The Long-Term 'Mmmmh'

My problem is that I keep waiting for a payoff.

A big paradigm shift, where my entire life seems to come together seamlessly, like in a dream where you end up in a completely different place with no clue as to why. I keep longing for this massive boost, but it slows me down. Why would my dreams come true now? It's obviously too early. It's like I picked a perfect spot to see the sunrise, set up my lawn chair, then found out it's only 1am. What am I doing here with so much desire? Don't I know that it's going to bring me down?

This is the part where I feel inclined to start telling myself that it's okay. That it's natural to want your career to improve and even more natural to be impatient about it. It might be good to swing back to my mantra for a second, to stay patient, to wrap my wounds in creative gauze and start getting back into my rhythm for as long as possible. That's what my intuition says to do. That would be nice if I didn't just call it out, effectively hamstringing myself into finding another way.

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I've realized lately that I'm much less emotionally stable than I thought I was. Not that I'm going crazy over here, I'm still okay, I just didn't really know how easily certain things would calm me down. Namely, food. I could take my entire morning commute inside of an existential-doubt-spiral, a patented 16 year old ultimate move, and by lunch I'm completely over it. Same thing on the way home, I could be stressed out the wazoo but feel zen after making a pot of mashed potatoes. This is something I didn't quite know about myself. Food can help cure emotions. Let's check in with my gut in 5 years, shall we?

It's not just food, it's all sorts of 'sugar'. Not just pop tarts, but mobile gaming and extra cups of coffee. It's the short term 'mmmh' feeling that kicks me back into it, but that needs to not be the case ASAP. I need the long term 'mmmh'. I want to be able to know that whenever I sit down to make something, to be creative, to put myself out there, that it's not just practice for when it really matters. I want it to mean something now.

There's a wash of shame that came over me, really quick, as if to remind me that this is the hole that I didn't want to find myself in. It's like my brain telling me "No shit, everyone wants their stuff read, everyone wants to be noticed, every writer wants people reading. No shit. No shit."

The cold truth is that I need to work harder if any of this is going to work. I don't need to forgive myself, I don't need self-care, I don't need an internet detox or a diet change or an exercise regime or a youtube-creators-course or a personal coach or anything that's outside of my own mind. I just need to do my shit daily and step it up. For real. For real, for real. Just step it up.

So that anxiety I feel on the way to work? Listen to it. Don't push it away, don't excuse it on to something or somebody else, listen to it hard. Sit in it, turn your music off if you need to. Why am I feeling the way that I feel, and what can I do about it? How can I make sure this happens less? What am I missing?

Digesting Patience

There's pressure happening. I need this to help me figure it out.

I can place partial blame on about 8 different things. Work.. sure, work is hard. Podcast, yea, there's more to be done. Writing and Ebay-ing and paying rent and managing plans.. All these little things seem to creep up every once in a while and then I'm tested. That's what it feels like now, another test.

Let me set the tone more accurately: I'm not doing too bad. At least, I don't think I am. I rattled my own confidence yesterday, which was just a lost battle in perspective. I allowed myself to indulge a "woe is me" mentality, then fought to regain control, then indulged again. I got frustrated at my coworkers, and boss, and myself. All over things that, ultimately, didn't really impact my life. That was work.

With my projects I feel like I'm falling behind, and so every moment I spend on myself in the present feels like I'm screwing over myself in the future. The balance is the hard part, since I know that going too fast is just as dangerous as slowing down to a halt. I've started off this race with momentum, and now I'm coming up on a series of hills. I feel like I'm either trudging up to the peak, or losing control on the way back down. Actually, right now it feels like both at the same time.

And that's where my anxiety is at. All these things, all at the same time. Part of me wants to quit my job and just figure it all out myself, but that's not going to happen. That's like being on a stranded island with half a raft, a hut with no roof, 3 days food supply, and pronouncing "Time to start giving out tours!" It's just not the time. It clearly is not.

So it's back to patience, which is always the game, and I'm back to where I started. Keep moving, trudge along, and see how far these things go. Be the old man power-walking at 7am, not the high-schooler running sprints.

