Day 41: What Have I Become
May. 31st, 2023 09:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebeI spent the weekend with my found family over in North Central California for a birthday celebration. There were movies, games, long conversations under the stars, the whole bit. Honestly, it was a great time that lifted a lot of the anxiety and sadness I had been feeling before. It also cemented the idea that no matter what else happens these are the people that I would do almost anything for.
There was some awkwardness because of the falling out R. had with the host, but that's been largely resolved and I think they'll work their way to a closer friendship after this. R. was invited, but thought it might not be the best move given the circumstances so he went and did his own thing in SF over the weekend. I hope he had a good time on his own. I thought about him so often over the weekend. He's definitely a part of this family, no matter what happens.
I've been working through a lot over these trips, and this time I think the lesson was that I have to find a way to be more disciplined about the things I want to do. Intention is not enough, though it is a very good starting place. But any goal I've set for myself requires sacrifice, even if that sacrifice is just devoting time to something that I'd rather give to playing games or watching YouTube. I have to learn to accept that carving out time and energy for my goals is a necessary component of success, you know? There's no other way around it.
The trick is to develop these standards in a way that feels helpful and organic. I've always thought of discipline as an unyielding pressure to do the right thing, but it doesn't have to be. There's definitely a sense of running towards discomfort, or viewing the discomfort of building a habit as preferable to the discomfort of missing out on the things I'd like to do. There's a way to push myself to be better that doesn't involve beating myself up, but that's going to take time and deliberate practice to develop.
I know that this kind of lesson is coming really late for me, but I also feel like I could make good strides with it very quickly once things start falling into place. Once I find something that works for me, the struggle becomes learning how to adopt it as quickly and consistently as possible.
June is going to be a launching month for this. In addition to staying on top of the job search I'll be re-launching my Patreon and preparing my blog for its own relaunch as well. I'd like to practice writing more polished non-fiction at least twice a week and use SEO to angle my pieces toward building an audience. It does feel like one of those things I'll find quite gross as time goes on, but another part of this is...accepting that the world works a certain way and if I want to engage with it then I'll have to engage with the gross parts too.
K. came out of the weekend feeling like he could be more generous, which is a surprising direction for him. I mean, he's not stingy by any means but I never really thought he would be that concerned with what he gives to the world. He's already a fairly generous person and his openness has been exploited in the past. I wouldn't blame him at all for being one of those folks who've "got theirs", is willing to help out a close circle of friends, but otherwise turns inward to make his life better. It's still not entirely clear what this more generous spirit will look like, but I'm on board with it. I too could stand to be more generous with what I have -- time, ideas, attention.
Since today is the last day of May, a lot of my work will be just getting ready for June so I can take off like a rocket. I have to sunset my Twitter account today and I'd also like to finish up the migration for my password manager. Seeing "Missing" yesterday underscored the importance of keeping your passwords tightly controlled and since LastPass has had a number of bad data breaches I think it's a good idea to switch to something a bit more secure.
There was some awkwardness because of the falling out R. had with the host, but that's been largely resolved and I think they'll work their way to a closer friendship after this. R. was invited, but thought it might not be the best move given the circumstances so he went and did his own thing in SF over the weekend. I hope he had a good time on his own. I thought about him so often over the weekend. He's definitely a part of this family, no matter what happens.
I've been working through a lot over these trips, and this time I think the lesson was that I have to find a way to be more disciplined about the things I want to do. Intention is not enough, though it is a very good starting place. But any goal I've set for myself requires sacrifice, even if that sacrifice is just devoting time to something that I'd rather give to playing games or watching YouTube. I have to learn to accept that carving out time and energy for my goals is a necessary component of success, you know? There's no other way around it.
The trick is to develop these standards in a way that feels helpful and organic. I've always thought of discipline as an unyielding pressure to do the right thing, but it doesn't have to be. There's definitely a sense of running towards discomfort, or viewing the discomfort of building a habit as preferable to the discomfort of missing out on the things I'd like to do. There's a way to push myself to be better that doesn't involve beating myself up, but that's going to take time and deliberate practice to develop.
I know that this kind of lesson is coming really late for me, but I also feel like I could make good strides with it very quickly once things start falling into place. Once I find something that works for me, the struggle becomes learning how to adopt it as quickly and consistently as possible.
June is going to be a launching month for this. In addition to staying on top of the job search I'll be re-launching my Patreon and preparing my blog for its own relaunch as well. I'd like to practice writing more polished non-fiction at least twice a week and use SEO to angle my pieces toward building an audience. It does feel like one of those things I'll find quite gross as time goes on, but another part of this is...accepting that the world works a certain way and if I want to engage with it then I'll have to engage with the gross parts too.
K. came out of the weekend feeling like he could be more generous, which is a surprising direction for him. I mean, he's not stingy by any means but I never really thought he would be that concerned with what he gives to the world. He's already a fairly generous person and his openness has been exploited in the past. I wouldn't blame him at all for being one of those folks who've "got theirs", is willing to help out a close circle of friends, but otherwise turns inward to make his life better. It's still not entirely clear what this more generous spirit will look like, but I'm on board with it. I too could stand to be more generous with what I have -- time, ideas, attention.
Since today is the last day of May, a lot of my work will be just getting ready for June so I can take off like a rocket. I have to sunset my Twitter account today and I'd also like to finish up the migration for my password manager. Seeing "Missing" yesterday underscored the importance of keeping your passwords tightly controlled and since LastPass has had a number of bad data breaches I think it's a good idea to switch to something a bit more secure.
