2001-2010: how far have i come?
today is my 9 year blogiversary. first actual post here.
a blogger-friend of mine recently wrote that while she doesn’t expect people to reach the standard linear milestones (college–>job–>marriage–>grad school–>children–>mortgage, etc), she does expect people to continually improve themselves, and that what you are doing at 35 should be a progression from what you were doing at 25, or even 30. or, if maybe not totally progressive or linear career-wise, at least life-wise, the key being change, learning and growth.
i agree that the arbitrary benchmarks are foolish, but keeping track of things that can be put on your resume aren’t necessarily super important to everyone either. my quality of life is way higher, even if it’s the same life and there aren’t a lot of measurable differences. shouldn’t i be happy about that?
i have been thinking a lot about this since i read it, and honestly this is the one thing that nags me a lot and probably the main reason i am not as happy as i should or could be with my otherwise wonderful life. especially looking back at that first blog post from 2001 – it’s really not much different than something i would write today. and my life from when i was 25? honestly, not much different there either. does this make me less valuable to others, especially those who i admire?
my friend circles in SF are a super talented and high-output group of people. they are independent artists or have their own companies and work well for themselves, or work for others but in leadership roles. in comparison, i feel static and underachieving. i’m also a total minority for my age in that i’ve been working the same job for 10 years – and it’s admittedly a dead end job. but i help run a small business i believe in, and it’s flexible and let’s me go on all these other little adventures in my life. so it’s hard to tell whether i’m stagnating or not. is my life different than 5 or 10 years ago? in macro terms – no. same job. same boy. same city. same life. but in micro terms? i think there’s a lot different about me now. is any achievement too small to “count”? i’m know there is a fine balance between being happy with what you’ve got and being motivated to continually be productive and striving to improve/better yourself, and i’m finding it hard to find.
recently it has become much clearer that many of the things that made me feel like i was moving forward in the past 5 years or so no longer feel that way to me. unless i push them to levels i’m not sure i want to go to, i feel like i got what i could out of them, and the last 12-18 months have felt……flat. this isn’t to belittle so many of the things i continue to do are still beautiful and interesting; it’s just that they’re not new to me and the learning curve has flattened. so what now? i’m treading water, and i’m getting a little bored.
as always, i have a head full of ideas for things to do this year that will move me – my life – forward. will 2010 be the year i actually do some of them? i want to, yes. but HOW? that is the huge question in my life right now.
this blog, as is probably obvious for those who have been following along, is also stagnating. part of the reason is that other things have taken up my time recently, at work and at home, including the continuing focus on my physical health and wellness. but it’s been 9 years blogging here, and because so much in my life remains the same, sometimes i’m not sure it’s interesting to blog out it anymore, even to myself. i know i should because i do so incredibly value the record that is here, and maybe i should try just doing a more regular what/where/when blog for the sake of record-keeping, which might actually turn into more writing. but i’m also tempted to say that i’m not writing anything here until there is actually something to write about – that something moved forward.
the part that gets me the most about this is that in the past few months, i’ve had more requests/opportunities to blog about things than i maybe ever had before, thx to receiving the “best blogger” award at the san francisco fashion awards in July. i feel pretty bad about it, really, since there are other people WAY more deserving than I; i didn’t expect to win the award, and i didn’t realize there were going to be expectations attached. my own, if no one else’s. just last month i was invited to an invite-only fashion show for Wayne Hwang’s debut collection and asked to judge the final round at the SF Fashion Feud finals, but for some reason, which i have a sneaking suspicion is self-doubt (who am i to offer critique of fashion?), i didn’t write much, if anything, about them. not only that, as part of that fashion award, i was also offered a guest writing spot in a local ‘zine. it was right before i went to europe, and i never wrote anything. i realize that this kind of response isn’t going to get me many more blogger invitations, but more than that, here i am wondering what it means that i am not taking any writing leads i can get. is it self-doubt, or had i just romanticized what it means to be a paid writer/blogger, but in reality, i’m not really into it?
this all sums up to: i don’t know what i am doing with myself these days. when people ask, what’s up? what’s new? what have you been up to? i find myself at a loss for any interesting answer. this displeases me. so, yeah. six weeks into 2010. hopefully something coming soon.
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