Journal Entry: September 24th, 2022

Forgive me for what will likely be an exercise in vanity. When I write, I try to write about anything except myself. The whole concept of writing to me is about an exploration of something between the writer and the reader, rather than an exploration of the writer in front of the reader. All that being said, I have had a lot of trouble writing anything for over a year because there is so much I want to talk about but most of it has to do with my own experiences. 

Of course, the best writing is said to come from what you know. So let me riff here. To write is to create and my conception of creation has been that all creations must be new. It must be incremental to the knowledge and beauty out there. Writing about things that everyone knows about is therefore not creation. It is a form of recycling. However, upon further inspection, it is these subjects, such as the meaning of life and love, that seem to trouble humanity so much because there is no manifesto with the map to any such answer to those questions. 

It’s just one of those things that you have to experience and live through. I used to believe life was a linear activity. You live and then you die. Your only hope of escaping such a trajectory was to be great. To leave an indelible impact on the world that lasts beyond your organic form. I feared death. I thought that if I didn’t change the world then I would no longer exist once I passed on. And to that end, I grew up wanting to shoot for the stars. Become a soccer player. Solve global hunger. And so on. But that changed.

I had a job where I was verbally and emotionally abused. I won’t go into further details for fear of any retribution or harm to my career and reputation (and that of anyone else) but it happened. It was awful. I remember describing my workday to my parents and my dad said that what I had just described was bullying. I would wake up and cry before work. I felt so lost and was in a bad spot in life.

It was the first time I had experienced any form of true depression. I was paralyzed. Sitting in the backseat of my own life without the will to wake up each morning. I eventually saw a therapist. A year later for a different issue but we did talk about this experience and it was a very important resource for me. And still is. I don’t see my therapist regularly. Sometimes for a one off conversation but it is good to know I have a professional in my corner when I need them.

At that job, the pivotal moment in my life was when I overheard a department head, an extremely successful and well-respected person within the industry, say that they had not been home in weeks (due to travel) and was not spending enough time with their family. I had always known that I wanted to have a family but it was never a priority and right at that moment the chemistry in my brain changed. Was that the type of life I was working my butt off to achieve? I knew that I didn’t want to chase a career searching for greatness. Searching for some fame that would allow me to transcend death. At that moment, I realized that what I wanted from this life was to fall in love and have a family. First and foremost. I wanted to share all the love that I had in my heart with someone else and raise a family.

For anyone who knows me, you know that I am extremely ambitious. Beyond my naive desire to capture greatness for generally vanity and for fear of the grim reaper, I am still an incredibly goal-oriented person. I like getting stuff done. Period.

To that end, I have always wondered if I was a slave to my own ambition. And if I still am? I think I have a better relationship with this part of my personality but I have made some choices that have not always matched with my values. There have been moments in my life where I would put aside my own personal wellbeing and divest in relationships in order to focus on my work. During that awful job I mentioned above, I self sabotaged a relationship so that I could focus on work. Little did I know, it was work that was making my life miserable and not my relationship. My inability to see past my own drive and its shortcomings, caused me to believe that it was the relationship that was harming me, not my job. I became less invested in the relationship and began to become selfish, wondering why the relationship was not giving me more when it was the job that was taking too much from me. I don’t know if I will ever get the chance to say I’m sorry to that person. The moment has likely passed.

In college, I had a bad break up. That’s an understatement. I thought about killing myself. I loved someone so much and it didn’t work out and it ended in a very messy way. This was different from the depression that I experienced from that negative work experience. That job challenged my values and disrupted my sense of the world. This break up challenged my sense of my self. A few weeks after the break up, I was playing basketball with some friends and in the middle of the game, somebody said something that reminded me of her. My stomach turned and I dropped the ball and walked off the court in silence. Later that day, I wondered how easy it would be to jump off a building or run into incoming traffic. I lay in my room that night and the moment passed. I haven’t had those dark thoughts since then. It’s taken a long time since that relationship for my heart to truly open up and for the first time I feel like I can actually love someone again.

I’ve met someone new recently and I have a good feeling about them. A feeling I haven’t had in a long time. Like the first spring sunshine after a long cold winter. But that is for another time. 

There was another experience where I felt someone was wrongly let go at a company I worked at and that was another experience that everyone has in life but for me it was my first and it made me sick. Another shock to the system. It was injustice I had read about in books and witnessed on the big screen. I couldn’t comprehend how cruel people could be. 

Now I am working a new job and I really like the people I work for and with. The work is very interesting and satisfying but can be a lot. As I walk back home each night from the office, I see so many people having dinner and drinks at the various establishments that populate every street in New York City. First dates. Friend get togethers. Family dinners. And more. I wonder if I am living the right life. Don’t get me wrong. I really like what I am doing but it is demanding. I wonder if they are living the right life or if I am. Or if we both are. I suppose the right life is the life you want to live. It’s a question that I ask myself far too often.

I never understood how adults could be so tired all the time. How they could come home and just not have the time or energy to keep up with their friends and family. To let themselves go. To leave bills unpaid. Not get the groceries. Forget to exercise. And so on. I didn’t get that but now I do. 

I try not to think too much about the future. I like planning and I like making lists. It may be satisfying to check stuff off the bucket list but it is not a fulfilling way to live. Instead I now try to just focus on what is infront of me. I don’t have career goals. I just want to do awesome stuff that I want to do and spend time with people I like. I don’t know what is next and frankly, I do not care. There is so much more that I could talk about but I think I will leave it at this for today. 

There is a lot I don’t know. But the one thing I do know is that there is no replacement in life other than life itself. You just got to go through it, experience it, figure it out, and grow. Thanks for bearing with this stream of consciousness. 

The be continued.