Tag Archives: work

Oh Hai Neglected Blog

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Oh, hai neglected blog. What’s that? It’s the middle of March? Really… When did this happen?

So, here’s some updates is an arbitrary numerical order. This is kind of a collection of excuses for not being here writing.:

1. I started taking Brazilian Jiu-jitsu classes.

Before all of you look at me with a question mark over your heads, there’s probably more reasons I started than I could put here. At the core, it’s in line with the whole self improvement thing. The Wii Fit, though awesome, is not enough.

Also, Brazilian Jiu-jitsu is essentially live action Katamari Damacy. I’ll write more on that thought later, but essentially, your goal is to roll the other person up. Tell me that you don’t see the correlation.

It’s wicked fun.

2. So, there’s this guy…

Speaking of the Katamari, I know I was on a roll, but we all knew it had to end sometime. In proper form, it happened when I least expected it. I found the least likely kind of person in the least likely of settings. Before you think I’m totally lost, I’ll say we’re just kinda seeing each other right now and we’ll see where this goes (if anywhere).

For any of you thinking I can’t handle casually seeing someone, you could be right. It’s something I’m trying and hoping will be good for me. I want to know if I should be cautious, or throw caution to the wind in lieu of experiencing life to the fullest? I wonder if this a risk worth taking.

I know that opportunity only knocks once, so I run the risk… I promise I won’t run with scissors.

3. Man down!

Work is busy and I don’t even have moments to jot down thoughts about posts. One of my work buddies is on a leave of absence and I miss him, not just for the additional weight pulled, or the psychological comfort of him being around. Having someone you work that closely with every day just vanish all of the sudden just sucks. I miss him.

It’s busy. I’m trying to get this crap done and done well. I don’t do half-assed. So, I do the needful that needs doing and I do it well.

4. Social life – I has one.

I don’t know when this came about, but like other bloggers that have come before me have pointed out, it does interfere with writing regularly. It’s not all about item number 2. either. The social life thing has been going on for longer than item two has. My circle of friends is getting a little wider and a little stronger, and we’re stir crazy ready for Winter to end. That’s right, we’re crazy and doing crazy things. Woo. Raah.

Zombie Fluxx is crazy, right? Right?

So, enjoy your numerical excuses and I’ll catch up soon. I have a bunch of partially finished posts as usual. There are stories and ideas and characters floating in the ether as always. One day soon, some of them will materialize here. Until then, be well everyone.

Resolutions

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Here’s to the people who need a holiday to be forced into making personal goals and resolutions and my pity to you.

I was memed by Andrew Badera over at Flip Bits Not Burgers. I don’t refer to him as one of those people, because as workaholic, I’m sure he was just stating his current top five goals.

That’s the point of this post, a response to a meme, and a statement of why I refuse to post my ‘resolutions’ as a special post. I’ve been resolving to and actually working my ass off all this year. I sold a bunch of work this holiday. I’ve not moved in a year and it feels great. I work at a job I enjoy and have been there for over six months now where I literally learn at least something new every day. I am currently on my first paid vacation ever. I refuse to make this happy holiday about finding something else wrong with myself and my life that needs improvement.

Instead, I am going to, and encourage you all to celebrate. With all the ups and downs, I feel like I made it out on top this year. Even for those of you not exactly on top, you made it out at least. That’s worth celebrating. That’s worth a breath of air, a congratulations, and a couple days focusing on relaxation and letting loose if you can spare them.

Happy New Years from The Seize, and hope you all had a blast.

I’m mutating this meme and tagging people to list five things (or more) that say they survived this 2008. These can be five reasons you have to celebrate like I did, or five reasons you’re ready to wash your hands of this year for those of you who just made it through.

1. Lloyd at lloydhumphreys.com
2. Kabren at kabrenlevinson.com
3. h31n0us at Irregularly Periodic Ruminations

…and you can tag as many people as you feel like or no one if you like.

Myst Vanity

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On the way to work today I drove behind someone from Rhode Island (at my own peril). They had a vanity plate that said “RIVENT”.

My mind immediately jumps to “Man, that person must really like Myst to have a plate that says Riven on it.”

Then my geek morning addled mind realizes that this person probably thinks that Myst is a misspelling of the stuff that perpetually hangs around Providence, also known as fog.

Then begs to question what this license plate actually was being so vain about. RIVENT… like a Rhode Island vent? Or maybe Rhode Island event?

I’m glad I have this commute every morning to contemplate what is most important in life.

Self Improvement’s Guise

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If you’ve been reading this blog, chances are that you know I’m all about self improvement. I’d like to take a moment to make what I think is an important distinction, which I don’t think is always clear.

By being an advocate of self-improvement, I’m not saying that the Celes of yesterday was so flawed that a new me is needed. There seems to be the theme among people who are into self improvement that you need to hate yourself to want to be better. I don’t think improvement works well this way, nor do I think that improvement is about being better each day, every day.

I try to improve myself and my life, but I do so with knowing I will never reach level 1000. Life if not like some games where you’re gaining all these experience points and leveling up and leveling up until you’re at level 1000+ by the time I’m seventy-eight years old. As much as I wish it were, life just isn’t like that, my friends. Everyone whose self improvement is a linear picture of reaching perfection will be sadly disappointed in the end.

