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.