A Return to Insight
I want to say, "I've realized a valuable lesson," but in reality I realized it a long time ago, and I can specifically being determined to do it as little as one year ago. That is, I specifically came to the conclusion in the "golden era" of my Hawaii trip (about the last two months) to remember to live in the present, not the past, and to not squander it worrying about things that didn't matter (i.e. having a sufficient amount of 'extra' money in the bank; working too much) and likewise not killing myself in pursuit of goals because of impatience (i.e. over-estimating how much I can handle).
Really quick, I call the last two months I spent in Hawaii the "golden era" half-jokingly, but it really was an amazing time for me. People saw it in me. I was told throughout the period that I seemed to be opening up; people enjoyed being around me; and I made some really good friends. It was a time when I realized that the suffering I had been experience was one part Hawaii and two parts me; that I needed to come to grips with reality, and, more importantly, make a good life out of it. Time away from working made me also see the benefits of not having to work. I was always a workaholic, and I spent the better part of Hawaii completely complaining about my lack of money, about the fact that I couldn't get a job where I was persecuted.
During the golden era, all became clear to me somehow. I had realized that I had wasted my time trying to get a 'superior' job to the one I had held before (shift supervisor at Taco Bell) and, when that fell, a begrudging attempt to trying to get the exact same job (I literally applied at all sorts of Taco Bell restaurants, the majority of them not interviewing me). I had thought that life was a clear progression of events, and in some ways, I was right; what I hadn't realized until the 'golden era' was that the clear progression was that I was a student now, not a high school worker (or merely a bum working after high school), and I shook my head rather sadly in those last few months that I had missed the opportunity to get a job where they would have hired me - the mall in the midst of tourism. I had missed the chance for a little extra cash to go out with friends because I thought that working less than twenty hours a week in a mall store was belittling to me. I didn't realize it then, of course; it 'wasn't an option', but of course it was an option; I never worked a day in Hawaii; I should have nabbed the chance to work at some little job to have created more positive experiences.
I was determined that when I got back to California, the paradise I hadn't realized I lived in, I wouldn't make the mistake of moving out if I didn't have to, of not working more than part-time, and trying something that might have been uncomfortable at first (i.e. not seek to work fast food because I know fast food). I also decided that I could take it a little slower in school and work a standard twelve-unit schedule, and to get involved at the school. I also had a back-up plan; if I had to move out, I decided to try to find a job that would be accommodating with a larger pay increase (I had planned sales or serving) that would afford me a little luxury, and, for school, I would work only as many classes as the school informed me that I should take, not what I logically COULD take. (I.e. less than four classes). I decided that when I went back I wouldn't have many friends but for Patrick and Jarrod, and that I should try to spend some time going out and having a good time, enjoying my time. And most importantly, to appreciate the time I have with friends, and not fighting aimlessly. A clip:
Even the random fighting with friends seems ridiculous. Patrick and I butting heads? How childish! Or what about Amber, who you can lump together with Patrick and James and all of them and their endless, contradicting self-boosting and self-destroying drama? And me too, I suppose, and how mature we felt. April 20, 2006.
Well, I came out here, and in the year since I came out, I've moved out into bad conditions, I'm a slave to work - incidentally, with my old boss, in my old position - taking MORE classes than the average student takes and, incidentally, taking a self-study version of my hardest class. Since then I've seen baddish health pop up, and only recently a consistent tiredness that the doctor only had to look at me and hear my story to tell me one word: stress.
She informed me of the obvious. Medically, I'm healthy, and in fact, healthier than I imagined. My cholesterol is, incidentally, great. My blood pressure is a BIT high, but I am on a small dose of cheap medication that seems to keep it in the right range. My acid reflux, she says, is merely because of my stress as well, and lack of exercise, which is also not great for stress. Stress, stress, stress.
And it's not paying off, you know. I'm finding that I'm having trouble getting Cs in my classes this semester, much less As. I still don't own a bed. And my money that I'm making from work goes to barely pay the bills so I'm living pretty much in conditions not unlike Hawaii.
Because of my lack of adherence to my insight in the 'golden era' of a year prior, I'm now suffering from what seems to be a mild form of depression, a lack of friends that have been driven away often by a persistent irritability, a sense of going nowhere and lack of fulfillment from my work, which, actually, cannot pay the bills. I also have a feeling of hopelessness because I can't change the job because it won't fit my school schedule which is actually way too much for how much I work. Oh, yeah, and health is making me feel like I have a heart attack occasionally and have strange bursts that was diagnosed as "mild anxiety attacks".
