Whoops, I had meant to do a blog post on my birthday, the 14th, but I guess I just wasn’t feeling it. I had part of a long post half typed up, but what I wanted to write has changed enough over these past couple days that I figured it would be better to rewrite it rather than revise. Hopefully I can actually get it posted this time.
I’m old. Honestly, I’ve been old ever since I turned 30. People like to pretend that with better health and longer lifespans that 30 is still young (Particularly the people around you who will say “You’re still young” at any insistence of being old) but 30 years is a lot of time. 40 is just 30 part 2 in my eyes. Maybe that will change, but I’m doubtful.
40 doesn’t bother me as much as 30 did though. When I turned 30, I saw getting old in a somewhat narrow minded way.
“You’re closer to death” “It’s going to be harder to find a relationship” “It’s going to be harder to get your life off the ground” While those might all be true to an extent, it’s something we can’t predict or accurately measure. There’s no blueprint to life that says if you follow or don’t follow it, it will affect whether you can be happy.
That’s the big thing I’ve learned in my late 30s. Nothing is guaranteed. At first it can be a bit unsettling, and might make you feel insecure. However, when you really think about it, it also opens up a ton of possibilities. You’re no longer locked into this idea that there’s a better path than others and you don’t have to spend as much time being cautious of something because you might be worried it’s a bad choice.
Rather, the way to think is that even if you do make a bad decision or fail at times, it’s not the end until you’re dead. You can do something else. It’s not going to be easy, nothing ever is, but if you’re willing to look at things with the right mindset, I believe a person can continue to move forward.
For anyone that’s struggling right now reading this, I’d recommend two books that really helped me. The first being “Everything is Fucked” by Mark Manson and the second is “The Courage to be Disliked” by Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi. Hell, even if you’re not particularly struggling, they will both help to work past a lot of this anxiety we burden ourselves with for no reason.
Anyway, age doesn’t mean much. I wouldn’t say it’s just a number, but it’s a number that doesn’t mean much on it’s own. It only tells how long you lived. Not how you lived or what level of maturity you’re at. The fact you survived might have been more revered in the distant past, but long gone are the days where that survival can be correlated to wisdom (in my view at least)
Incidentally maturity is gained solely by thinking less of oneself and more about others. Age is a vessel that gives you the capacity for that maturity, but if you never fill it you will never be more than a child. Which is what I’d call most American republicans. Children who think only of themselves or people who benefit them and not of the world they have to share.
Anywho, I’m not intending to get preachy with this post. It’s not my intention to write an essay about other people. It’s meant for me to talk about myself. A bit self-indulgent, maybe, but I don’t think that’s something you always need to give up.
I want to talk a bit now about my plans going forward.
Right now, there are no specific plans in motion. I struggled with a couple ideas, but like I mentioned in the intro, none of them have a guarantee, which made it hard to choose one up until now. However, I’ve decided that I’m most likely going to just go with the one that shakes up my life the most. Mostly because I think it will be the one to ultimately provide the most benefit towards helping me figure out what I want in life.
I decided I want to go to Japan to learn Japanese. I came to this choice partly because my own self study has been lacking too much and I feel like I need something to really push me. I also chose it because it would put me in a new environment that I would need to learn to adapt to rather than potentially playing it safe in smaller ponds (places like where my friends live or things close to my parents)
It’s still something very much in the preliminary stages. I need to do a bit more research into where the best places are to apply to and the process I need to go through. I did read at one place that the way semesters worked, the next time I could apply for one would probably be in October and that would be for the spring semester. If that’s true, I still have some time yet to put things in order.
Even if it’s not the case, I don’t plan to do this right away, but I do hope to do it soon. This can always change based on what’s going on in my life. Like I have a endoscopy/colonoscopy coming up and if they found something serious, I might have to delay or rethink those plans a bit. Similarly if I find that I’m making good enough progress on my Japanese on my own, I might end up deciding that I don’t really need to. It’s impossible to say right now.
The only thing I can do is move forward a step at a time and see where things carry me. That’s just the general direction I’m pointed in. I’ll keep people updated on what happens.
Before that happens though, I have more immediate things I have to do.
Namely I need to stop spending so much time online and spending money on things I don’t need. The root of both problems being addicted to social media. While thankfully not as bad as it used to be with me (thanks in part to Twitter turning into a fascist shithole) I still spend too much time on places like Youtube and Blusky.
Youtube, I’m making it a point to enable the distraction free plugin I have that eliminates the recommended feed and comments on videos. I’m also preparing a lot of music (either by buying cds or getting videos converted into mp3s) so that I can listen to it without having to load up Youtube for it (just to keep the temptation of searching anything else)
I’d go for a complete ban, and to be honest it might be the more effective way, but there’s things I can’t give up. Things like Taskmaster episodes, vtubers and people playing games I like, guides for games I’m playing, streams of game events (like Summer games fest coming up), and Japanese immersion/guides. T
I’m working right now on coming up with a system that regulates my usage. Maybe I’ll allocate a specific amount of time or have a certain time of the day where I’m only allowed to do that. I’m not sure yet, but I’m going to hammer something out this week
Same with Blusky. It’s not nearly as much of a problem as my checking Twitter was, but I’m thinking of limiting my usage of it to certain times throughout the day. Maybe like once when I wake up, once around mid day and once in bed? Rather than the back and forth checking I do while doing other things.
Also in addition, I’m thinking of not following accounts like Wario 64 that alert me to sales of certain things. While I do have some trepidation of missing out on things I would like, I imagine most of that stuff are things that I probably shouldn’t be buying. I should try to focus purely on the things I either think of organically or find myself out in the wild
Again, I’ll have a more specific plan detailed out later. This is mostly just things being thought off the cuff. Once I have something set, I plan to put up barriers to make sure I don’t step over the rules I set for myself.
I’ve got a few more things to talk about, but I’m already finding myself getting distracted. I think what I will do is post this up now and maybe make another post later on that covers those things. That way I can get this out there and essentially move on instead of potentially having to rewrite the whole thing again