Is that who I am? Am I the person to take it slow, or do I feel like I need to since it sounds really smart to do so? Am I the person to consistently take the advice of those who are older and wiser? "Patience" as a mantra did not come from inside of me, it was not materialized from my personal ambition and desire to achieve. It was a dangling fruit from the first tree I saw, in the direction pointed to by my parents. I picked this fruit and inspected it briefly, then ate the whole thing with my eyes closed. And now I sit at this tree, digesting it slowly, somehow surprised that nothing has yet happened. What was I expecting? That was the whole point.

And now that I've committed to this plan, at least in the sense that I don't have the willpower to fight the Lost-cost fallacy, I have to reevaluate my goals. Not just now, but constantly. What is it that I want? Do I just want some sort of change, now? Do I want my patience to be paid off somewhere, somehow, in any degree of success? Do I want to double down on myself, figuring out how to do more and face less anxiety? If I had to guess, I'd say the best thing for me would be to limit the amount of days that I doubt this grand strategy. If I've eaten the fruit, and those that love me have encouraged me to live this way, then is it not better to adapt within this reality than to throw it all out the window?

If I can focus all of my energy on not quitting, will things work out? Will the pieces come together smoothly, or do I need to take out a hammer and smash them together?

Self analysis, right now: I need to realize that there was never a correct path forward. That every single fruit on that tree, from "Backpack through Europe" to "Throw my phone into the ocean and become a farmer" to "Go to grad school" would all leave me in a similar magnitude of uncertainty. There was no magic answer, and certainly no way to ever know about it even if it did exist.

The only thing I can do is constantly look to myself for the answers. Am I doing what's right, for me? Am I dictating my life based on my head, or my heart? Can I take these moments of doubt and get through to the other side, battered and bruised but without injury, and find my way back to a daily life of enjoyment?

 I think I can. I already feel better, in fact.

A snapshot. A pretty good snapshot.

Been a little while since I shook off all the muck.

Not that muckiness has been building up, or that I haven't had any sort of outlet. To tell the truth, things have been going well the last few weeks. I wish I was more consistent with my moods, but I'm not sure if that's something I can exactly will into existence. The only consistency I can actually have is that of my habits, my work ethic, and how I spend my free time. All of those things are in check, and I'll give them a 7/10 for the passed week. Not too shabby.

Living in my own apartment has more ups than downs, fortunately. I have to be a big boy now with my expenses, but that's just a matter of living within my means. no biggie. It's actually been pretty rewarding to shift into a more frugal mindset, to shop with purpose, to cost-benefit analyze my weekends and hobbies. It's made me realize the appeal of getting a good job, a fat paycheck, a high income. I enjoy where I'm at now, though, so I don't feel a pressure to prioritize having more. I guess I just don't judge people for working jobs that make them a lot of money the same way I used to.

It's funny how much judgement goes on for other people's careers. I don't feel that judgement towards myself, since I've become really good at explaining my workplace in a favorable or entertaining way. That's a luxury that I've crafted for myself, unique to people with a performative side and a storage of confidence fostered by good parents. For a lot of folks, there seems to be this highly binary and surface level discussion of what makes a good job. Is it soul-crushing, or are you passionate about it? Do you make a lot of money or not nearly enough?

This is somewhat of an ingrained conversation to me, stemming from the drastic difference of opinions of my long divorced parents. I was drinking from two pools simultaneously, the "stability leads to happiness" approach and the "Make passion your job and you'll never need to work" approach. At first, this was a perfect recipe for perpetual cognitive dissonance. Then, somewhere in college, I decided that neither one of them had merit at the exact same time. That's when I overbooked myself and worked very hard at a lot of things I didn't enjoy. It seriously put the "con" in contrapositive.      that joke is amazing


So an unstable life doing things I don't enjoy... that's no bueno. I feel bad for the people who pursued finance jobs or other insanely demanding NYC jobs because they thought more money = more stability. I'm sure I don't need to preach on how that's not the case, since there's a thing as work/life balance, etc. The tough part, and what's interesting to me, is figuring out where all these concepts actually fit together. How do I pursue passions in a stable way? Actually, shit, it's not that hard. I'm already doing that. Introspection over, life solved, time to live up my 20's.

