Tag: writing

linearity

My life has been everything but what I expected it to be at this point. All the dreams I put on a shelf over the years silently sit, drooping morosely over me. I stare at them wistfully and, between glances, watch the minutes of time fleetingly pass beyond my nose.

I am still young, but it is the kind of youth that no longer offers as much leeway and grace toward deemed irresponsible behavior as before. When I act in a way that was passable merely a couple years ago, now I am met with scorn and contemptuous glances from my peers. I am 26 with have no definable career path; I have very little money with which to begin some fantastic journey and I am unmarried without kids.

Admittedly, for the dedicated reader, they will surmise that I never have really strived for most of these typical, traditional goals. My only true, real, firm loves in my life have been traveling, hiking, climbing, fitness, writing and music. I have other hobbies but these are goals and ideals that, insofar, I have dedicated 26 years of my life to their pursuit. I haven’t always done the best job but I have tried absolutely to continue to find a way to involve them in my life.

I think really I just do this to avoid responsibility. The heavy crown of stewardship and obligation is one to which I am very averse. Deep down, it has felt a bit like an escape mechanism; never having a real job, never looking to settle down with one person, never looking to stay put in one location for longer than a couple years— things that normal seeming adults are able to do effortlessly.

Lately, I have been trying to do some self reckoning. This year has brought with it intense, somewhat painful change that I was clearly not ready for and now I find myself confused and mired in lack of purpose. For 23 years, life was linear. Even at moments when I didn’t find much hope in the future, I still felt as though I were on the right track. Building, creating, striving for something better.

Perhaps it was just the educational complex that carried me forward but I felt as if each moment was leading toward my inevitable future and pregnant with the promise of change for the better. After graduating, my time abroad in Germany continued in this sense of direction. I had always wanted to go abroad and, of course, this was the next logical step. Self-doubt and uncertainty were yet to plague me as I stepped off the tarmac in Munich and I spent the next 22 months engrossed in a foreign, transient lifestyle to keep me constantly engaged and unconcerned with the premise of any next steps.

But suddenly I was back in America, walking through the Gainesville airport to a home that I no longer felt was my own. No plans made themselves available to me. I spent a year drifting from goal to goal. I tried another seasonal job but there was no love there. I tried a master’s program but UF somehow managed to suck the joy out of that with their application process. Suddenly, 9 months had gone by since my departure from Germany and I felt myself more confused than ever in my entire life. I applied for every marketing/communication job under the sun but was met with an obstinate silence from any and all employers, another door closed in my face.

It seemed all opportunity had slipped from my fingers. Friends from college had professional jobs and were making their bones in corporate America, friends from Germany who stayed when I left found housing on the economy and permanent jobs on base, allowing them a new, enduring life as an expatriate. And yet, there I was. A dead-end job, worthless Bachelor’s degree and no clear path.

I seemed to find a promising path in Nashville, arriving soon after New Years in 2023 and buckling down to a profitable life in Construction. I went back to school for a bit before coming to my senses and comprehending I was simply kicking the can down the road and unnecessarily delaying my future by, once more, hiding in the comfort and delusion of education. I was 25 and already had a Bachelor’s degree, this was a lateral move that would likely not really be useful so I simply got a job in the industry and took the risk. Once again, not for me.

So now, we come to the present moment. I have fallen back on bartending to finance my search for a dedicated future. In the meantime, I have realized that one thing for which I have potential is writing, and thus have begun to narrow my field for jobs or even simply mentors in this industry. While, to me, writing is an intensely personal and intrinsically creative exercise that cannot be taught, I believe some of the finer aspects may be elevated such as writing stronger dialogue or creating more narratively-focused sentences and I now only seek the opportunity to learn more about this skill.

Travel writing was always a dream job of mine growing up; I idolized authors such as Rolf Potts, Peter Matthiessen and, of course, the great Ralph Waldo Emerson. They were a big inspiration and informed my love for travel and the minimalist attitude by which I try to abide. I realized that, in theory, I could write just as well as them if I truly applied myself and so have begun by telling stories of my travels abroad. While they are usually very simple and arcane, it has been indispensable practice for me and highlighted my shortcomings as a creative person.

