25 ways to spend these summer months without NBA basketball

2. Existential Crisis

But maybe doing positive things isn’t really your thing. That’s fine. Just have a breakdown. You’d be surprised at how much time they can kill.

There are plenty of things to get really upset about. Climate change. Equality. The expanding gap between minimum wage and an actual living wage. I could go on. But I won’t. If you want to have a real good existential crisis, that’s for you to do.

Let it start slowly and build momentum. Pick something small that you have no control over but find yourself caring way too much about. If you can pick something out, you’re already on the right track. Ruminate on it for a bit. Eventually, it’ll start growing and create its own gravity.

Eventually, more and more stuff will start showing up in your mind. “Oh no, I haven’t thought about that in years.” That kind of thing. It’s what you’re aiming for here.

Now at a certain point, you may feel the need to pull up and try to get a handle on things. If you were having this existential crisis on accident, then that’s definitely something you should do. But this is different. You’re trying to have one on purpose. If you get the urge to try and stop, that’s just a sign that you’re doing what you set out to do.

Eventually, it will burn itself out. Hopefully. Your mind only has so much energy to expend in a given day, and if your crisis got sufficiently out of hand, you will reach that threshold. Look at the clock. It’s probably days later already. Good job.