Mini Freakout

It's almost Halloween and I can't wait for the candy. The big downside of not being able to trick or treat anymore (or steal from children's candy stashes) is that the variety of candy that I eat this holiday will be much lower than usual. A couple mini candy bars here and there, practically no weird candy that I pretend I don't like but eat anyway. I'm almost disappointed about it but I keep having to remind myself that I'll be able to bake anything I want, like pumpkin scones with maple glaze. Mmm guess I know what I'm doing this week!

I've been having a tiny meltdown that started this past weekend and peaked last night when I got home from the trip with my mom and asked my dad to push my resume at his company in the hopes that I might get a job there easily. I'm struggling in the same way that I was back in LA; I can't find an industry that suits me. My qualifications are few and I know I'm stuck in entry level positions for now, but even narrowing things down that much doesn't help me at all when it comes to choosing an industry to enter. I've worked in telecommunications and I think I have a good sense of what I don't want to do, which...also doesn't narrow things down much. Part of me wants to forego a career right now and work on learning programming languages and trying to succeed as a writer. A basic no-frills job with good benefits and little stress would be ideal for me to pull do for at least a couple months while I apply to a non-traditional programming course in NY, learn on my own, and write. I'd be able to save up and spend my mental energy outside of work rather than killing myself for a career I don't yet know I would want.

What's stressing me out the most (besides the fact that I do need a job and the income and stability it would provide) is completely conflicting advice that I get from the important people in my life. It's not particularly useful to be told over and over, "You could be doing something so much more with your life." Okay. Couldn't everyone? I feel like I know what I want but there's still that risk that I face, say, with writing. I could spend the next five decades trying to write and perfecting my craft, but never find success doing that. At what point do I either give up or relegate it to a hobby rather than a pursuit? At the same time, jobs come and go and I could build a career, giving everything (time, energy, more time) I have to that, then have it pulled out from underneath me.

There are no guarantees in life. So what do I do with it?

Come on, life, tell me what I should do.

Bliss

I've been baking for a couple years now, not really seriously, but enough that I've invested in a ton of equipment: dedicated pans, a cookie dough scoop, two flour sifters, several ramekins, a massive bag of active dry yeast. I bake often enough and have such a small sweet tooth that I find fault in every recipe that I make. Cookies are always too dry, too crumbly, too soft, too hard, too floury, too sweet. Cakes taste off, frosting gets overly sweet, icing doesn't set....the list goes on. I'm my own harshest critic, and I rarely stumble upon recipes that seem worthy enough to add to my personal recipe box.

But today I came across a fudgy brownie recipe that baked up so wonderful that I have to reconsider my life. I always thought I preferred cakey brownies, so the recipes I would make usually ended up having three or four eggs, lots of flour, and a small amount of butter or oil. But I gambled and this recipe paid off.

This isn't a baking blog, so I won't get in depth about the experience, but producing such an excellent product is invigorating, and I feel suddenly supremely confident about my baking abilities (my last batch of cookies had a bad brown-granulated sugar ratio and turned out too dry and crumbly). If one recipe can turn out this good, think of what else is out there just waiting to be made!

Now if only I can replicate this kind of success in my writing...

Routine

I've noticed in the past week that my body is starting to get onto a schedule. I have an alarm set every morning at 7:30 am, and while this has been a standing alarm for the past year or so, my body is finally starting to adapt to it. Rather than hitting snooze and rolling over, I've started feeling more awake when the alarm goes off, and the few times that I've rolled over and wanted to go back to bed, my body won't let me. This morning I woke up four minutes before the alarm was set to go off. This used to happen back when I was in high school and had a set wake-up time every day, but the weekends would always throw everything off.

My mind is developing an evening routine as well, partially due to the fact that I have a standing order to produce a blog post daily and wish to do so before I go to bed, and partially because I've (surprise surprise) been able to keep my promise to myself that I'd accept the challenge and do just that, no matter how stupid or incoherent the post.

