Today I wanted to take a little time to describe what my life is like, so that ten years from now I have more than my memories to rely on, which by that time will be hazy, distorted, conflated, and simplified. I want to learn how living my life a certain way impacts my happiness and success, but how would I know if I can't accurately reflect on the past?
Where to start?
I drink too much coffee. It gets me through my work mornings without eating (a form of intermittent fasting for which my discipline has sadly degraded), and spurs me to write - especially fiction. It fills my stomach with zero calories, but the dreaded second-order effects of its overuse include my own intolerance for empty-stomach hunger, intermittent inability to sleep, and I suspect, frentic dreams where I am always striving to complete tasks that feel utterly detached from any spiritual drive.
I drink too much beer. It is automatic with most social interaction and a social pasttime of its own. I don't believe I drink too often, but when I drink it is frequently too much. This pattern throws my metabolism out of wack - often back and forth from ketosis - and plays havoc on my digestive system. I inevitably crave more carbs for a day or two afterwards - the combination makes it difficult to stay at the weight that I know I am capable of maintaining in a healthy, steady state.
I have been a contractor at work for almost a full year now, which allows me to travel as much as I have long wished to. Travel rejuvenates me, even as the planning and logistics frequently stress me out. But, travel also exacerbates the same problems I experience at home, because there are more free days, and more free hours, for my day-to-day, hour-to-hour compulsions to assert themselves. I drink too much coffee and drink too much beer. But worse yet, I'm almost always anxious, and I have to constantly fight the impulse to hurry up with whatever I happen to be doing, so that I may get on to the next thing.
It's all a vicious cycle, right? The miracle of productivity can be achieved with coffee - its only cost is sanity, any chance of mental clarity, any chance of watching clouds move across the sky or listening to the water running through a creek on some pastoral afternoon. There has to be a better way, a middle ground.
I am going to Santa Fe in about a month. This middle ground is my goal - I wish to experience gloriously unhurried days even as I make the most of my time. I want to read books for pleasure and not to be urgently seeking wisdom, a leg up, skipping pages, throwing books aside ten pages in.
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I have gotten closer to my friends and further from everyone else. And you know what? That's something I consciously decided to do. But, now I can see that it is misguided. I should wish to be closer to my friends and closer to everyone else, as well. Or, at least be open to meeting new people - I should ruthlessly seek to come to know people well enough to discover what we can offer each other. I know I will regret it later in life if I never learn to do this.
A couple years ago at work, I concluded that I needed to open my mouth less, advertise myself less, and execute on my work more. I knew, just knew, that if I simply worked at doing my job better, than recognition would follow. But, it hasn't. Quite the opposite - even as I have become an informal authority on the team (earned the hard way, one careful decision at a time), recognition has all but disappeared. What can I make of this but to chalk it up to the reality of human systems, the reality of people? People are not rational - not even *your* boss - the person you probably assume, by default, knows how to be fair. That person is not fair - they are only fair enough to seem fair, if you are lucky, at that. They are probably playing for themselves, and whether that means also playing for you is a coin toss, a matter most likely out of your control altogether. And so, I am enjoying travel, and executing on my work anyway, because what else would I do? Intentionally shirk my responsibilities and fail to execute, just to get revenge? Nothing exists in a vacuum, and I wouldn't expose the whole of myself to such corruption. The one thing I will not regret at the end of my life is not compromising my values.
Merry is satisfied, I think, with her life. Living stoically is great until you look to your partner to validate your own virtues. Have I been a good partner for her? Have I given her all that she deserves? No, I don't think I have, but I wouldn't know it from looking at her, because she is self-possessed, and because her natural state is one of contentment for what she has. We have each other, and a home we enjoy. We have hobbies, we have adventures. We have family and friends to pass the time with. We have a cat, and a blueberry.
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