I feel as though it will one day reconcile my goals of living as an expatriate and perpetual travel with personal ownership and imaginativeness.I have had great trouble deciding which avenue I want to pursue in my life because I feel as though I’m capable of so much and, as a result, stand frozen in time.

Life is made from the ‘in-between’ that occurs while we wait for moments that never come; it wasn’t until lately that I feel I’ve truly comprehended this statement.

I have sat immobilized for two and a half years, waiting for a return to form of linearity and, as a result, have plucked myself from the shifting waves of time; a detached traveler treading water among the distant moors oblivious to the swelling, swirling rip current silently governing the tides. I have been made unhappy due to my own indecision, yet sit and wait for a guiding force or extenuating event to take the control out of my hands and tell me where to go. And, obviously, it’s never going to come. I am to blame for my aversion to the present and consequences thereof.

I have not been present-minded for two years as I have waited for moments that never come. Life need not be linear and each moment that I spend waiting for the veneer of that superintending feeling to return is a moment wasted that shall never return. My future lies in my hands and I must begin to act it rather than continue to hope I will be saved by some great force or action.

Do we need a narrative through-line to keep us motivated? Do we create it or is it given?

With all the metamorphosis and change I have faced in the last two years, I am obviously gearing up for something great. I have survived the toughest challenges and lack of purpose, yet still remain here stronger than anytime previous in my life.

A quiet confidence seeps into my being and allows me to conduct myself with poise and strength while seeking new challenges without fear or trepidation and I feel maybe this has been my purpose for the previous difficult seasons. I must be here for a reason. I put myself here for a reason, whether I realized it or not.

Perhaps, life is still linear after all.

August 4, 2025
thumbprint

Well here is the follow-up to the most depressing series of posts I had ever written—I’m still alive!

It turns out my body was just physically rejecting that new reality in which I lived for those couple of months. Looking back, it was just not really a good fit in any sense of the word.

I don’t like waking up early, I didn’t know anything about the company that I was working for, I was unfairly thrusted into a role in which I had no training and was woefully unprepared for and it overall just did not fit with the principles and values I hold most intensely. I thought I was ready for a big-boy job. I was going to make my name in the corporate construction world but that simply wasn’t the case. It turns out I actually despise office culture and the weird unwritten laws and mores that dictate the everyday life of a worker.

Nothing against people who enjoy that type of living, but it felt too oppressive and stagnant. I don’t want my life dictated by the results of my NYT wordle every morning; I want creative freedom and diversity. I like talking to new people every day and seeing something new. I didn’t know just how strongly I believed in these things until my body and mind raged against the life into which it was being forced.

So I quit.

I knew it had to happen but still the thought of quitting a high-paying future career weighed heavily on me. I think looking back on it, this was the most pivotal choice I’ve made in my entire life. While this might sound extremist, I believe in the veracity of it. Many reasons for this.

My life for 26 years felt like it was being led without my control. I felt like a passenger to my own fate and I was just riding but irresponsible for the decisions I made because they had already been predestined. Go to school, make good grades, go to college, take a gap year, get down to work and find a corporate job that paid a lot and prepared for a wife and a family. This was the established path I had always been led to believe was the correct one and I had followed this tradition like the good soldier for my entire life. But two months ago, I think something snapped in me. It was the lowest I had ever been and I couldn’t figure out why. My job was one with a lot of potential to make money very quickly and I had more authority already in a month and a half than I had had an entire lifetime at previous jobs.

Yet, I couldn’t have been any more unhappy. It was a month of heavy deliberation in which I searched myself for answers. I was writing, reading, meditating, anything I could do to figure out why I would be so miserable in a job for which my entire family and friends lauded me.

Finally it struck me, I had stopped living according to myself. I was doing what others expected of me but it wasn’t what I necessarily valued. I was time-poor and had no time to do the things I wanted to do besides drag my tired ass to the gym every day. I had no interest in what I was doing, which made it hard to buckle down and consider long-term possibilities within that company. But more than anything, it just made me realize that I want life to feel bright and diverse and unique to anyone else.

