About three weeks a go, I anxiously put in a request to go on vacation. Anxiously because I don’t like causing trouble for people and also because I have like really bad anxiety all the time anyways. In this scenario, people being coworkers and causing trouble meaning not being at work. I literally sat in the washroom for 30 minutes after sending that email because I was worried about it getting rejected. I don’t love work, but I do believe in doing good for others so I kinda just ate my 20ish vacay days a year until it was too late. But after much deliberation, I decided that it was about time that I did something with my life other than sit in the basement and work on my computer for a job that I don’t feel like basing my entire life off of. And also, when I’m not working, I’m still in the basement working on the blog, playing games, or checking out keyboard stuff, so it’s not like my life is really that popping during my free time. So after nearly two and a half years of working 7 days a week and feeling anxious, I will finally be taking some time off and doing some fun stuff. In fact, I am leaving to Portugal in about two days from this article being posted and will be on route to D.C. for the end of October to meet up with some other friends.
Recently, whenever a friend had asked me about how I have felt about life, I’ve been saying the same thing. I’m just ambivalent to it. I have mixed feelings towards life. Nothing is going incredibly well, nothing is going poorly – I’m not really enjoying myself but I can’t really complain, and I don’t really know what it is that I should do about it. So I made a decision to spice things up and go on vacation to see if there is anything that I can do to jumpstart my joy for life. I told my mother the other day that I felt like my life has reached a stagnant point, where in the past 26 years, I’ve been continuously growing, albeit at a slow rate. But recently I just don’t know how much better I’m going to get at anything. I don’t know if I’ll ever reach the same athletic heights, the chip on my shoulder as a young professional isn’t quite there anymore, and I don’t have the need to improve on things that don’t bring me immediate gratification. I’m just ambivalent to all these things, as life is going OK and there is nothing that needs immediate fixing.
But I figure that going on vacation, making plans, organizing logistics, spending money – putting myself through stress will allow me to find a way to crave progress again. And what are we progressing to? The ultimate goal in life – to be happy, to feel dopamine coursing through the brain. Is that how dopamine works? I don’t know I work in advertising. In reality, going on vacation is an expensive exercise in trying to find methods to be happy. It’s not a goal to go on vacation, it’s a goal to be happy as much as possible and I’m hoping that going on this trip will give me the spark I need and the reminder that being happy is cool and that it is something that I should strive for often. Yeah, this sure is a fucking expensive exercise. But it was this or therapy, and there’s nothing wrong with therapy but I just know that I would enjoy talking someone’s ear off too much, so we’ll save that for another day (and also when I can afford it sustainably).
I understand that for some of you, this is weird. But I’m incredibly neurotic and sometimes I forget to feel things when I should feel them. Sometimes when I’m with friends or doing something that I’m supposed to enjoy, I have to literally reminded myself to be happy. It’s not because I’m not enjoying myself but it’s because I’m thinking about work, people, the future, sports, a woman, the political and economical state of the world (the last bit is a joke). And it’s the ability to disassociate which is what I’m looking to be able to do. Like when I write these blog articles, I’m not writing them because I think it’s fun (although it is), I’m writing these articles because I can’t stop thinking about these things and I need to mentally puke them out of my head. Some people worry about their financial situation, some people worry about their health, and some people worry about their relationships. Me, the biggest narcissist I know – I worry about whether I am happy enough or not.
So I’ll be on vacation, getting drunk, fat, and maybe I’ll even talk to some new people – I don’t know. But whatever it is I’ll be doing, I’ll be trying my best to be happy. Don’t worry, I’ll be writing and posting while on the trip. And you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram to stay updated.
