All Those Wasted Hours

There's a reason I haven't posted since February (missed you guys and gals), and that reason has since come and gone. I could dwell on my time at Apple, and how I messed up and let 1 Stockton Street take the rest of my life down with it... or I could choose to focus only on the few exceptionally fun times had with the few exceptionally cool friends I made there. Instead of either, though, I'm opting for the route where I suppress all emotions toward it until there's enough distance between it and me (read: like three years or something) that all I remember is the gold. Adult of me? I thought so, too.

What I can say at the present moment (which, as this super-cool new blog font, titled "Luckiest Guy", reminds us is October 21, 2011 [?!]) is that I have seen the bottom, my friends, (or, as close to the bottom as I can see, what with being 24 and super privileged and all) and it's no place I'm eager to return to. I mean, I actually hadn't written a blog post in over eight months because I didn't want to have to face the state of my life by typing it all out again. And that's no good. No good at all, I say I say. I now present a brief list of lessons learned since my last posting:

- No retail. Ever again.
- Don't settle for anything that feels deeply unsatisfactory longer than six months. After six months, it stops functioning as a learning experience and instead starts eating away at dreams and self confidence and such.
- Writing is therapy. Don't stop writing. Even if it's mindless and not for profit.
- For the majority of their users, Apple products are a status symbol and nothing more.

That last one was starting to get a little harsh, and here I am breaking my own self-imposed rule from three paragraphs up. I'll instead continue with a fantastic quote that I carry around with me for times just such as this:

“Always in the big woods when you leave familiar ground and step off alone into a new place there will be, along with the feelings of curiosity and excitement, a little nagging of dread. It is the ancient fear of the Unknown, and it is your first bond with the wilderness you are going into.”

Thanks, Wendell Berry! Basically, what I'm getting at here is that, now that I'm finished with this past experience, a lot of options have presented themselves. Many of them would be easy, safe choices, and would allow me to return to the comfortable lifestyle I'm used to in the best state on the West Coast with the friends and family who have always been totally awesome and there for me and will continue to be/do so. OR, I could carry on with what's hard and challenging and continues day by day to shape me into a more self-reliant, confident individual. Whatever that might be.

I'll say again that my dad's heart situation, which began almost a year ago to the day, has put a lot of perspective on the decisions I make. It's easy to declare my intention to push forward and challenge myself and truly approach every situation with the goal of being as genuine as I can, but it's quite a bit more difficult to actually live that way.

So here's to the decisions we make that lead us down the paths of self discovery. And here's to giving everything we care about, or knew we once cared about, every effort to work out the way our once more optimistic selves intended. I'm here in the present moment and it's all stretching out before me, and I'll be damned if the Unknown isn't scaring and inspiring me in equal parts.