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.