What's really weird, is that feeling my body and mind fall into a routine is one of the most freeing feelings I've had in a long time. For the past three years of adulthood, I've blundered along, making lots of mistakes and just barely learning from them. One of those mistakes, I found, was allowing myself to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. If I told myself I wanted to get up early to make breakfast, the next morning I would have no qualms hitting snooze 47 times then rolling out of bed and rushing to get to work on time. If I told myself that I would definitely be finishing a particular project by Friday, I had no problem letting the deadline past and deciding that since it was already too late, I might as well do something else.

Lazy-me didn't hold myself accountable to not-lazy-me. It was frustrating, because as months passed, seasons passed, and holidays passed, I realized that the project I'd thought about 8 months ago could be nearly complete if I'd started immediately and held myself accountable to my vision. Instead, I wasted my time away. I wasted three years away.

I feel like I've been asleep, or at least in a fog. It sounds stupid, but things seem to be finally falling into place for me.

I should beat lazy-me with a crow-bar.

A New Chapter Begins

My life is changing and I couldn't be more excited. In early October I'll be moving out of Los Angeles and back home to North Carolina. I could technically call this running away since I have nothing lined up and no concrete plans once I get out there, but it doesn't bother me at all.

I've realized in the past few days that there's nothing I fear most than complacency, which is exactly where I've been. Lost after graduating, I took a job that I needed but didn't particularly want and for three years I watched myself grow older while my dreams grew farther and farther away. Eventually I began to crave change but by that point change seemed so difficult, so complicated, and the easy thing to do would have been to plug away, searching for the fleeting happiness that a good weekend or a fun trip would bring while tolerating the drudgery that the week would bring.

What I fear most is living in continual anticipation of the weekend and dread of the workweek. There's more to life than that and it's what I need to find right now.

In less than a month I'll be on the road headed to a place without a plan. Maybe I'll find something soon and settle in North Carolina, or maybe I'll itch to leave again and continue to pursue something I can't quite place. In either case, I intend to enjoy the journey.

Thoughts on Crisis

I've spent the evening doing meaningless internet research on quarter-life crises and the people who have them. Hands-down my favorite article was written by a twenty-something who felt that only entitled and privileged young people were stupid enough to call their struggle with life, with growing up a proper crisis. It's true, growing up is difficult and what I (and others) would consider to be a personal life crisis is only difficulty accepting and making important life decisions. However, I see no harm in using dramatic language to legitimize the feelings. There's nothing worse that feeling as though your feelings are minimized because you should "suck it up" because "everyone feels the same way".

While everyone experiences difficulty in life, particularly when making and accepting important life decisions. I think it's important to remember that there is no set path to follow. There's no one solution to a problem--everyone needs to find their own and make sure that they're making decisions that are right for them. It's okay to make mistakes, and I for one would rather make them and learn from them sooner rather than later.

Mania

Energy needs to be focused to be properly utilized. Without a conduit and a direction, it is liable to leak everywhere and eventually disappear. This is why some people who excel in school find themselves completely lost once they graduate, if their next step is not clear.

I spent a good chunk of the day reveling in air conditioning on a very hot day and watching my brother's pet rats run through their cage with manic energy. It's exhausting to watch, especially when I'm trying my best to conserve energy so as not to warm myself to an unbearable temperature.

Sometimes I feel that same mania coursing through my mind. It's largely a product of anxiety mixed with optimism. I could go to Switzerland, or maybe British Columbia might be nice; I should clean the entire house and hang the curtains that've sat in the corner for months; I want to bake all the things; it'd be nice to be a concert pianist, maybe I should do that: the world is out there ready for me to take what I can and be all that I can and what do you mean I have to calm down and go to work tomorrow in order to pay my bills?

It's manic energy and sometimes I suspect that it's the opposite of motivation. Motivation is more stable, it's more focused, and it's more effective. That mania isn't even motivation to the extreme--it seems to be a mental reaction that I have to freedom.

