Did my class for a pyrotechnics license today. Keeping an eye out for the display fireworks one next. Applied for my PAL (guns) 2 months ago. Feels like i'm on a little license collecting streak. Maybe it's to compensate for my jobby-job. It's a startup, which doesn't feel too bad but in my entrepreneurial brain somehow it feels like a failure to actually enjoy a 9to5 like I am. Working through that cognitive dissonance while I learn as much as I can to become a Product Manager and earn the big tech buck, at least for a little while. The jump from the non-profit more than doubled my salary, and I'm on the lowest end of the payscale. It hilights how what we value in this world is so misaligned with financial incentives sometimes. This new job feels easier and less useful to the world. But better for me and my mental health. I gave myself the goal to stick it out for 2 years and see where that gets me, what paths it opens up. Feeling optimistic but also overwhelmed.
I’ve decided to stop drinking. Like, forever. I’m going to go to an AA meeting. My last day drinking will be May 6th. I’ll end with a nice bottle of Dom. It’s no longer serving me. Has it ever? Bad for my brain, bad example for my kids, bad for my weight and it makes me feel like shit the next day. I’m done. Feels good to resolve to do this. But I’m also scared. Scared of losing friendships, missing out on social events etc. It’s going to be a big change.
That definitely means your chances of sticking with it are a lot higher. Or if you don't it will also be on your own terms after you've cleared your head. I'm a tinge hungover myself today and will be tomorrow, too (hockey). It's rough at my age to be sure.
Listening to Sly and the Family Stone today it kind of dawned on me that while we live today in the most politically tumultuous time since the 60s, we just don't have the cultural transformation now that they had then. The turmoil then was accompanied by an explosion of transformative art. Today it's almost the opposite. Everything smacks of such sameness. Not sure that's if that's meaningful or not, but it's something to think about more.