I don’t want to be average. I don’t want to be a drone for someone else’s dream. I don’t want to exist to make someone else money. I want to live for me and start working on MY ventures and make money for MY dreams. I was born with a talent that you’ll be hard pressed to ever really see me acknowledge or recognize but it is is there and it is not ever going to be exploited and abused by others furthermore. I want to travel, I want to write, I want to play guitar in beautiful places, I want to inspire hope and freedom in others and be someone that is remembered long after I’m gone. My dream, since I can remember, has been to open my own bar so now I have begun to put together an actionable plan as to how to actually accomplish this.

After quitting, I went to decompress in Florida for a while and reconnect with family and friends to touch roots with things that used to inspire me. I noticed that in the weeks after leaving my job, a calm, quiet confidence began to slowly build in intensity. It is a feeling which I’ve never experienced before but has slowly cured me of that crushing impostor syndrome that has plagued my entire personal life. Going over my life as a talent acquisition specialist looks at a resume, I realize that I have lived more lives in 26 years than many live in a lifetime. I have more experience in more areas of my life than many ever hope for and it has inspired me. If I can survive so many difficult periods of my life and still come out standing, genuinely what can ever stop me.

It’s a unique feeling, one that I hope everyone gets to experience at some point. Maybe I’m just late to the game, admittedly I’ve spent most of my life in denial of who I am. But still, I enjoy this.

After leaving Florida, I accepted a position with the bar I used to work at as Pool Supervisor. Normally, I wouldn’t want anything to do with the pool because it is so mismanaged by my boss promised me carte blanche with it to fix it and do whatever I see fit. He pitched it as “this could be your project, you wouldn’t necessarily have to stop being a project manager” which shows he knew exactly how to appeal to my big, fat ego. Luckily, he wasn’t bluffing this time around and I truly have been able to build the bar program from the ground up. It couldn’t have been more relevant experience for a future bar owner. I was able to design SOPs, create an entire new drink recipe menu, train the new servers and bartenders, curate the liquor, wine and beer stock and overall just make the place mine. Don’t get me wrong, I still viscerally hate the pool. It’s where good bartending goes to die typically. But I think I Stockholm syndrome’d myself into really caring about it. I find that I still goof around but I’ve also become the first one to tell people when to stop messing around or how to improve certain processes or actions. It is wild, I never thought I would grow up to be someone who actually has some authority. I don’t know how to feel about it.

As to my future, I feel like Troy Bolton in High School Musical 3. I’m torn between two conflicting desires. What I want most in this world is just to travel long-term. Be an ex-pat in as many countries as possible. I have been reading travel books like Snow Leopard and In Patagonia which are inspiring me to do something similar. I want to explore the forgotten areas of the world and write about the nature of the life I find there. Most Americans don’t even own a passport and I would love to asseverate unto them how diverse and interesting the rest of the world can be. I’ve always said that I like the idea of dedicating my life to something and, to me, this feels like a worthy cause. In September when my lease ends, I would enjoy the possibility of traveling for a short-term again to remind myself of the life outside the borders of Tennessee.

I reckon I still aim to move to NYC after this too. I believe that dream is still strong enough to justify trying it out. There is nowhere on earth to get such an intensive, comprehensive training into owning a bar as in the great city of New York and I think I just need to rob a couple banks to finance these dreams of mine. Easy.

Anyway, that’s my life update for right now. I think I will be focusing on writing now, specifically more descriptive prose that is typical in travel and nonfiction work. Things are better and I am doing well and I’ll end with this. Prioritize your health and goals over anything else and find the path that is meant for you, don’t just follow what you believe others to want for you. Each human has a unique fingerprint; their key to a unique path meant only for them. You just have to learn to read it.

July 23, 2025
being honest with myself

Another week of just getting by. How many more of those do I have left in the tank? My friend’s are being diagnosed with terrible sicknesses. Two family members have died in the last semester. No one seems to know what they are doing and always seem to actively be as confused as I. At what point do you take matters into your own hands and comprehend just how short life really is. When do you just be honest with yourself and decide to go for it and live the way you desire again. Completely selfish and foolish but still fulfilled.

