In an article I wrote a few days ago I talked about why it's a good idea not to care too much about your passions when your obligations require most of your time, so that you can avoid the frustration of not being able to do what you want, because you need to do what you have to.
I thought it would be good if I would clarify my thoughts by changing a bit my point of view and looking at this "problem" from a different angle.
After a bit of thinking regarding the way things went for me last year, the way I was frustrated all the time with not being able to read enough or code or do graphic design or 3D modelling because I spent most of my time at work and I had little free time for myself, I realized that my main problem was not realizing and then accepting my limitations.
As much as I'd like to be a robot sometimes and spend all my time being productive and working on interesting things, that's not how reality works. I am a human, and therefore I am limited by quite a lot of things. I need to sleep, I need to eat, I need to nurture my relationships, I need to take bathroom breaks, to take care of my mental health, to relax and make sure I don't burn out, and so on.
This means that if I have a full time job that takes away most of my free time, it should not surprise me that I cannot really do much outside of my working hours, simply because I need to take care of some of the necessities that I mentioned above.
I might be able to do one or two things, such as reading and writing, the two main activities that I do whenever I am not at my job, but anything beyond that would require me to take time away from other, much more vital parts of my life, such as sleeping or relaxing after a hard day of work.
My realization that I cannot do all the things that I want simply because I am human and I am limited by my own necessities made it easier for me to accept the fact that I should take it easy and do as much as I can without getting into a state of constant misery because of so much frustration.
Sure, it sucks not to be able to spend a decent amount of time on everything that I like to do, but I also have to accept the reality that I am currently in - I have a full time job that I need, one that sometimes requires me to be present for 8 to 10 hours a day, one that can exhaust me physically if there's a lot to do. Focusing on this job is already enough. Doing more, should be just an extra that I choose to do if I can, if I have the time, and if I am in the mood.
At the end of the day, I am losing nothing by being here and working at this job. Quite the opposite - I'm making a decent amount of money, which is my main goal. Therefore, I should accept that for the next 7 months I'll be limited by a bunch of factors that are out of my control, and I won't be able to do everything I'd want to, and I should be happy with being able to do anything productive outside of my job, such as writing this article.