Coffee makes my digestive tract all giggly. What a great, yet totally unproductive feeling week.
I quote this often, “The three grand essentials of happiness: something to do, someone (or something) to love, something to look forward to.” That was written on a piece of paper over my fathers mirror for years. I have no mantras, but my mind works in a relative manner, so I have many jumping off points for thought.
When I dropped out of high school, I stopped thinking about the future. More specifically, society had me convinced that it was the future that mattered, and I rebelled against that when I found it to be the source of much of my unhappiness. It got left behind.
Six months ago the future was thrust upon me with the question of what I wanted from a relationship right now. It took me a little bit to isolate that out of the anxiety. A bit of thought, writing and conversation later, the dissection brought me to a fork in the road.
I have no desire to settle down in the near future. I found myself considering compromises, would I trade a relationship for a bit more of the daily grind? A solid part of my life could be considered a daily grind, but I make regular efforts to go out and get involved in new activities, sometimes even meet new people AND talk to them, which blows my mind-of-yesteryear. I’m unwilling to give up hopes for more adventures, and unwilling to make compromises that decrease the likelihood of major changes in my life.
My father’s life, if you didn’t know, consists entirely of being grumpy, watching sports, drinking and a bit of eating, alone in the woods. With an occasional trip to see his parents and siblings for a weekend. This is concerning on a number of levels, but in regards to this thread, it is a summary of his having given up. Fire took our house, social dysfunction took his hobbies, my mother took his family, cigarettes took his job, etc. These are all things that happened to him. In the name of his financial future, he does very little now. Granted this is compounded by his health problems, a product of heavy smoking, but these too happened to him. He very slowly has taken some responsibility for these things, but I see little chance that enough tides will shift for him to start living again in time. I’ve grown accustomed to this fact over many years.
The anti-lesson I’ve taken from this is not living for the future; emotionally, or financially.
Suddenly I’m counting vacation days and trying to etch out a schedule with the people that matter to me and I desperately want a month spent breathing, in the near company of those I love. Every now and then I’m reminded that I do incredibly complex technical things for a big animal, and I just want to hold someone.
It’s incredibly likely in five years I won’t be working full-time anymore. I don’t know what that means to plans, but I’m really frustrated by having to make plans at the moment. Living this way isn’t worth it.