Showing posts with label living. Show all posts
Showing posts with label living. Show all posts

Friday, September 2, 2011

Struggle

Being a poor young intelligent individual is tough. I always think I have a plan or solution to the chaos of life. My thought my be correct. I have great intentions, I try to make life happen and do things but then I always get into some sort of funk where I do nothing. I get lazy. I stop working out. I just sit around and bum around.

This could be due to the fact that when I am in my active state I stay active until pure exhaustion and then my bum state comes along for maybe a month or so. I start to get lazy and not care to do much besides go to work and go home and sleep all hours. It gets to the point where nothing is satisfying unless if it is late night boozing but even then that wears on my individual. I become fatigued, lost in thought, great thought, possibly the best thought of life but my laziness has won to the point where I don't write it down and it is lost forever.

I have been feeling like I was in that funk for a couple of weeks. I wasn't creating anything to happen in my life. No surprise, no big events, nothing to look forward to but the same monotonous day that just keeps occurring and then I think if this is how my eternal recurrence will be looking through the eyes of Nietzsche then I pray there better be a God. Although I know it is much more simple after life, there is nothing. I think about this and realize I must create. I must focus, I must live and not get trapped by any funk or financial digression. Part of living is to struggle but part of joy is overcoming these struggles and realizing that it is my life. Live it. Don't be defined by others, don't live to the expectations of society. Live  each experience. Live each moment. Create a moment to be living in. Make things happen. Don't sit around waiting. Drown yourself in the sea.

I didn't see this part of me until I got my bike brakes fixed. I struggled cycling because I had to take some hills nice and slow, especially going down hill. I had to struggle. I couldn't brake, it was scary, possibly deathly but that was because of cars and traffic but if I could have kept going with out worrying about those other people it would have felt like freedom, satisfying. I am thankful I have brakes again and my bike. The extension to my life, the thing that make me feel the most free. The thing that grants my will. Sometimes it is a pain in the ass but that is freedom. I have to give myself some restrictions of complete freedom like having safety brakes but what I am learning now is to not always depend on safety brakes by depending on them to much you are constraining yourself causing a new struggle but a struggle that is trapping you. Creating a struggle that has no boundaries but a safety brake sounds better.

I missed seizing certain moments that could have been life changing. I wanted to see what will happen instead of doing. I am tired of waiting. I need to create, engage, live. I know I will struggle and get in other funks but I also know I am making things happen. It is not about having plans and goals for a future. Those things are nice, it is about the small things. Not knowing what you are going to do the next day but knowing you are going to do something. The things I currently do know that I am doing is that I am going to Lubbock to see the Nevada football game, I will be going to a Thrice concert and Niki (@missniki13) is visiting me for that, and I am taking the GREs. That is enough for me to know but I know this now I need to live in other ways. I need to create smaller random things and become more spontaneous from day to day.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

The Journey Changes

It is hard to believe that I have been in Austin now for about 4 1/2 months and my journey here has changed completely. My lease ends at the end of September. My wonderful government job has ended. I am finding myself with a plentiful amount of free time. I have enough saved up for rent for the next two months. Then what????

I made that destiny change for myself. My original plan was to move forward and move to Washington DC. I would do the couch surf and stay on couches with friends who are struggling and some who are making it in that city as I attempt to get a a job on the Hill. After discovering new things about myself, I am taking a new journey. I am following my spirit. It may be stupid but I am young, I have nothing holding me anywhere (except for a lease).

I thought of a few things I could do. I could go and buy a backpack and a plane ticket to So Cal and start the Pacific Crest Trail until it gets to cold to continue on and find a small Sierra Nevada town to hang out in until the spring, then continue my journey. (This one appeals so much to me and the PCT is on my bucket-list). However, I was more reasonable, I realized I was in an amazing bad ass city at the moment and by working full-time I haven't been able to explore all the perks of live music and other fun adventurous things to do that Austin has to offer.

Shannon just moved here and I am starting to find more like minded people in this city. So I had to follow my spirit. I applied for a job at Starbucks. This is the story of how that went. Last week I applied for a Starbucks position because I knew I would be laid-off soon. I then got an interview at Starbuck for the following Friday. The day before my interview my boss informed me that Friday morning all of the temp employees will be told that they are going to be let go. I went to my interview on Friday after finding out I was laid-off. I nailed the interview. I then jumped on my bike and cycled back to work. I popped a tube on my way to work. KARMA! I then got off work and changed my tube, then headed downtown to watch Adestria and other bands play a show. On my way downtown I popped the brand new tube I just changed. DOUBLE KARMA. I then worked for the feds the next two days flipping out that I hadn't heard back from Starbucks yet. Finally Sunday evening I got a call and was offered a job. I started on Monday. So I went to my fed job, then to Starbucks. On my way to Starbucks I popped another damn tube (I haven't fixed this one yet).

Karma she is telling me something not sure what it is yet.

The idea of working for Starbucks is actually quite exciting. I can essentially live anywhere that Starbucks has a location and ask for a transfer. I was preparing to throw random cities in a hat and ask for a transfer for whatever city I pull out of the hat. Instead destiny occurred. I got a text from Deisa asking me to move to Seattle with her in December.

Seattle = Starbucks = I must get a transfer. This is destiny and my spirit taking me there. For the next few months I am going to work my ass off in my new world of baristahood and get a transfer to Seattle. From there I am hoping to work my up into the corporate ladder.

Yes, I know my plan in life changes all the time. That is who I am. A dreamer. I dream big, I follow some, I do irrational things such as randomly packing up my belongings and going. I LOVE IT. The one thing that Austin has been teaching me is to do more of these adventurous things. I am not 100 percent ready to start a career and get roots somewhere. I want adventure, I want change, I want to see the world (at the least the United States). I can't help it. I feel that there is more to life than that 9-5 job that my education is suppose to get me. I blame this blogpost, actually I don't blame I thank.

I might be absurd, it could be from all of the Kerouac reading I have done or other similar writers (not all of them are beatniks). These writings speak to me. They show me that life is worth living and traveling. Not stationing yourself in one location forever. So I am happy to say I am going to move to Seattle.

My steps of getting there are

1: Extend my lease until the end of November
2: Learn as much about the Starbucks corporation as possible
3: Become a kick-ass barista
4: Never stop trying
5: Allow changes to happen

If I can't get my lease to extend then my plan will change, I will find a place to sublet for two months or I will go to Reno and sleep on Deisa's couch until we are ready to pack-up our bags and hit the road for Seattle. It is very interesting to see where my journey has taken me so far throughout life and I am still at the beginning of it.

So far my life has been rural Nevada, urban Nevada, Interior Alaska, urban Nevada, Central Texas and now it is headed to the Pacific Northwest. I am scared but excited at the same time. In the meantime as well, since I have downtime again it is the perfect time to start studying for the GRE. So my life is even more becoming coffee, reading, writing, listening to live music, having an occasional drunken excursions, cycling and what not.