habits had taken me, and the slow realization that I couldn’t keep living like the world was still half-shut down. Through all of it, my wife - who has been, frankly, the best partner I could have asked for - stood steady. She didn’t shame me or drag me across the finish line; she reminded me who I had been before the pandemic fog set in. Disciplined. Ambitious. The guy who woke up early because he wanted to, not because he had to.

The changes started small but deliberate. Bedtime became intentional, not accidental. Mornings had structure again. Screens had limits. Work hours were treated like work hours, and family time like family time. Instead of drifting through the day and trying to patch together productivity in scattered bursts, I rebuilt my schedule with purpose.

Part of that rebuilding meant investing more seriously in my faith - not in a dramatic, headline-grabbing way, but in the quiet, daily disciplines that had slipped during those aimless months. Prayer became more routine, rather than desperately seeking salvation. I stopped treating my spiritual life like something that would automatically sustain itself without attention.

The difference wasn’t dramatic at first, but it was consistent, and consistency compounds. As the structures of my life returned, so did my focus, my energy, and my sense that I was actually steering my life again.

That shift spilled into everything else. I reconnected with friends I had let drift and made new ones. I got back into healthy shape as the gym stopped being a half-hearted obligation and became a pillar again. Once I found my new job, I started leaning in. Preparation replaced improvisation. Ownership replaced excuse-making. When you sleep well, plan your days, and treat your responsibilities seriously, you tend to perform better - and I did.

And then there’s my son. The tiny human who blew up my fragile, self-centered lifestyle is also the one who rebuilt it in a better form. Watching him grow has a clarifying effect. He doesn’t care about my titles or my past; he sees what normal looks like through me. That reality forced a decision about the kind of example I wanted to set.

Now, am I perfect? No, far from. There’s still plenty of areas I’d like to improve (particularly around my waistline) but I also know it can’t come at the cost of depriving myself of all joy, either. I still log the weekly game session with the boys, because friendships matter and balance matters - it just no longer defines my evenings. It fits into a life that is ordered around faith, family, and meaningful work. And the truth is, I’m better for it.

All of this long-winded (and quite possibly self-absorbed) diary entry is to say that I doubt I’m the only one who has gone through this. I’m fairly confident there are still plenty of people stuck in a kind of extended COVID limbo, where expectations dropped and never quite returned. I understand the hesitancy. When structure dissolves once, it’s hard to believe it can be rebuilt, especially when you’re comfortable with where you are. But drifting eventually catches up with you, and the comfort of low expectations slowly turns into dissatisfaction and heartbreak.

If you’re questioning whether you can get back to “normal,” or whether it’s even worth trying, I can only speak from experience: there is real joy and satisfaction on the other side of discipline, especially as a father. Not because hustle culture is glamorous or productivity is a virtue in itself, but because we are wired for responsibility and purpose. We do better when something is required of us.

In my case, I’ve learned a simple truth that sums it up: you’re better off busy.