Man Notes: The Days Since

My Agent for Change

It has been a couple of days since I last posted here, where I revealed a personal truth about myself, about my enduring depression, and it's been a couple of hard days.  My work life is at the peak of our high season, with lots of additional responsibility coming down the pipe.  It has also been a time of doubling down on my new outlook.  I've decided to "not a give a fuck" in the way Mark Manson discusses it in his book.  I've decided to get out of my "Feedback Loop from Hell" as Manson calls it.
I'll give you a couple of scenarios.  First, I was covering vacation for a coworker.  I was in an environment that was out of my ordinary.  Then, the systems in place to make the place run smoothly broke down.  All kinds of problems arose from this situation.  I don't want to go into specifics as that would be an inappropriate use of this blog.  Basically, what happened was that I was forced to either let these things get to me, or to "not give a fuck."  I chose the latter.  I had to actively choose to not let other people's drama affect me personally.  My job is my job.  It is the mechanism that provides for my family, for the things I love to do, and I need to stop taking everything in my professional life personally.

The other part of this is that I've chosen to use my free time better.  I choose to not simply wile away my free time on my phone playing silly games.  I choose to feed my brain, to feed my heart, to feed my soul.  As the first crusted layers peel away from my unused heart, I find myself having a deeper sense of forgiveness, of trust, of love.

Lately, I've felt a sense of amnesia.  A sense of not remembering myself and my life, and this "amnesia" has left me disconnected from parts of myself that are, and remain, important to me.  In an effort to remember myself, I've also been listening to music through an iPod.  I've been digging through albums from the 90's, and it has reminded my of my earlier self in ways that don't feel melancholy and saccharine, but in ways the feel important, like remembering my own identity.

In the end, the greatest agent for change is my own family.  My wife and my daughter remain the best motivators for being true to myself, to being my better self.  Working around the house more assuages my guilt for not being a better partner to Tracy.  Spending some time with my daughter teaching her how to draw connects me to my creative loving self, and shows me why art is important in all its forms.

It's been a busy couple of days.  A good couple of days.