I’m really bad when it comes to keeping up with things on a regular basis. Watering plants, exercising, diets, you get the idea. I start off with the best of intentions and quickly find myself slipping. That’s not actually what I want to talk about right now, though. I mainly want to catch up on what’s been going on in the month since I last wrote a blog post. (Spoiler alert: nothing interesting)
Every year since I’ve started teaching has followed a fairly similar progression. I begin the year hating my life and my job and mostly wanting to die. I spend hours each day frantically trying to come up with a way to make that year be my last one in education. By November every year, however, I regain my sanity (so to speak) and remind myself that I’m fairly well compensated considering how little I actually do at work. Yes, I teach hundreds of teenagers about mathematics, mostly against their will, and do a fairly competent job of it, but I don’t really put much effort into any of it. I’m knowledgeable enough about my field and decent enough and analogy that I can mostly wing it day to day.
This has always been a problem of mine: I have a fairly shitty work ethic. I don’t like to say I don’t care, but the reality is that I don’t care that much about most things. If anything, I’ve gotten a bit better about that over the years, but I still lack a sense of urgency about pretty much every aspect of my life. I take care of my pets (though my turtle’s tank is perpetually in need of maintenance, even right after I clean it), I keep my car running, I do my best to not let my home or my workspace get too cluttered, but that’s kind of the extent of my concerns.
All this puts me in a bit of a bind because I desperately want to improve my life but I’m, by far, the biggest impediment to my own success. Today is one of those days where I arguably got fuck-all done, but the fact I actually did do some things makes me rather proud. What are those things? Well, let’s see… I actually cooked myself breakfast for the first time in fucking ages. I literally can’t even begin to estimate how long it’s been since I’ve done anything besides buy breakfast or skip it entirely. I then went to get my hair cut. I bought cat litter from Petsmart. I bought a few things at Walmart. I got a massage. That’s it. Nothing remotely earth-shattering and yet I remain chuffed as chips with myself for being “productive”, such as it was.
Looking forward, I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do with my life. I have these rather amorphous plans involving a real estate business, but I’m far from sanguine about the odds I’ll even get it off the ground. I’ve been single for ages at this point and, for the first time, I mostly don’t care. I disabled my accounts and deleted the various dating apps off my phone weeks ago. I don’t want to say I’ve given up in that respect, but it’s no longer a standing concern as it’s been in the past. I have a messy, complicated life already and there’s little point in thinking adding another person to it will improve things. That’s the same foolish logic that prompts couples to have children as their marriages begin to fail.
So where does that leave me? Well, I’m still hoping to make some sort of career change eventually. I may not have much choice in the matter, honestly. I’ve already found myself getting bored and testing boundaries at work. That resulted in an awkward conversation about dress code technicalities with my boss which left me somewhat chagrined. I can’t say that sort of thing won’t happen again. I already spend arguably less than the bare minimum of time there most days. I can’t really justify it by claiming I still get my job done because, were I in charge, I’d probably hate having an employee like me.
Time marches ever onward and I know I have to do something while I still can. I’m far from miserable, but I can’t deny I’m far from making the most of my life or even approaching my true potential. I think that’s what frustrates me the most: I know I can do better, be better. It’s not about wealth or notoriety, it’s knowing in my heart that I’m just skating by, wasting this one opportunity to be who I can be. It seems almost obscene when I frame it in those words. My anxiety and depression have abated for the time being, yet I still find myself paralyzed by a kind of fear. Perhaps of failure or embarrassment, I can’t really say. I just know that I’m keeping my head down for some reason and it’s keeping me from living my life.
I’ve been slacking when it comes to writing in this blog, as well as in my journal. Such lapses will always happen and I’m not going to castigate myself for it, but I also need to do better. The same goes for diet, budgeting, and the whole host of other responsibilities I have. Do better. Be better.
I’ve struggled to come to grips with various existential dilemmas over the past few months and I’ve been marginally successful. Now that I’m free I’m almost overwhelmed by the endless possibilities in front of me, but I also have to stop framing things in terms of social norms. Relationships, kids, materialism… it’s not enough to simply not pursue things I don’t want, I need to also accept that it’s okay for me to not want them.
Sometimes I struggle to know when or where to end a blog post. These are rarely pre-planned, I typically just sit down and let the thoughts flow. When my writing starts getting even more rambling that usual or repetitive, however, that’s often a good sign to wrap things up. With any luck, I’ll update more regularly and have something resembling progress to share in the future and, if not, that’s okay too.
