On the ride in, I was thinking about the aggregate “should have a house, be married, have a kid” expectation, or something substantially parallel, that seems to be floating around as of late. I was fucking around with new OKC features recently and saw a question about if you would date someone who was smart but had never accomplished anything. I believe that all depends on what anything amounts to. Which is core to the question here. How important is it to you, or to those whose approval you yearn for, that you graduate high school, college, get married, have kids, da da da. How important is it that your career is successful, or that you help people, or win at sports or something else competitive?

Extrapolating on “I have a way? Is that better than a plan?” I’ve always had the approval of my parents when I’ve asked for it. Has that been enough to keep me from worrying? When I think about relationships and not being in a long term one, I can certainly show that I’ve tried and put a lot of energy into making that work while checking to make sure I’m not settling for something ultimately not right. While certain measurements of my progress may go up and down; socially, financially, my happiness, I can’t look back over any six month period and claim I haven’t substantially grown in some way.

Although, often the ways in which I have grown nobody sees, or few can appreciate. Perhaps I’m just floating on years of built up confidence in my own ability to work out of any rut, further up the climb. Hmm..