If there is one thing I have learned in the course of growing up, plowing through ungodly amounts of changes, challenges, and trials, and emerging as a somewhat-functional adult in a crazy world is that there is a limit to how much you can plan, anticipate, or mitigate when it comes to the future. Life, it seems, has a way of throwing an unlimited amount of wrenches into the gears of even the best-laid plans and throwing the ship entirely off course in a matter of moments. Thus, although I started out my adolescent life believing that I would go to college, find a wife, marry, and have 2.5 children, a job, and a house by the age of 24, I’ve since revised my position to try and not have a Master Plan™ and to work more on dodging whatever gets thrown at me.
This all being said, I cannot help but wonder and muse about where in life I would like to be and what I should be doing about it. I don’t know if it’s the chasing of a fantasy that is alluring or if I simply want to better myself, but whatever the reason, I have deduced some ideas on what would entail a “best life” for myself and how I am most likely falling dreadfully short of it.
Building Relationships
There are moments with this aspect that I feel comfortable and others that I’m woefully inadequate. I have gone through several different periods in life where I’ve felt more or less connected to the people that surround me, based on various circumstances, but at the present time I find a strange mix in progress. There are some very close, many very distant, and an increasingly large amount of people in the space between having an intimate relationship with and simply being an acquaintance. I do attribute part of this to the phenomenon of the Internet — it allows me to maintain any number of “semi” relationships with people all over the globe, but rarely do they turn into something deeper. In some ways this depresses me because I feel that, as a human being, I should be connecting with folks on a higher level than I am. In all the experiences I’ve had where “souls have touched”, there’s a fascinating revelation on the part of both parties, and you gain a huge amount of knowledge not only of the other person, but yourself.
Building A Career
While the naysayers may argue that one can life a great life without any sort of measurable career (and I certainly can’t disagree), for me it is an increasingly important aspect. More often than not I feel left behind by the other folks my age doing great and wonderous things, and here is little old me, plugging away at a good but relatively lackluster job in a backwoods of Iowa. It’s not that I don’t appreciate where I am, but I spend a lot of times thinking and musing about where I could or should be. I can’t help feeling that on this problem, I’m constantly dropping the ball and falling behind the times. Having a career that I can not only look back on and say, “Wow, I did really well” but will support my family not only now but well into the future is incredibly important so I can fulfill my role to them as best as possible.
Building Experiences
If there is one aspect of my life where I will feel that I always possess room for improvement, it’s in the Experience arena. Whether it is traveling to see other places, trying new foods, meeting new people and cultures, or experiencing new forms of music, art, and human expression, there never seems to be enough. Every instance results in an expansion of my brain and understandings and if I could, I would try to capture it all.
Half of the problem is setting up the stage for getting all of your experiences in the first place — most cost money, time, or both. Of course, with my wife being Australian, I’ve often toyed with the idea of starting a lot of things over by moving over there for awhile. It would certainly bring along with it a lot of new experiences, people, and events, but at the moment the economy and job markets are so restricted as to make it a difficult choice to just “jump in” and do and hope that you don’t sink into the quicksand of, “oh crap.” Even the thought of simply changing my career to something completely different has crossed my mind, if nothing else for the variety and to see if I can hack it in a different position other than the one I have right now. It is a pity that there’s so much planning, thinking, and gambling involved with experiences and the consequences they bear.
Building Myself
I admit it — I’m terrible at this and I really need to get better, both from the mental and physical aspects.
Mentally, I’ve probably stagnated somewhat since my college days simply because I don’t have the time and someone standing over my shoulder saying, “Do this! Read this! Think about this!” and my available opportunities to go sit under a huge cottonwood and let my brain mull over a philosophical issue is few and far between, if not a complete and utter fantasy all together. I’ve looked into classes and possible degrees and so forth, but really — I can barely find enough time to finish a novel by reading it a few pages at a time while I’m on the shitter; an MBA seems an impossible task at this juncture in my life. I do my best to keep up with the world, politics, the economy, and philosophy as I can, but it’s only tidbits and slices of the pies out there, not the entire item, so I come away feeling like I’ve had the horse doovers and not the full meal.
Physically — I’m a wreak. Fat, overweight, and out-of-shape essentially mark my existence. Caffeine addict, unable to resist any reasonable attempts at temptation, utterly unable to shed stress and anxiety when I want to. Sleeping 5, maybe 6 hours a night, drinking far more substances other than water, beating myself into a pulp on a regular basis. It’s been this way for a long time and I’m still struggling with how exactly to change the paradigm for the better on a permanent basis. I am the king of picking a strategy and going balls-to-wall for between 4-6 weeks and then getting distracted by, well, life, and then reverting back to the ways that best fit ordinary life, which is pretty much where I am right now. I need to change, I have to change — but I really lack the direction of choosing the best for me and my life in this struggle.
The Whole Package
Ultimately, I don’t think that I’ll ever fully fulfill the above requirements I’ve placed upon myself for a “best” life, but at the same time, having a position from which to start and a goal in the distance to strive upon is worth a lot and at least gives you somewhat of a measuring stick to figure out when you’re sliding and when you’re gaining. I don’t know as though any of us can fully fulfill a “best” life but we can always improve, and that’s pretty much my goal for now — and for the rest of whatever I get.
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