It’s incredible how busy you can be doing nothing. The problem with being unemployed is that days blur into weeks, weeks into months, one month into the next. I had a lot of fun these past two months. I caught up with multitudinous friends. It was grand, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Unemployment has been slowly eroding my mental health and self esteem. You live and you learn and November is looking brighter.
Input
- Books
- The Reptile Room, Lemony Snicket
- Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan
- Ready Player One, Ernest Cline
- Ghosts of Onyx, Eric Nylund
- The Prestige, by Christopher Priest
- Walden, by Henry David Thoreau
- Silver Linings Playbook, by Matthew Quick
- Movies
- Bee Movie
- Her
- BoJack Horseman (Season 1)
- Spiderman Homecoming
- Ready Player One
- Moana (again)
- Thor Ragnarok
- Antman
- Avengers Infinity War
- Transcendence
Output
- Blog posts published = 15
- Gym
- Twice a week I go to Planet Fitness. They have a “30 minute Circuit” with machines for a full body workout. I do that twice, (and I skip the cardio portion, so it only takes me about 45 minutes).
- Diet
- Not too shabby. I certainly have days where I binge, but for the most part I stay close on track
Travel
- I flew to Austin to visit friends
- I drove to Chicago to visit friends
- I flew to LA to visit friends
Lessons
- Don’t be unemployed for extended periods of time. Money wasn’t a problem because I live so cheaply and I saved up almost all of my money from the cruise ship. A lack of structure will shake me to my core. I felt adrift. In my “Looking Ahead” section from August, I said I’d ” travel, read, write, meditate, exercise, repeat.” That didn’t happen as much as I thought. I said, “unemployment is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.” Nope, not uh. Not the case. Maybe a month was ok, but anything more and my life quickly spiralled out of control. I played about 5 hours of Skyrim a day for a month. Not having any constraints meant that I didn’t have any restrictions. Why not play video games? Books shmooks. When I have all the time, I don’t want to read. When I don’t have time, now I want to read. I need to not have time again.
- Looking back, I spent 4 months trying to get on that cruise ship, and 6 months on that cruise ship. I remember going to a dance event and dressing up for Halloween in 2017 and again in 2018 and I’m pretty much in the same place. Beating myself up isn’t the answer. Ideally I’d congratulate myself on following my dreams. Not every experiment results in a success. That’s ok. But still, I want to do something with my life and I’m not getting any younger. I’m having my 27/100-th year crisis.
Looking ahead
Ok last time I was wrong about next month, but this time is different.
- NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is in full swing. My fingers are on fire writing this novel! It’s exhilarating and terrifying. I’m so used to writing 500-1000 word stories, now I have to write 50,000 words. It’s like living in a closet my whole life and moving to an auditorium. I have so much room! And I have to write 2,000 words per day, which means no editing. I imagine it’s like driving with no breaks.
- I’m reluctant to admit it, but I’ve started a journey into selling life insurance. Don’t worry, I don’t sell to friends or family. The reluctance comes from thinking life insurance salesmen had a sleazy reputation, but this agency seems alright. I should be starting in a week or two.
- I’ve had a second epiphany. Sometimes you need to get smacked in the head with a brick twice for it to really stick, you know? I re-watched this video on “Non-Violent Communication.” The basic premise is that there are two games we can play in our daily lives: How Can We Make The World Wonderful? and Who’s Right? In one everyone wins, in the other, everyone loses. It’s truly inspirational and a joy to play the first game. My goal for this month is to not forget to play the first game.
- I’m moving to Manchester, New Hampshire in December! 6 Short weeks left.
More new adventures. How exciting.