Some Life Stuff

 When I was down in the dumps yesterday, I tried to have a talk with myself to figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my year slash life. 

The categories on my mind were:

Job

FIRE

Friends/ Family

Socializing

Dating

The House?

I don't remember much. 

Job - I think I was trying to decide about my loose goal of job hunting. I'm still vacillating between trying to see how far I can go in my career and how much money I can make vs just laying low and taking these last few years as pre-retirement. 

So then I decided to identify my empirical objective. It's just living. "Living my best life" would be nice but given my history, living is ultimately the most basic goal. Anything that threatens that can't be a long-term objective. 

I'm still carving MERJ 2.0 so I'm trying to give myself the next 2 or so years as that trial and grace period to figure out what lessons I want to take forward and which ones I want to leave in the past.

So in the context of choosing life first, aggressively job hunting can't be a goal. It's fine for survival mode, but I'm trying to live and rejection is a known life-alterer for me. 

So while sometimes I wag a finger at myself for staying at Call Center #1 for so long (now that I know how good it is over here), I had to get to a good place financially before I felt comfortable quitting or attempting to move on. 

So yeah as for my current job or future job prospects, I'll do whatever is the path of least resistance. 

FIRE - not sure where I was about that earlier, but in this moment I feel immense gratitude for the moment. It gave my life some direction and a goal and bought me some freedom. It's a difference I would not have known. 

Friends/Family - I wish the outcome was different and I could feel what so many bloggers feel - that strong desire to be closer to family and quit their jobs to be closer and spend more time with family. In most contexts thought, family = kids. My extended family are fine on a prn basis. I have one or two relatives that I'm in semi-regular contact with and even that is enough and sometimes tricky to navigate. I'm putting less weight on those interactions and actively trying to give them less play time in my mental playlist. 

Socializing - on a preliminary basis, I find less anxiety in hanging out with the older retired ladies. There's no hemming and hawing and internal agony. So for as long as I have the option, I'd rather hang with the oldies. Even going to take a backseat to Bumble BFF. I'm hoping Meetup groups in my area will become more active again. 

For as much as I can control, I really want to try to do things twice a week, preferably Wed and Sunday. On Wednesday, I'd prefer during the day though. Like today there are evening hours for volunteering, it would just be easier to do it during the day. 

Dating/Apps - Continuing from socializing, I think I just thought if I just put myself out there all these things will happen. I'll get the social life I think I'm missing. I will instantly make friends. Just like on dating apps, I'd instantly find a husband. Nope. So I think with apps, I'm divorcing myself from the idea that I need to hang in there. It no longer serves my purpose. I choose life and these things threaten that choice. There's no prize for 'hanging in there.' There's nothing to prove to anyone. The apps are not for me. As my counselor likes to tell me, I'm not grand enough to change the conditioning of an entire society. That's editorialized a bit but same concept applies. 

I think I just need to keep checking in with myself and re-affirming that I have nothing to prove to anyone. The race I'm running is my own race. People are lapping me left and right and that's okay. Everyone is running their own race. I'm in the leanFIRE lane and it's a matter of circumstance and choice. FatFIRE is out of the realm of possibility. Millionaire status is not in my purview and will likely not happen, and that's okay too. 

I could get a higher paying job but it would require for Me to do tons of interviews and encounter tons of rejection for something that may take an unknown amount of time to materialize. That is not compatible with My Life and its limitations. And that's okay. 

I'll have to ease off the apps when I finally can, yesterday I was browsing to convince myself I wasn't missing anything and ended up on a call with someone. So there's that. It'll have to be a step down process to make sure I feel certain about it when I'm done. This time for good. I have enough evidence to prove that it wasn't the right fit for me. 

The only other thing I'm excited about is an Interracial Dating Event coming up in April. That one I would like to attend because at least everyone there should be open. But we'll see what the male pool is. I suspect it won't be in my favor, but I'm willing to spend the $20 to find out. 

Admittedly, I'm still toying with the idea of FWB. But I know ultimately the only way it'll work is if I'm not that into the guy and blech, who wants that. But the thought is still there just for some sort of consolation prize. Will I feel good about myself though or will it just reinforce Mean Brain thoughts that this is as good as it gets.  Ultimately, I'm looking for emotional support, so yeah FWB is the exact opposite of that. (See this is why it's good to have objectives!)

That's all for now!