Life

With a lot of downtime on the blog and basically a decaying brain at home with nothing to do but play COD and being a rotting potato on my bed, I’ve come to a few (late) conclusions as to why being an adult sucks. It doesn’t just suck a little bit. It swallows a huge, wet, not-so-awesome chunk of suck that if this was metaphorically true for a person, it would be better to die than to go through sucking that much.

Okay. It doesn’t suck that much – there are some advantages to being an adult, but for the sake of my argument and in comparison to being a kid, it still just ends up being on the heavy end of the “suck” spectrum.

As a result of all this useless time thinking about the universe, how deep the ocean really is, and life… I was able to come up with a list that you could probably (most likely) relate to if you are reading this.

Money – You don’t actually have any of it. You probably make 20x more than your allowance your parents used to give you, but you still have nothing to show for it. Your needs suddenly outweigh your wallet. Every. Damn. Time.
Responsibilities – For some reason, that sink isn’t cleaning the dishes like it used to. My car needs service how often?! WHY ISN’T MY DRIVEWAY CLEARED OF SNOW!? You mean none of that happened on it’s own before? Oh…
Expectations – Now you have to listen to society. You’re supposed to get married and then buy a house and then have kids and then send them to school. But you still face problem #1. Did anyone ever think about that shit?
Old Age – So life tells you that you have to make money by working your whole life, spend money on things to keep you alive, but it’s going to make sure you’re body is slowly going through the process of decay. Your bones get weaker, your body starts to wrinkle, your muscles start to make the sound “flab” every time you move it. How do you win this?
Time – You’re best friends with time now. The 1AM mornings you’re so used to seeing is now your 9PM bed time homie. Remember running on 3 hours of sleep and killing that test the next morning? Now anything less than 8 and you’re pretty much a useless limp dick at work.
Rivalries – Now it’s not just about who’s the fastest at riding their bike back home. It’s about who has the best house, the best car, the best clothes, the best job, the best pay cheque, and that list goes on and on. You can’t avoid it either because if you aren’t competing with anybody who is a somebody, you’re pretty much a nobody. WHAT IS LIFE?!
Plastic – I don’t mean credit card plastic. I mean you now have to intentionally be fake in order to get by without being an asshole. Nobody (mostly) wants to be an asshole at the break table. Don’t read this like you don’t do it either – fake a smile or laugh at someone’s joke just cause everyone else is, except you would rather talk about the dirt on the ground with the imaginary guy you just made up because he’s cooler than Joe Schmoe sitting across from you.
Jail – For most of us working 9-5 jobs, we’re pretty much in Life’s jail. We get up, we go to work, we go to the gym, we come home to eat dinner, we go to sleep and the cycle repeats. For the most part you can probably add a little laugh with your co-workers here and a little bit of TV there. The “get out of jail free” card is basically winning the lotto. Everybody wants it, but it’s about as rare as finding a fifty dollar bill in your winter jacket you wore last year and a stick of juicy fruit.

I think that’s all I came up with. I’m not a negative person by any means, although this list would beg to differ. I just like to humorously think of all the things in life that we all eventually have to go through. Life doesn’t suck, aspects of it can totally be the Debbie Downer of it though. Happy hump day!

(This is filler content lol)

You’ve probably already seen a bunch of memes popping up on Instagram or people complaining about the New Year’s bologna that’s going to be happening starting tomorrow. Things like “I’m going to get back to the gym”, or “I’m going to start saving more money” and “I’m going to be a better person”. I love resolutions, but people make a whole list of them. That’s the first mistake because lists are only short-term checklists. Think of every other time you make a list – it’s for grocery shopping to make sure you get the bread and butter, it’s for remembering what to do later that day or a few days from now. Lists help you remember to do things in the upcoming future so that you can check it off and move on with your life. Lists are limiting. So why would you add “going to the gym” or “being a better person” to a list? Do you plan on doing it once and then check that off the list too? Not necessarily. We create resolutions to make ourselves better people by making them habits because habits are what keep us going. Habit is the driving force behind “going to the gym” and “becoming a better person” that will eventually lead to “staying in the gym” and “being a better person”. Everybody needs to start somewhere but you shouldn’t have to wait until the first of the year to assess yourself because when the clock strikes 12, you’re still you.

At the end of the day, there are people that make resolutions and stick to them (for the most part) and people that make fun of resolutions but we all somehow end up in the same place. The new year gives us some psychological ease that we’re closing off another year and that we’re ready and perhaps better able to start a new one. Most people enjoy the idea of leaving behind their past because it often means letting go of our faults and mistakes in hopes that we don’t commit them again. We are always so anxious to move forward and create our future that we forget to live in the present like we really should be.

The one resolution – if it makes sense to call it that – that everyone should strive to make is to live. Not like “go for a run outside in the rain” type of live, but to really just live for yourself. Live to take risks and to be comfortable in the person that you have become because you are the only one that is responsible for your character. I’ve become more of an introvert over the last year – not because I’m anti-social, but because I want to surround myself with more positive people. I care less about being accepted by everyone and more about being there for those that accept me. Social media paints this imaginary picture where anyone can be in the spotlight if you post content that is interesting enough, but what more does it give you other than a little sense that you might be accepted by people you don’t even know? Living that way eventually becomes self-defeating because one day it will stop and the things you once relied on for gratification is no longer there. You know what that’s called? It’s called living for other people and when you live for other people, you stop doing it for yourself and once you stop doing it for yourself, you’re wasting the time you could be spending on you. Instead, live with the people that follow you on your path, not for the ones that try to run it.

I make resolutions and I have schedules tied to those resolutions. I do this because I am a utilitarian person but I don’t believe that my life is tied to them because living also means you’re playing and when you play, you will get curve balls. The point of all this is to create a resolution – that is to live – that ultimately encompasses everything that makes you a better you whether that is going to the gym or saving more money. So put the list away and focus on one thing… And through habit, everything usually falls into place. Create one resolution this year and next year, nothing should change because you don’t change life – you only change the way you live it.

Happy New Year everyone!