Days off of work seem to last way longer than days with work. I can show up to work, sort out a couple of things, go running, read a book, and take a nap all before the afternoon.
I think my secret to be able to go and work out for a while or run 6 miles at a time routinely is that almost as soon as it's over, it becomes like a distant memory. And while I'm running, I'm aware of that. So I can just keep going knowing full well that any of the unpleasantness will take care of itself later.
My best thinking comes when I'm running and listening to music. It's then that I can run through long, complicated, pseudo-real-life scenarios in my head. I can internally articulate many of my viewpoints simultaneously. But, many times I don't feel like thinking so I just listen to a podcast instead.
I'm glad I live in the world now, because at some point I've become deathly afraid of silence. It makes me very uneasy and anxious. That's why I constantly need something playing. I don't even shop now without my iPod. It probably looks stupid, but it puts me in a bit of a bubble away from the plebs.
It's a couple of days from my 2 year work anniversary. I've noticed that when I look back at any point of my life, I look back with a certain fondness and longing. No matter how much I hated it at the time. I wonder if this phenomenon will roll forward and I'll look back at this 2 year period with that same tint.
My life now is probably the one I always knew I'd lead when I was in college. In fact, I'd call it a best case scenario. High tax bracket. Do what I want. It's really pretty good. The occasional crisis thrown in for good measure.
The older I get, the more I'm sure that "Life is relative". I'm reading this book set in Sweden, and of course, everyone in it considers life in Sweden to be extremely important. Up to and including all of their governmental dealings and the like. But no one in America bats an eyelid at anything there. That sort of national perspective, or even continental perception, is a sort of macrocosm of an individual's life.
Time after time I hear about people going through things that would make my brain melt. Having some bastard kid. Working a shit job. Being mid-twenties and still trying to plow through towards some a degree that won't help them anyway. But mostly these people are happy because they are engrossed in it. And an individual will tend toward happiness or unhappiness largely without correlation to outside influence.
I've talked about the Hedonic Treadmill before, and I may very well be in the midst of it. Short of occasional spikes and lulls, there's a moving average going on there. Some famous test showed that after about 2 years, a lottery winner and an amputee will come back to the same emotional levels they had before.
These sort of things are important to keep in mind for a variety of different reasons. Namely, keep things in perspective. Even if there's some intimidating bigshot at your company, think of how many other companies are out there and how, when it's boiled down to, everyone is just a person. And they should be thought of as such.
Celebrities and the rich seem to be more prone to breakdowns, chemical dependency, scandal and the like than the normal person. And I'm confident that that's more than just overreporting. What it says is that the journey towards a goal, the work towards it, is always going to be more important than attaining the goal itself and the associated rewards of it.
In my personal life, I rely on goals and benchmarks. Without something in the near-horizon, and the further off-horizon, then what are you even going towards when you wake up in the morning. I have an unofficial 5-year-plan. It is 2-branched with a hybrid third path. That's what I think about.
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