Course Corrections

The final quarter of 2019 is well under way and my year of focus on a few key tasks has been less successful than I'd hoped. I set out in 10/2018 to journal daily and kept it up for a pretty decent time frame, until I felt the sense of obligation getting in the way of the value of content or purpose. In the mean time the efforts i've made to post more exhaustive and introspective posts waned significantly. There's a multitude of reasons surround this, but in the end, it's about my own lack of focus against my core goals, and a propensity to be sidelined by pretty much any opportunity to avoid the effort.

I've never been good about doing what i have to over doing what I want to, so making what I want something I had to do has sorta backfired.

It's complicated. I know. And it's all still an excuse. I just have not kept my priorities straight.

Along the way I've been apathetic to an increasing sense of risk as to my continued employment, the loss of which can and will throw myself and my kids into an extremely compromising positiion, likely costing myself and them the house that it's been my mission to keep them in, and the basis for the many agreements made during my divorce needed to facilitate doing so. I'd hate to see that happen, the risks are heavy, the certainty of the company and my own future are highly doubtful, but i'm not trying to address it.

My health has taken a hit too. I've not lost weight and likely gained more. I'm feeling more body pains and aches. I've battled a cold for 2 weeks and it's taking way too long to overcome it. And i'm looking at a dramatically greying and aging person in the mirror these days. It's startling.

I'm depressed. But i'm not making the changes and taking the steps to address my weight, my health, my career options… i'm just waiting for the next thing to come along and force me to move instead of getting proactively out of the way.

Why? That's my dilemma. Why am I not trying harder to get out of harms way?

I'm depressed, as mentioned, and angry too that the weight of these responsibilities, those of the house and kids, are all on me. It's inconceivable to me that the other parent who shares equal responsibility has seemingly not made any effort to better their own circumstances. Instead they just stay in their own state of suspended action, doing nothing either, all the while blaming it all on me and me alone.

I'm looking for a spark to re-ignite my own personal agenda. I'm trying to really focus as hard as possible on my core critical needs. It's so easy to be sidetracked by the daily news, politics, entertainment related podcasts, old movies, and just background noise. I have fallen into bad cycles of avoidance that end up in my day passing me by, with only the most mandatory tasks being managed along side a handful of low-priority time-suck distractions vs putting full focused energy into a daily job search effort, daily eating habits, kicking ass at my current job and making myself irreplaceable instead of irrelevant, and spending every day focused on the well being of my kids, my relationship with Jen, and most important in all of this, on me.

Tommy had friends over last night and I snapped at 2.30am when they were only being moderately noisy. I've got all sorts of excuses too… sick, not sleeping for days, etc, but in the end I was just being an asshole. And I knew it moments after snapping. I apologized to them and to Tommy repeatedly but the incident drove home just how angry and lost i really feel.

I'm refocusing my routines to reduce the filler. I've discussed this with Jen too. I have to keep my eyes on the critical key prizes and needs. I don't want my life and my path or that of my loved ones defined by the actions of other, but by my own intentions and efforts.