I’m tired. The other night I was up for about 31 straight hours, for various reasons, before I got a four hour nap, then right back up for another stretch! This, I might add, was on my weekend. Anyway, eventually I was able to get about eight hours of sleep, but the weariness has yet to completely go away.
How did this happen? Simple: I work constantly. Here’s a little breakdown of my weekly schedule…
Monday evening through Saturday morning; 7pm: Wake up. 8pm: Get ready for work. 8:30pm: Drive fifty miles to work. 10pm: Begin shift. 6am: Get off work, drive fifty miles to home.
Mornings, during the work-week; 7:15 to 7:30am: Get home, change clothes. 8:00 to 11am-ish: Eat ‘Dinner’ with my wife, spend some time together, watch a bit of TV. 11am-ish: Go to bed for the day.
Saturday into Sunday; 7:15 to 7:30am: Get home, change clothes. 8am to Noon-ish: Food, Laundry, try to relax some, spend time with family, etc. Noon-ish: Go to bed. 8pm: Get up. 9pm to 5am-ish: Livestream #1 of the weekend, continue on this until I am too tired to go on. 5am-ish: Get a bite to eat, spend time on other Twitch streams, catch up on website work, and so forth. Occasionally I find time for a nap in here, as well.
Sunday into Monday; 8am-ish: Family Time! My Lovely Bride™ and I try to take our puppies out every Sunday morning for a trip to some park, maybe to the beach, or perhaps we just drive around playing “Pokemon Go”, etc. We culminate this by getting Lunch/Brunch somewhere. Noon-ish: Go to bed. 8pm: Get up. 9pm to 5am-ish: Livestream #2 on Twitch, again continuing until I am too pooped to go on! 5am-ish: Eat, nap, watch other Livestreams, edit and upload “Knights of the Tabletop” podcasts, as needed.
Mondays; 8am: Record “Pixels & Dice” podcast with Beoulus. 10am-ish: Edit and upload podcast. Noon-ish: Go to bed.
Two Sundays each month; No Family Time! 8am-ish: Go to bed. 1pm: Get up, dress and gather our gear, then head out to Beoulus’ place! 2pm to 7pm: One week we are playing D&D 5e in Beoulus’ campaign, the other I am running some RPG while recording our “Knights of the Tabletop” podcast. 7pm-ish: Head home. 9pm: Start Livestream #2, as usual…
So, what did all of that mean? Everyone has a hard time of it nowadays, is overworked and doesn’t get enough time off. Actually, from the looks of it, I get several hours most days, just to relax and unwind, as well as around eight full hours to sleep. So what do I have to bitch about, then?
People shouldn’t live like this. It isn’t normal to work seven days a week – and let’s be honest here – Livestreaming and podcasting is work. plus, this is only the optimal schedule, most days I have more things to do during my ‘off-time’, and get a whole lot less sleep. I eat at odd hours, usually only twice a day, and don’t get nearly enough actual exercise, so my weight is an issue. basically, what I’m saying here is that all this is slowly building up, the stress, the unhealthy lifestyle, the overworking, and it’s beginning to make me wonder:
Is it worth it?
Is it worth it to conduct two Livestreams on Twitch each weekend? Keep in mind, just a few months ago I was doing three to five Livestreams each weekend, so at least I’ve tried to bring things under control some! But even just doing these two shows a week, it adds up, and wears on you.
I love playing video games, but I have turned that into a job now. I also love playing and running tabletop roleplaying games, and now that too has been turned into a job. But unlike my “Real Job”, Twitch and the podcasts don’t pay anything! Other than a few direct donations on Twitch, which have amounted to less that $20 over the last 18 months, I have yet to make a single dime from Twitch or the Livestreams. At least when I was still able to be monetized on YouTube, before the Great Fuckening of 2018, I made some cash that way, about $200 over a decade or so of work.
My co-worker asks me occasionally why I don’t just hang up all this ancillary stuff, and pick up overtime at work instead? If I’m going to be tired all the time, why not get paid for it, right? By the way, OT at my job would be very, very lucrative, actually. I would make more in a day at OT, than I ever made on YouTube, by far, and significantly more than I’ve banked at Twitch without getting a payout, yet!
I don’t know. I don’t plan on dropping my projects anytime soon, if at all, but then again, I’m always tired. At what point do I need to put my health and general well-being before chasing some hobby that, especially when it comes to Twitch, has little sign of actually going anywhere?