Be Here Now

I've been putting myself under immense pressure these days to change my life. I suppose this is all part of my current internal conflict around approaching middle age without the cash and prizes I thought would be here. I can say in all honesty that my life is rather fucking grand. I don't really have much to gripe about other than the fact that I am stuck in a (decently paying) career that I don't want any part of because, beyond the fact that twice a month I receive an email from my bank indicating that my employer has deposited funds for me, there is nothing fulfilling about what I do. My employer insists that I do a good job, so it's not like I'm floundering in the workplace. The fact is that I do such a good job that there are no more challenges for me. All of the heavy lifting of my new job was done within the first 90 days and now, it's just a steady coast.

I used to see this every day from my desk at work:

Now I look at this:

I've come to realize that the sea of computer monitors I see before me all day long resembles a graveyard with plastic tombstones. I dread each day I'm there because it feels like my life is slowly being sucked out of my soul along with any aspirations I once had that my life would be glamorous. Some recent reminders of who and where I was a long time ago (mentioned here and here) have added fuel to the flames of my mid-life crisis. I'm doing some internal work to try and come to peace with all of this. One of the most important things I've ever read was this:

If you want to change your life, change what you do and your life will change as a result.

(I've tried to locate the author of this but have yet to succeed).

As I've mentioned in other posts, this blog was about doing something different. It was about finding things that interest me for their own sake and not the promise of gold bricks or magazine covers. Although I haven't paid as much attention to this blog as I would like, I can say that each post has been gratifying despite the fact that the readership can be measured in single digits. I figure that if I do this simply because I like doing it, I'm moving ever-so-slowy in the direction of self-fulfillment. As Paulo Coelho writes in “The Alchemist”, when you're moving towards your chosen path, the universe conspires in your favor by throwing a few bones your way that inch you closer to the promised land.

And that's the funny thing about where I'm at these days. There have been circumstances in recent memory where I had the chance to do different things in regards to career change. Each of those did not work out. What ended up working out was more jobs in a career that I've said for years that I was done with. Is this what the universe really wants for me or is it that I'm too damn complacent to do anything else?

That's where the picture at the top comes in. It's from “Be Here Now” by Ram Dass. I stumbled upon it in a story about the literary influences on the late Steve Jobs. The picture stopped me in my tracks. After viewing it, I realized that a cruise ship can't do a quick 180 in the middle of the ocean. I hate the idea that time takes time because I feel like I need answers Right Fucking Now. I have been trying to find the place where I am being patient yet am doing as much as I can to avoid complacency in my life. I'm clueless as to where my efforts and energies have to cease and where the universe needs to take over. I suppose it's safe to say that the knots in my back, my current state of constant fatigue, and the minor physical injury I've been nursing for two weeks are all indicative of the fact that I've been trying way too hard.

I'm sifting through piles of unfulfilled dreams, expectations that were never realistic, and abandoned opportunities that deserve reconsideration. I'm doing my best to take it all one step at a time. Shedding old skin, inch by inch.