Yesterday, the doctor reprimanded me for the stress, and told me to slow down a bit. Today, the college counselor reprimanded me, and told me that if I hold the ultimately true maxim that one should spend two hours a week studying for every one hour a week in class, and putting my units down to 13 (because the other 4 aren't academic) I should be spending 39 hours a week on attending lectures/studying, combined with the 32 hours a week at work, resulting in 71 hour work weeks. And when I told her, "But I never spend that much time working on school or at work" she only had to check my grades with a bit of a smug, "Apparently."
Now, since I have to work while going to school, she informs me that I should aim for, like, 60-ish hours a week of work, which is like a full-time job and a half. Next time, she implores, take three classes. I only have history classes left, really, so it won't be completely too challenging (it should be engaging), and that would weigh in on 59 hours a week, which, while still a lot, is actually pretty good considering I'm supporting myself while going to school. "It's like being a full-time student with a part-time job, only in reverse," she explains.
And thinking about the recent persistent headaches and feelings of tiredness, I wonder why I was so adamant I had some disease of the head when all I have to do is look at my overwhelming school schedule filled with science and math classes (I left them for the end), my full-time job I've had over the course of FOUR YEARS which I incidentally hate, and the fact that I sleep on a damn air mattress and have for the past four months. Oh yeah, and the fact that I have fun so little that I am barely able to keep awake for it.
It's time to take the insights I had held as truth and apply it.
I can't do anything about my semester; I've invested in too much time and effort and it's more than halfway through the semester at this point. I need to do two things, therefore, in the next two months with my job to make it a bit more manageable: (1) get a new job, and (2) work a lot less. Like, work twenty-five hours MAX. While that does mean that I need to make more money and do less work, I can't imagine that any commission-based job, or even serving where the almighty tip is supreme, will leave me with so little that I can't live. (In the end, I need about 800 dollars/mo minimum to live, preferably 900/mo, which isn't a hard paycheck to earn at most places).
Ultimately, I'm once again waiting on a summer to roll around to REALLY enact what I'm trying to enact. But it's possible.
My insight is brilliant, but I should have reminded myself that if CA was such a paradise, I should have recognized why I never realized it before. It's beautiful, my options here, but dangerous; its' easy to succeed, but also easy to become "success-driven" to the point of decline.
Ambition, after all, is only one of many great virtues.
Really quick, I call the last two months I spent in Hawaii the "golden era" half-jokingly, but it really was an amazing time for me. People saw it in me. I was told throughout the period that I seemed to be opening up; people enjoyed being around me; and I made some really good friends. It was a time when I realized that the suffering I had been experience was one part Hawaii and two parts me; that I needed to come to grips with reality, and, more importantly, make a good life out of it. Time away from working made me also see the benefits of not having to work. I was always a workaholic, and I spent the better part of Hawaii completely complaining about my lack of money, about the fact that I couldn't get a job where I was persecuted.
During the golden era, all became clear to me somehow. I had realized that I had wasted my time trying to get a 'superior' job to the one I had held before (shift supervisor at Taco Bell) and, when that fell, a begrudging attempt to trying to get the exact same job (I literally applied at all sorts of Taco Bell restaurants, the majority of them not interviewing me). I had thought that life was a clear progression of events, and in some ways, I was right; what I hadn't realized until the 'golden era' was that the clear progression was that I was a student now, not a high school worker (or merely a bum working after high school), and I shook my head rather sadly in those last few months that I had missed the opportunity to get a job where they would have hired me - the mall in the midst of tourism. I had missed the chance for a little extra cash to go out with friends because I thought that working less than twenty hours a week in a mall store was belittling to me. I didn't realize it then, of course; it 'wasn't an option', but of course it was an option; I never worked a day in Hawaii; I should have nabbed the chance to work at some little job to have created more positive experiences.
