Tech & Tonic

I read blogs of a lot of my friends every day, since a lot of us spread out after college. It’s interesting to see what all of us are accomplishing after school, but sometimes it makes me think of what I am actually accomplishing in my own life. At times I feel pretty damn successful, at others I feel like a complete waste of time. I know its not a contest, but some people are in other countries, traveling the world, volunteering, living in Hollywood, Alabama…all sorts of places.

• Ragsdale is in Alabama, partying in New Orleans at ever chance
• Brianna was in New York, is now in Arizona
• Cando is in Buenos Aires, Argentina
• So is Robin
• Brett is still playing with our band from SB, The Riot Before, and Touring the US
• Jason, Baingo and Johnny are in Hollywood still having the crazy nights we used to have
• Tracy is in New York making the same mistakes

Sometimes it just seems like I’m not doing anything that great. Your life gets into a rut sometimes and you have to spin the tires to get out of it. I have been working for ESET for nearly a year and a half. Its a great job, but the same thing every day really begins to get monotonous. I suppose some of it is just that I dream of doing big things, but can’t figure out a way to get there. That and maybe that I haven’t really taken any time off since I started working here (I Have 91 hours of vacation time saved up!).

When things start to blend together into one constant stream, what do you do to differentiate one day to the next? Weeks tend to blur by, Monday turns into Friday, turns into a quick weekend where I try to accomplish everything I didn’t have time to do during the week, and the loop starts over. My roomate Adam recently said - "What would you do if you didn’t have some project to accomplish on the weekends". True, I always am working on something - fixing a motorcycle, a truck, the boat. When do I have time to just sit back and enjoy the shit I worked my ass off to get? My brother and I do web site and graphic design as a side business, and most nights we come home from work only to turn on our computers at home and work on another project until nearly midnite.

I have made some sacrifices, or concessions in order to, what I thought would, improve my life. I have quit smoking, (going on almost 5 months), don’t drink much (maybe one night a week, if that - a big cut from my college/SB self), joined a gym that I hit during lunch a couple times a week, take vitamins, try to eat healthier…but what has it given me. I’m still the same person, who misses partying, less responsibility, hell I just miss sitting on the porch and smoking a cigarette. In those days I knew where my life was going - somewhere successful in general, although nothing specific. In my head then I was headed up and up, just had to finish my education and get to that good job. Those were easy dreams to have when you thought they would never come true (College took me 5.5 years - it seemed like time was frozen in place back then). Well now those dreams have come true, I have that job, although I’m just working my way up the corporate ladder. Success for a 25 year old I suppose, but nothing special - I still have a lot to learn and achieve.

But god damn it sometimes I just want a cigarette, and to have the conversations I used to have with the people I used to have them with. Maybe its just changes that come with age and maturity, but life used to seem a lot more passionate. Things used to be bright and colorful when you didn’t know where you were headed. Not that anything is bad now by any means, but it just seems to flow from one day to the next seamlessly, when it used to be clear, concise days of achievement and down time, where things could be accomplished at any time of the day or night. Now my life is blocked out from 8-5 monday through friday, rushed from 5-10, and hectic on weekends. This can’t be the way it was meant to be enjoyed? I’m not complaining by any means, and my tastes are way too rich to be enjoyed as a bum just living on the beach, but god damn it I have to figure out the way to live my life in a manner that keeps my fire burning, because I am quickly realizing that this is not it.

And, an afterthought: this is not a complaint about anything in my life. I know how fortunate I am, and some of has been given to me, some of it I have worked for myself. I love my life…this is just speculation as to how I can live it in a better way for myself.