Sunday, 19 June 2011

Retirement

It has been a while since I had last blogged, without good reason. My mother always said that if you had nothing nice to say, keep quiet, so I kept quiet. It has been a good bu tumultuous first half of this year here in Lood-land and many things happened that somehow kept me intrigued enough in life to continue on with it.

But with all this change came a lot of introspection. I turned 25, not old by anyone's standards apart from a four year old, but old enough. Suddenly it dawned on me that I had no real idea as to where my life was heading. Here I am, a 25 year old content writer with a degree in psychology, a masters degree in criminology with no fucking clue what he was doing on this planet. I spent a great deal of time telling people that I was writing a book, that one day I was going to become a bestselling author, and meanwhile, back at the ranch I was struggling to get words on paper.

I dreamed of being the best at everything I did, of tacking the title manager next to my name, of writing that book that will stand alongside the literary greats of the world, of opening a restaurant and serving good food and good wine to people, of meeting someone special, maybe adopting a kid or two and living a happy life till I die peacefully in my sleep at the age of 70.

I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to become this person that I was in my dreams, physical pressure that caused me to gain weight, develop an ulcer and turn into a control freak of note. Outwardly I turned into anyone's friend, smiling at people and making them believe I was happy. I was fucking miserable.

So I took stock of my life, looking at what I was doing and why. I looked at the naive dreams of a twenty something who thought that he'd rule the world and do it in style and I took a knife to it. I cut out many things that was making me unhappy and it has culminated in this blog post.

As of today I no longer identify as someone who aspires to be a professional writer. I will still dapple in the written word, as and when I feel like it, but i will no longer pursue that three book deal with the dogged determination I have been.

As of today I no longer aspire to be someone's husband, someone's father. Should the universe decide that a life partner or offspring is part of my fate, I will accept it, but my identity no longer depends on it.

As of today I embrace my job as my focus and my future. I am going to throw all the extra passion into making my future as secure and stable as possible. I have 5, 10 and 15 year plans to help me outline where I want and need to go. These plans, like most of my grand schemes, are not set in stone, but they do provide a nice platform for me to work from.

I have chosen money and success as my path to happiness. Power and authority. Does this make me a bad person in your eyes, I really do not care. I have a single-minded goal, and I will attain it.

2 comments:

  1. Of course this doesn't make you a bad person!

    I had dreams when I was younger, and I'm only 5 years older than you, but none have become fruitful yet. I opted for a secure life, marriage, steady job and a secure roof over my head. These are my priorites in life. Anything else comes after, including my wish of becoming a published author, which I'm still working towards.

    You still have many years ahead of you, and you have a great qualification. Don't let it go to waste. Your dreams can still happen when you least expect it...(did I just sound like a 70 year old instead of a 30 year old?...lol)

    ReplyDelete
  2. *big hugs*
    It's called a quarter-life crisis.
    No one really knows what they want to do with the rest of their lives. It's normal (and healthy) to re-assess your life every now and then.

    Now that you've let go of these expectations you had... you have the freedom to be whoever you want to be. Of course you can have it all but, often, when you're chasing after happiness, you forget to enjoy where you are now.

    You're a super awesome person. Just be you and everything else will fall into place. :)

    ReplyDelete