I was determined that when I got back to California, the paradise I hadn't realized I lived in, I wouldn't make the mistake of moving out if I didn't have to, of not working more than part-time, and trying something that might have been uncomfortable at first (i.e. not seek to work fast food because I know fast food). I also decided that I could take it a little slower in school and work a standard twelve-unit schedule, and to get involved at the school. I also had a back-up plan; if I had to move out, I decided to try to find a job that would be accommodating with a larger pay increase (I had planned sales or serving) that would afford me a little luxury, and, for school, I would work only as many classes as the school informed me that I should take, not what I logically COULD take. (I.e. less than four classes). I decided that when I went back I wouldn't have many friends but for Patrick and Jarrod, and that I should try to spend some time going out and having a good time, enjoying my time. And most importantly, to appreciate the time I have with friends, and not fighting aimlessly. A clip:
Even the random fighting with friends seems ridiculous. Patrick and I butting heads? How childish! Or what about Amber, who you can lump together with Patrick and James and all of them and their endless, contradicting self-boosting and self-destroying drama? And me too, I suppose, and how mature we felt. April 20, 2006.
Well, I came out here, and in the year since I came out, I've moved out into bad conditions, I'm a slave to work - incidentally, with my old boss, in my old position - taking MORE classes than the average student takes and, incidentally, taking a self-study version of my hardest class. Since then I've seen baddish health pop up, and only recently a consistent tiredness that the doctor only had to look at me and hear my story to tell me one word: stress.
She informed me of the obvious. Medically, I'm healthy, and in fact, healthier than I imagined. My cholesterol is, incidentally, great. My blood pressure is a BIT high, but I am on a small dose of cheap medication that seems to keep it in the right range. My acid reflux, she says, is merely because of my stress as well, and lack of exercise, which is also not great for stress. Stress, stress, stress.
And it's not paying off, you know. I'm finding that I'm having trouble getting Cs in my classes this semester, much less As. I still don't own a bed. And my money that I'm making from work goes to barely pay the bills so I'm living pretty much in conditions not unlike Hawaii.
Because of my lack of adherence to my insight in the 'golden era' of a year prior, I'm now suffering from what seems to be a mild form of depression, a lack of friends that have been driven away often by a persistent irritability, a sense of going nowhere and lack of fulfillment from my work, which, actually, cannot pay the bills. I also have a feeling of hopelessness because I can't change the job because it won't fit my school schedule which is actually way too much for how much I work. Oh, yeah, and health is making me feel like I have a heart attack occasionally and have strange bursts that was diagnosed as "mild anxiety attacks".
Yesterday, the doctor reprimanded me for the stress, and told me to slow down a bit. Today, the college counselor reprimanded me, and told me that if I hold the ultimately true maxim that one should spend two hours a week studying for every one hour a week in class, and putting my units down to 13 (because the other 4 aren't academic) I should be spending 39 hours a week on attending lectures/studying, combined with the 32 hours a week at work, resulting in 71 hour work weeks. And when I told her, "But I never spend that much time working on school or at work" she only had to check my grades with a bit of a smug, "Apparently."
Now, since I have to work while going to school, she informs me that I should aim for, like, 60-ish hours a week of work, which is like a full-time job and a half. Next time, she implores, take three classes. I only have history classes left, really, so it won't be completely too challenging (it should be engaging), and that would weigh in on 59 hours a week, which, while still a lot, is actually pretty good considering I'm supporting myself while going to school. "It's like being a full-time student with a part-time job, only in reverse," she explains.
And thinking about the recent persistent headaches and feelings of tiredness, I wonder why I was so adamant I had some disease of the head when all I have to do is look at my overwhelming school schedule filled with science and math classes (I left them for the end), my full-time job I've had over the course of FOUR YEARS which I incidentally hate, and the fact that I sleep on a damn air mattress and have for the past four months. Oh yeah, and the fact that I have fun so little that I am barely able to keep awake for it.
It's time to take the insights I had held as truth and apply it.
I can't do anything about my semester; I've invested in too much time and effort and it's more than halfway through the semester at this point. I need to do two things, therefore, in the next two months with my job to make it a bit more manageable: (1) get a new job, and (2) work a lot less. Like, work twenty-five hours MAX. While that does mean that I need to make more money and do less work, I can't imagine that any commission-based job, or even serving where the almighty tip is supreme, will leave me with so little that I can't live. (In the end, I need about 800 dollars/mo minimum to live, preferably 900/mo, which isn't a hard paycheck to earn at most places).
Ultimately, I'm once again waiting on a summer to roll around to REALLY enact what I'm trying to enact. But it's possible.
My insight is brilliant, but I should have reminded myself that if CA was such a paradise, I should have recognized why I never realized it before. It's beautiful, my options here, but dangerous; its' easy to succeed, but also easy to become "success-driven" to the point of decline.
Ambition, after all, is only one of many great virtues.