Being caged sucks. It's very restricting to have barriers and limits, to want and need to push against them with all your might in order to feel some semblance of freedom. But think back to the pet rats. Their cage is a safe place that they crave, especially when they feel overstimulated and just want to go home. If we take them from their cage and place them onto the floor of a wide-open living room, the opportunities are endless. Yes, they still have limits, as they can't very well fly around the room, a piece of cardboard or solid furniture stops them, and sudden movements are terrifying, but the choices are endless. Should I go this way or that? Do I want to hide under the couch or sit out in the open? Do I want to be in this box or in that box? I want my cage back!

There's a phenomenon called the Paradox of Choice (which itself is being disputed by scientists about whether or not it exists, but plenty of anecdotes certainly support the theory), that asserts that if there are too many options, it becomes increasingly difficult to choose among them. I experienced this earlier today in the deodorant aisle of the store: Dove, Mitchum, Secret, Toms, unscented, blueberry blackberry, fresh, revive,  etc, etc, etc. It was, quite frankly, overwhelming, and I got the same kind I just ran out of, despite the fact that it wasn't my favorite. The choices were simply too much--it was easier to stick with what I know.

In my mania, I recognize this same paradox. If I'm free, I can go anywhere and do anything, tethered only by my financial and intellectual limitations (not to mention workplace skills). If I'm caged, say, in Los Angeles, or in a specific industry, my options are more limited, but I am able to focus so much more clearly. This is not to say that the end-result or goal is necessarily more or less appealing than what it would be were I to be fully free, but, that focus is there. The energy is focused, and I am not as manic.

This focus is important and I am currently searching for it. I need to escape my mania.

Adding yet another potentially unhealthy habit

If I decide I want to fix a habit, there are numerous places I can start. I can stop biting my fingernails, thus depriving myself of germs and satisfaction that my brain so desperately craves. I can stop procrastinating, reading useless articles on the internet and taking inane quizzes about whether I am truly an introvert or have an anxiety disorder (do I??). I can stop using internet speak when I talk to specific friends, which just looks strange amid manicured and correctly capitalized and punctuated sentences.

HOWEVER

It is paramount that rather than dwelling on the negative in my life, I begin introducing positive. Those same evenings that I lurk on Reddit or skim internet forums, in the back of my mind I know that I ought to be writing. Three years ago I told myself that I would start writing a novel a quarter, or a short story a month, or a flash fiction piece a week, or even a couple sentences a day. For three years, I failed to convince myself to follow through, and all I have to show for it now are a couple unfinished (and restarted) novels, portions of short stories, multiple scenes without context, and a number of languishing story ideas that cry in the corners of my Google Drive and look up expectantly when I open my idea file and throw another half-baked on in there to waste away with the rest. 

For the next month (that is, 30 days) intend to start fresh, and commit to writing 10 minutes of fiction a day. That's every day, including weekends. I've had the hardest time committing myself to a routine habit, even one as mundane as writing daily. I'll spend weekend days lounging around in bed, watching five movies, going out to eat, and half-heartedly attending parties. But there's no excuse--10 minutes a day is nothing. I probably spend that much time preparing for bed (on the days I don't pass out in my clothes).

So that's it. Write fiction for 10 minutes a day. Let's see if I can do it.

The Hero's Journey

I've been having the hardest time coming to grips with my adulthood. I've more than a little trepidation about my future, and I can't tell if it's regular anxiety or equally regular panic. Nearly three years in a dead-end job, seven years in a no-longer inspiring locale, and a perpetual fear that I'm fooling everyone but myself--I think it's time that I begin anew.

And thus I shall embark on a personal journey to quote-unquote find myself, or at least find what it is inside me that I most want to come out. Maybe I'll find happiness, maybe I'll find contentment, but if I can at least find inspiration, well then...

That's what it's all about.