I have a friend in another state I’d like to visit, but I’m having trouble figuring out how to execute on this desire. That sounds a lot like where I am in life right now—trying to figure out how to execute on things.
It’s tempting to say “oh, but now isn’t quite the right time,” but the thing is that life is short. I’ve been working on the right time for things my entire life. There is no right time, you just have to figure out how to make things work. Doesn’t make it any easier, though.
— § —
There is a genre of thing that happens to me wherein someone says “why are you living your life this way, you’re brilliant and unusual and capable and you could be earning many multiples of what you earn; what’s the secret desire or need that’s keeping you where you are, here, earning a fraction of the money and respect you ought to have?”
This sounds like I’m making things up to blow my own horn, but it’s actually worse than that, this genre of sentiment now weighs on me like so many bricks.
Like, what am I doing wrong? What in me is fundamentally broken? Obviously, people believe I should be so much better off or more successful than I am. What is it that I’m missing? The problem is, you don’t know what you don’t know, or rather, I don’t know what I don’t know. I only know that life has been a slog. I work hard and I work a lot and people also find that worthy of respect.
But I’d love to figure out how to actually cash in on this thing people think of me. The worst is when it’s people in my own industry or workplaces.
I have a full lifetime’s worth of student loans just waiting to get paid off. If there is some way for me to earn half a million or a million a year, please, tell me what it is, or hire me, or whatever.
On the other hand, if you’re going to say “just be an entrepreneur,” well… That’s not something that’s so easy to come by. There’s a lot of socialization there, a lot of subtle cues and ticks that I don’t have. I grew up in a lower middle class “would be a gold watch now you’re retiring after 40 years but this is the lower middle class so it’s a Casio” sort of a family. You know. Go to college and read great books and someone will hire you for $80,000 and then you’ll have it made with stable, respectable employment. You might even be able to afford two cars!
— § —
I didn’t realize how much stuff I buy from China / India / Canada / the EU until all this Trump tariff stuff. Like, I’m that sort of DIYer that just has gone online my entire life and ordered what I need and found it not to be too expensive. Now that I’m filtering out other nations so that I don’t pay $103.00 for a $3.00 item, I’m realizing that there’s a lot of stuff I’ve had shipped in from overseas over the years without much thought.
No, I don’t want to change this practice. I am learning that I’m not much of an American “patriot,” at least not in these colors.