Nah, of course it's not that easy. At this point in time, though, I don't feel pressured to ask myself anymore about this. For real, no lie. I've gotten pretty good at pressing on the gas enough to keep things moving, but not so much as to lose control or take on too much. I have things on my agenda, some "extra curriculars" that need my attention, but truthfully I know that they're just opportunities to feel accomplishment one they're finished. That's, well, not too bad!

I'm coming out of a slump now, and it feels good to have some positivity to share again. This is just a snapshot, I still need to keep these things afloat of course, but for now I'll enjoy it. It's a beautiful day, too! Not too shabby.

Fishing for Confidence

Who would have thought that recording a podcast about Super Smash Brothers would help my mental health

I'm not as emotionally stable as I thought I was. I like to think it's just an age thing, and that every 23 year old is in a constant flux of enthusiasm and despair. Not that I wish this sort of discomfort on anybody, but it'd be nice to know that other people are equally fucked up.

Truthfully, I'm not doing that bad. Things are still where they were, no tragedy has befallen me, my finances are fine, most things are normal. What set me off yesterday was of such little consequence, such silliness in perspective that I'm almost embarrassed to talk about it. Lo and behold, I mentioned it while the recording light was on, and soon enough it will be out there for the world to judge. I guess I'm okay with that.

The short of it was that a house tournament called "Brooklyn Kumite 2" went down this sunday and I was brought on as a commentator. I was excited for the opportunity to get on the mic, have fun with the other invitees, play some games, entertain, commentate, watch good melee. Unfortunately, we were ill equipped to handle 4 people on a couch talking into a mic, and it was replaced with a room mic. We also didn't have a webcam on us at any point. I'm not sure when it really happened, since I got pretty drunk all day,  but an anxiety started to bubble up in me and come Monday morning I was a nervous wreck of self doubt and insecurity. I reconsidered everything I had done to this point, compared myself to other people constantly, and had several bouts of panic about where any of this was headed. They weren't even fully fledged thoughts, no real questions of my motives or the possibility of my passions, zero clue of why I felt the way I did. I felt guilt about the anxiety, that my obligation was to bring about positivity, that my job was to have fun and participate, and that I was failing those around me.  It sucked, it really did.

So I brought this up to Will last night, I don't really remember everything from the conversation, but I felt like some healing was done already. I didn't come up with any, like, solutions, but for now I'm relieved. I came to realize that writing is what I'm drawn to, it's what I actually enjoy. There's precedent for being a writer, not so much some other things. Not to say it's easy.

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Next day.. Feeling, better?

I'm lucky to have these quick dips into the void, rather than long and drawn out soaks. I have my support system, stability in my relationship and job, and legitimately solid creative endeavors. I don't have a lot to ache for, unless I reach too hard in front of me. Then I metaphorical shoulder of ambition.

I'm not going to fault myself for feeling the way I did. There's no real lesson to be learned by self flagellation, no joy in it either. If there's one thing I've improved on over the years its the degree to which I criticize myself. That's to say I've eased up how often it happens, as well as how badly it hurts. I can't really be too mad at myself for how I handled my melancholic episode, since I allowed it to be where I was at and didn't try to force myself out of it. I wrote, I worked, I drove home and listened to Radiohead while laying in bed at 7 pm. That's the good-sad stuff, the single glass of wine while watching a favorite show. Instead of listing off all of my obligations, or the opposite, ignoring them completely, I allowed them to pop up in my head and let them drift off. Should they come back, fine. I need to handle it eventually, so I appreciate how they pop up from time to time to annoy me.

In other news, I was given an opportunity to submit articles to a well-established eSports brand for their website, so I'm going to do that. That's good. It's a good start.

No idea what the style will be, who I will become when representing something bigger than myself, but I'm sure it will be a good learning experience. Okay, that's it. Time to get to work.