You don't have to...

I thought this was rather brilliant. And, of course, counterintuitive to everything I was raised and indoctrinated to believe. So it's probably got quite a bit of merit, then. In the long run, being "responsible" can be a loser-script.

Much more at the link.

Quitting Things and Flakiness: The #1 Productivity Anti-Hack | The Growing Life | Alternative Productivity, Anti-Hacks for Living:

"You simply don’t have to…

* Return all phone calls
* Respond to all email (I have 258 unread messages in my inbox right now)
* Stay on that committee you joined to pad your resume
* Take opportunities that “you’d be stupid to pass up”
* Stay in college
* Stay in grad school

It’s not necessary to…

* Hang out with friends you only kind-of sort-of like
* Stick with everything you start
* Live up to others’ expectations of you
* Have a respectable career, own a home, and be married by the time you’re 35, 45, or 55

In order to make time for renewal, you might have to…

* Not buy great/cool/expensive birthday and Christmas gifts for everyone
* Make your husband file his own papers
* Let those who have become unhealthily dependent upon you take responsibility for their own lives

In order to jump-start passionate living again you might have to…

* Stop being an (unnecessarily) “responsible” person
* Quit projects that are no longer relevant
* Be happy with a less than permanently clean home

In order to come alive, you might have to…

* Pursue an occupation that doesn’t put your insanely expensive degree to use
* Move back in with your parents
* Work a low-status, low-paying job in order to make time for your new endeavor
* Come to terms with your messy home
* Completely and utterly ignore your parent’s and friend’s expectations of you

If you really want to live passionately, you’ll need to consider leaving nearly everything you’re not passionate about. To live passionately you may have to quit your job, sell your home, rent a small apartment, and live simply for a while.

To get off the treadmill you’ll have to realize that your high IQ does not obligate you to work 80-hour weeks in high-status professional career. Your high IQ also doesn’t obligate you to get a Ph.D., or to put on any other golden handcuffs.

In order to de-clutter all the crap in your life, you might have to quit a lot of things. You might have to say no hundreds of times. You might have to back out of several commitments. And you’ll very definitely run an incredibly high risk of looking like a flake, coming across as arrogant and ungrateful, and disappointing people who love you.

...People stuck on the treadmill of life have often invested a lot of time and anxiety buying into all the “shoulds” of life. Your liberation will threaten their mode of existence. Lots of people have devoted themselves to following, and strictly enforcing, societal rules, and your liberation will threaten the very foundation of their false parallel universe. By breaking free, dropping down the rabbit hole, taking the red pill, etc. you will challenge numerous false assumptions, and you may sadly lose friendships. I have. It sucks."