This was the first comment on my last post and it could not have been more perfect. It challenged the dramatic emo meltdown that I was rocking after a day of perpetual mornings (traveling from east to west can kiss my ass), and called bullshit where bullshit needed to be called. Also, it made me think of hot straight guys with flexible morals and hamstrings. I’m not taking it all back, but let me just fill in some of the gaps.

2023 was a year of the Twinkie on a Stick*. There was not a day that went by where there wasn’t something really amazing just outside of my grasp which once in a while is a really good motivator. In my crazy-insane-does-this-shit-actually-happen-to-people life though, chasing so many big things can be completely exhausting. I actually ran myself into the ground on multiple occasions trying to grab it and make sweet mouth-love to it. Why? Because doing really cool shit generally makes you think that everything you do needs to be even bigger and better than the last. And that, my friends, is one of the easiest ways to lose perspective, lose control, and generally watch yourself fall to pieces over and over and over.

Maybe it’s just me and you’re all going to think I’m some weird psychopath, but after a while of holding yourself to obscenely high standards, you start convincing yourself that everyone else does too. After telling people you’re going on a trip to Ethiopia, you feel like you can’t bloody well follow up during the next coffee date with a story about how you found a new kind of laundry detergent that makes your sweaters feel like your wearing clouds. And that’s the sort of thing that led to me to walk down the street assuming that strangers are already disappointed in me, or think I’m a failure because I don’t have millions of dollars, I’m not a world-famous writer, and I haven’t solved every global issue – conveniently throwing all of my actual accomplishments in the garbage.

When I said I needed to just blend in and move on in my last post, what I really meant is that I needed a vacation from all of the pressure – the pressure I put on me, the pressure I project onto others, and the pressure that keeps me from actually accomplishing or enjoying all the great things that I’ve been very lucky to have been a part of. I’m not going to stop trying, or hold myself back from some of the things that lie ahead – but I am going to remember to strip away all the mental game bullshit that consistently keeps me from celebrating successes and progress instead of always taking note of what didn’t happen. Hopefully that makes a little more sense than the sleep-deprived, where-the-hell-am-I post from yesterday.