This week, I made the first step toward self-fulfillment. I set myself on a deadline. Fair but tough.

My lease ends in September and I must have a true, actionable escape plan by July for what comes next. Do I want to try to open up that bookstore cafe I always bring up to myself? Do I want to travel abroad again? If so, where and how. I feel pulled in so many different directions these days that it is a bit of a toss-up as to what I really desire. Because currently, all I desire is the merciful release of sleep and alcohol. I wish I had someone around to tell me what to do and how to accomplish it. Sitting here staring at 16 tabs on google chrome, each filled with a different world of possibilities and worries is overwhelming and more than a little terrifying.

What if I want too many things far too much and end up instead doing none of them but falling into a same old routine. In my head this is unacceptable but yet I have made no progress toward the future. I sit here working two jobs, grinding my teeth against the cold steel of the day dreaming about a world where it would leave me be. Where nothing is expected of me and I am able to live free of obligations. Admittedly, this fantasy shortchanges both myself and the people around who love me, it is one to which I fall victim and I know others do the same. Maybe this is some side-effect of a 26 year long anxiety-ridden amygdala or maybe a vision that calls to me from somewhere far beyond from a merciful deity.

I know I am not alone in this. I remember discussing with my college girlfriend, who also suffered from extreme anxiety, these same escapist fantasies.

“I wish I could just be a nun in Italy. No one ever to see me again from back home and no responsibilities except to the land. I could work on a vineyard and live out the rest of my days happily I think”. These were more or less her exact words and I’ve never forgotten them.

Mostly because I agree so wholeheartedly with that statement. Something about lying to ourselves and indulging in these false realities is so powerful. It allows our minds a rest for the moment with a much happier idea. It is the basis for Cognitive Behavior Therapy, except that forces one to replace bad thoughts with more realistic and balanced ones. So not quite the same.

Being truly honest with oneself is recognizing that these runaway thoughts are probably a symptom of something much deeper and complex than just being sad and idealizing another exotic destination to make ourselves feel better. It took me a long time to realize that. Daydreams are coping mechanisms. I keep thinking that being somewhere new will fix that. I get stuck in a mental rut and assume the way out to be moving somewhere else far away where I don’t recognize the people or the scenery. This is a fallacy and I am able to be honest with myself to admit that for everyone.

I have been doing that again lately; once again desiring, yearning, itching, coveting to travel. But I recognize it is partially for the wrong reasons. I need to be real and admit that. I tell everyone that I need to be gone from Franklin and go back out and travel. And while I do still indeed want that— it’s been my dream for as long as I can remember— I also need to recognize it isn’t going to solve my problems. If I go out there and start working as an English teacher in South Korea or a bartender in Australia, I am still going to have the same mental struggles that I have had since the beginning of my life. What is going to happen once I hit a dead-end in a foreign country? How many times can I pack up and leave before I run out of room? It happened leaving Florida and going to Germany. Then, when it hit there, I panicked and left back for the states. Back in Florida, I ran away to Tennessee thinking maybe this was the future but now— here I am again.

Being honest is also admitting that this might be too harsh of a stance upon myself. I feel I have always been fairly realistic and self-conscious of myself and who I am. Armed with this knowledge, it has made my life a living hell but also one in which I can see both sides of my personality. I am downright evil to me. I am also aware of my strengths and I am the one most impressed with my achievements. That being said, I recognize that each chapter in my life has been just that: a chapter. A building block to carry me through to the next level of my life.

While I am running from myself, I recognize that each new moment has progressed to the next and was a necessary step in self-progression. I learn more from what I don’t like than what I do. All these moves were escaping, but they were also building.

Being honest with myself is understanding that I really don’t know who I am yet. This post is so back-and-forth because you get to witness an idiot have revelations in real time. I don’t understand who I am and maybe I never will. I recognize my self-imposed deadline stems from fear of unrealized potential and a hope for better but it also is the result of a failing personal image and romanticized daydreams.

I still feel as though I am on the right track with getting back out there and traveling, I just want to make sure I am doing it for the right reasons. I want to feel sustainable. I also want to be surrounded by so much noise that the loneliness I feel bubbling up is clamped up tight.

