Juggling

by Jon Sullivan - 2023-01-11 - Jonism

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With great adventures comes great responsibility.

Not really. The responsibility is basically putting bags in the car and going, mostly. I just needed a more intriguing way to humble brag about my awesome life while still pretending it's a big complex production, sort of. But honestly it is sort of a lot compared to the last couple years in San Diego. It sort of is a big complex production. Scheduling activities is easy when you never do activities. But I've somehow managed to way overbook myself for January. Concerts, people, seminars, dinners, weekend adventures, dating. I've managed to go from staring at my computer screen taking up all my free time, to having to maintain a calendar to even track what I'm doing in the next few days. And a lot of it involves driving to Portland which is 4 hours round trip. I'm juggling a lot.

Making it more complicated is that it ALL involves things I haven't done in 20 years. So far I'm enjoying it all. But I need to figure out how to not just automatically sign up for everything. It's a weird balance. Don't sit home alone too much. Do all the things. But don't have my life too complicated with no time to relax and vegetate. Also...... Don't be a whiny ass about how hard it is to have a wonderful life. I mean... what manner of self absorbed dumbass complains about having too many good things going on? It will be fine. Just relearning so many life skills.

It's not that I don't know how to schedule and prioritize. Or that I've forgotten how organizing a social life works. It's more that I've had my foot on the accelerator for months now, I want to do everything, there isn't enough time for all of it, and I'm just starting to realize it's not all going to fit. I need to decide what NOT to do. No one told me I'd have to pick and choose.

I'm still disappointed I haven't gotten to crabbing and fishing yet. But when? There isn't enough time. And while we all pretend this blog is me being an open book and sharing all the details of my life, it's not obviously. There's more. But there isn't more Jon. There isn't enough Jon. In SD I got used to this fanciful idea that I'd come here and live my best life, easy peasy, but then it snowballed pretty rapidly. Real life isn't going to be a Stoic utopia. The deep end of the pool comes with risks. Throwing away one life and rebuilding another from the ground up is messy. Unknown unknowns become knowns, and often those aren't what you thought they'd be. People are complicated. Stoicism is complicated. New Jon-ism is complicated. 500 mile road trips every weekend are complicated. Friends and family are going through shit of their own, and that weighs on me as well.

And while Oregon is beautiful and magical, it's also a political and economic hot mess right now. It's Trumpers for life vs hippies. It's businesses giving up on a state that can't handle rising crime and homelessness. Not a big deal for me, but it does make things complicated. I live among people who want me dead. I live among people who will steal everything I have, given the chance. Not a huge impact on my scheduling, but I can't ignore it, and it's depressing and pernicious.

So.... now I guess I start the hard work. Stop focusing on living the dream and start working on architecting a real life. A best practical and responsible life. Perhaps a life with a lot of things, but a more curated sampling of those things. Endless joy on tap, but in smaller sips. I don't know. But I need to.

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