We as people, and life itself, go in cycles. You can’t always be happy or healthy. The best you can do is try to extend the times you are and minimize the times you aren’t. If anything, learning to deal with the times when things are bad in the best way possible is self improvement. To try to reach a state where you never trip, never falter, and never stray from the best of the best is not only an impossible goal, it’s a step backwards. To improve you first have to realize that you’re not horrible the way you are now, you’re never going to suddenly morph into that butterfly or swan or whatever, and you’re going to make terrible mistakes and have horrible things happen to you on your journey.

You are you, with your own faults and particular qualities. To pledge to make slight changes is one thing, but to act like some day a Honda Civic is going to become a Hummer is delusional and sad (about as sad as that metaphor).

Today is as important as tomorrow, and as much as you should be working towards something, you need to realize, accept, and live in the moment of who you are today as well. Do it because there may not be tomorrow. Do it because to really improve you have to love and accept who you are now. Do it because tomorrow, whether or not you like it, you will still be you no matter what you tell yourself. Do it because even if right now sucks, it is part of you and your story, and only you can do something with it that makes it worth having happened.

I know some things about myself, others I’m sure I’m still learning. By knowing I am a certain way, I can embrace and express that in ways that I am increasingly more comfortable with. Faults are not always faults, and finer qualities not always so fine. To focus on ‘changing the bad things about yourself’ is to place a black and white value on a part of who you are and either try to cut it out or replace it like some kind of Frankenstein graft. To see both sides to a coin is to admit the world is flat on only has two sides. Consider the many sides to the tetrahedron, or other polyhedrons that are the building blocks of life, and try to find how each piece can fit together.

I try to be realistic. Combine slight tweaks with strategies and meet yourself somewhere in the middle before you fall off the edge. If you hate who you are now and set an impossible goal for tomorrow, you will fail in the worst way. Don’t kid yourself into thinking you’re not who you were, because you will always be some version of yourself. Accept it as everything you were has made you today, and will make you every day after until the end of this life. All things shape us, the best we can do is try to take some control over how they do and accept the things we cannot so we can move past them.

Acceptance is the biggest piece to the puzzle I think most people miss. You have to accept yourself, your life, and the general way of life, that it is not a perfect pearl or even an oyster, before you can move on.

And move on to what? What do you really want? Figuring is as much part of the journey and figuring out how to get it.

I want to be better than yesterday may seem like a the daily goal to strive for, but in the long term it makes little sense as it is a generalization, a judgment on the unquantifiable, and an impossibility.

More than self improvement, I think of this as learning to live by living. This involves thinking and introspection as much as it involves getting out there, taking chances, and doing.

Piss In Your Pool, Blow Your House Down

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brick house
I’ve finished my first month of work. I am almost at the official end of training. It has been an entire two years since I jumped into a self destructive relationship. I’m proud. I’ve had time to begin to get a handle on my own identity and spend time proving that I can build a life for myself by myself. I’ve got a good job. I’m done with my classes. Now that I’ve come so far and am fulfilling more parts of my life every day, I wonder if I’m ready to let some new people into my life and maybe even date.

Truthfully, the thought scares me to death. I don’t want to fuck it all up over some feeling over falling. I’m not afraid of the fall, I’m afraid of the brutal landing below. I’m still sick of picking up pieces of myself after losing people. So what do I do? I don’t let anyone new on the inside.

This obviously can’t continue if I’m for moving further foreward.

I’ve been meeting some great people. I don’t know if they’re at the highest of high bars, but I know enough that I respect them and even admire them. I’m feeling connections and they seem to feel that way as well. People are placing trust in me, so why can’t I do the same? When I fell silent Saturday night and just listened for hours, interjecting laughs and utterances, why was I the sudden introvert? Is it because I’m afraid that I’m sitting in a still fragile framework of my recent success of life, made of tissue paper, sitting with a match that might spark if I say too much?

I’m so honest that I have to fall silent to protect myself. I’m scared to shit at how close I can feel to people that I’m still just getting to know. It doesn’t matter if I get to know them if I block them from knowing me.

I’m not as confident as people think. These thoughts pool inside the space behind my eyes until the people I see make me too nervous to speak.

I’m proud to have come so far, but it’s a shame how far I have left to go before I fell wholly myself again. It takes so little time to break a person and forever to remake. I’m rebuilding one brick at a time so that when the time comes, it’ll be much harder to blow down.

What Do You Do?

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Armed Dragon Fantasy Villgust
This post’s screen shot is from the NES game Armed Dragon Fantasy Villgust. This guy is reading the first chapter of Adventuring for Dummies.

What you call yourself? What do you say when someone asks what you do for a living?

Many people say: a student. A student of what? That sends many into a flurry. If you’re a student of everything, aren’t we all? And aren’t you forever a student of your field(s)? You don’t wear a cap and gown and quit learning…

Many people cite what they do to make money. However, what you currently do for money may have nothing to do with it. Working at Dunkin Donuts is a means to an end, not a living. Have the confidence to associate yourself with your longterm goals and dreams. Little sister would say she’s a musician. And she is. She was when she worked at KFC and she still is serving donuts and coffee. Her ability at the oboe doesn’t diminish as she uses the cash register.

Money has nothing to do with it. Was Ray Charles not a musician until he got his first paid gig, or signed his first record deal?

It has everything to do with passion.

What would you still be doing even if no one were paying you to do it? There may lie your answer.