My dad texted me today, telling me that I am being too hard on myself and stressing too much. I think to hear that from him went a long way as a wakeup call to me. I am only 26, why should I be panicking myself into an early grave for no reason whatsoever. My only true obligations are to my rent payments and myself. I have the former covered yet that latter never seems to be sufficiently ameliorated. I always forget to take care of myself and then end up in a place where I am burnt out, strung out and sad. I want to change that.

Being honest with myself is realizing that I don’t need everything in life. I don’t want everything in life. I just want to feel like I am on the right track. While I guess that isn’t something that most people probably ever feel— they just settle into something— I want to strive for the right thing. I want to make other people’s lives better with my being in them. At this rate, I might never like myself. But I can do my best to make sure no one else has to sit with that same feeling. That has always felt like my purpose and I need to find a way to capitalize on that. Maybe somewhere along the way I can make peace with myself. But sitting here uninspired, mad at life, on fight or flight mode is not going to help with that. In fact, its actively dragging me down.

Let’s hope I can stick to my deadline.

March 25, 2025
knowing when to give up

Suppose you think you finally know where you want to go. You’ve scratched and clawed your way through the gritty moments of life in search of something that feels right. This could be a person in your life, it could be a job, it could be some other seemingly self-fulfilling prize. Regardless of the end result, you set off on a path that feels correct and good. Just the action of taking action spurs you to new life and begins to intonate the sound of change.

Now, you finally get there. You’ve reached the moment you were waiting for. They are in your arms, the job is yours, you’ve started the business, things should be good. But you find that you aren’t happy. In fact, it’s worse than that, you’re unfulfilled. The prize is not something that elicits the feeling you were expecting and the top of the mountain is bare, save for the flag you already planted from the other times you tried finding satisfaction from all the wrong avenues. Where do you go from there? You can’t cut your losses and move on, that’s sunken cost fallacy subconsciously preying on you. Once all that time and money has been spent, you feel like you’re deserving of the happiness that must be following as a result. Good things are sure to come soon if you just stick it out a little longer. What sense does it make to walk away now?

These questions are nothing new and we know it. We all fall into that category occasionally (some more than others) of **be careful what you wish for**. Sometimes, it’s felt like my life has been a cyclical, visceral example of this and I’m a bit sick of it. The problem is— I have been chronically obsessed with “the chase” for as long as I can remember. There isn’t a chase that I would pursue from which I would back down. I was proud of it, wore it on my sleeve and bragged about it. I didn’t care about girls so much as I cared about the way it made me feel when I pursued them. More often than not, I would be disappointed and bored by the time they liked me back. I just did it so I could do it. It was a power trip and one that has taken me 26 years to even recognize. Professionally, it has been the same way. Realistic goals were always granted to me eventually, there is nothing that hasn’t eventually been able to happen.

But this was not written for the purpose of self-machismo or bragging to this TextEdit document; far from it. This is to say that my experience has actually left me hollow, unsure of myself and unable to know when to give up. The problem with “the chase” is the fact that it can back you into a corner and turn you into a caged animal. If you constantly run for something new and then lose interest once you arrive, what’s left? Why bother chasing if it just leads to unhappiness. Why bother at all. The fact is I am jaded now and find the pursuit has really only been leading to heartbreak and mismatched ideals.

Here is an example. This time last year, I was, again, lost but thought I found a way out through construction. I submitted ten months of my life chasing this, a virtual year of my twenties spent running toward something that I knew had to be my savior. But now, I’m here. And I realize construction is not for me. There are essentially two options: desk job or the never-ending vortex of stress known as project management. In the time I’ve spent doing both, I see that neither are for me. I will die before I ever work a traditional office career, I don’t have the mental capacity to sit in one spot all day and count down the hours to lunch. But by that same token, every morning now I am awoken by people calling, asking for answers or materials, and I cannot imagine doing that for my entire life. I don’t mind leading but PM’s never have a second to breathe, each call is a panic attack around the corner and, no matter the pay, this is not an enviable life in my opinion. Maybe I’m just built weak but I don’t know how they do it.

So now, what do I do. How can I realistically just give up? This is a lucrative career path, this is something I’ve worked hard for, this is something I thought I desired. But my mental state is declining with each passing hour. My friends are worried about me. My parents calling trying to give support. I bragged to everyone about this, so how would it look if I quit because phone calls were giving me panic attacks? On one hand, someone might say “oh well at least you tried and now you know it’s not for you” but that’s always easier said than done isn’t it? You give that advice to your friends without thinking. But I’ve found the advice we give— versus the actions we take— are often very dissimilar. You might know that it’s not for you but how can you just walk away and start over without any other real, applicable idea?

I am scared to look for something new. The future now seems dark and muddled. No real happiness in sight. Only sleep to comfort me. Why should I keep looking for something else when I might end up in the same scenario again and look twice as silly as I do right now. Everyone has to be judging me. I keep my phone on Do Not Disturb to proactively cut them off first. Why even bother with anything when I could just waste away in bed. Embarrassing moments from work daily life cycle in my head. Everyone must hate me. Why stick around. I could fly abroad before anyone even knew I was gone.

These are the defeatist thoughts that rule my brain and dominate my thoughts.

But.

I have decided to try a different path. This is why I write this blog for anyone who might be reading. We cannot control these thoughts, shouldn’t even try to. They will undoubtedly pop up and intrude our daily lives. But. You can choose how you react to them. Will you let them rule over you and dictate your future? Will they force you to stay in bed and not make any efforts toward finding a better future? Or will you react against them, accept them as they come and ultimately reject their subjectivity in favor of the life you want to live.

Because the truth is that there is no shame in giving up. It’s a hard truth to accept after growing up with the “never quit” mentality but it is a true fact. We all have strengths and weaknesses and the sooner we embrace them the better. I truly believe that if more people knew when to throw in the towel, we would have a lot less unhappy people in the world. And I recognize it’s not always that easy. Not everyone is without debts or without others who rely on them. I am quite lucky in the fact that I have only rent to worry about and nothing else. By that logic, it would make even more sense for me to be setting myself up for success rather than unhappiness.

While I thought this route would lead to happiness, it obviously has not. So how long will I stay unhappy before moving to action. The truth is that those who really care for you will want nothing more than to see you happy. If you give up is immaterial as long as you know that it is a reasonable, objective decision not made in the heat of mania or exhaustion. I find myself wanting to be seen in a good light from those close to me and will try to hide my problems if it makes them believe I am more capable than I am. However, I’m getting better at letting others in and I see now that my worries have been unfounded. Life is a twinkle of a star and then it’s gone, so why spend any time at all being unhappy if it’s an unhappiness within your control. Many days, I actually find myself repeating the Serenity prayer used in AA in difficult times. It really is spot on.

I also believe that nothing is quite so mentally deteriorating and exhausting as not having a guiding North Star.

In many ways, I am very jealous of my mother. From the day she was born, she knew exactly where she wanted to be and far surpassed her own expectations. She gets sad and feels emotions like any normal person; yet, she has not had to deal with the exhaustion of not knowing which foot to step forward next. People like that have always seemed to be the happiest to me. Waking up knowing they pursued a plan that was best for them and it worked out. They are innately fulfilled by the guiding light that has towered over them like the fire from the Tabernacle.

But since I don’t see that fire personally, I learn to live with the uncertainty. I cope with not knowing. I hope and desire to one day find the thing that will inspire me. But standing idly as a passerby to my own dreams will not get me there. There is never a right answer on knowing when to give up. It is an innately personal decision to be made by you and you alone. But don’t let it stand in the way of your real dreams. Since starting my job, I’ve never been so depressed but I’ve also never been so inspired. Being stuck in a corner makes you realize what and who you truly value; why you do the things you do. It has enabled me to reflect and realize that I am only 26, I have been living in the shadow of my own futile exasperation rather than visualizing an end goal worthy of the chase. I still don’t have my answer, but writing lately has helped me understand more of who I am at least and affirming my desires.

Recognize when your dreams have taken a backseat to the motions of life; that’s when it might be time to reevaluate whether you should stick it out or go after what you really want. It is never too late.

March 12, 2025