No free time

March 26th, 2006

What to say, what to say, what to say…

Hell, I don’t even know where to begin, which is a pretty good indication of my state of mind recently. To give a lead in, this weekend is a perfect example. I left work yesterday, took a quick shower, then went to a salsa lesson, after which I went home to clean the apartment. This morning I woke up, did some more cleaning, did a lot of way overdue dishes, went to school and finished my datamining homework, came home, got gussied up and head out to an MBA-student semi-formal casino night where I rubbed elbows with a lot of people. After that I ditched the jacket and tie to head to Swing City for a bit, and now I’m home using precious sleep time to toss out this post. Tomorrow I’m shopping/cooking in the morning, will hopefully make it to the gym before I go to the Cotton Club dance lesson (we’re doing advanced hustle), after which I need to grab a bite before I head to my weekly Salsa night at Havana. Then monday to work, then to class, then home, etc etc etc ad nauseum.

I have no free time. Seriously. And I’m complaining about having a massively fun and entertaining social life while still managing to keep my studies on track and my career on the move. See, the reason is that there are many things I can do, and I want to do them all. I want to be excellent at all of them, at everything that I set my mind to. And yet I know that because I try them all, I will never master any of them.

Consider: Right now active pursuits of mine are as follows: Work. Part time MBA. Game/Larping. Salsa. Swing. Weekly (or so) buffy night with Katherine & co. Cooking. Inline skating (moreso now that weather is warmer, but I’m still waiting for the not-wet). Hanging out with embassy people when possible. Miscellaneous MBA events. Email exchanges with a chosen few that take on order of 2-4 hours per message. Somewhere in there I keep my life going via laundry and chores and whatnot.

To maintain these things I am in an active state bordering on mania, bouncing from point a to point b on sometimes less than 5 minutes notice. I have mastered the art of resetting my brain for a new activity in the time it gets me to drive/travel there. Well, maybe not mastered, but you get the idea. Except I’m unfocused. I’m untenable. I see people succeeding amazingly at some things, and I get jealous because everything I try my hand on I seem to only get mediocre success. Except I get mediocre success at a lot more things than others do, yet it leaves me ultimately dissatisifed.

So now what. Well, I’m up shit creek without a paddle at the moment. The things that my mind is telling me to drop I am either obligated to continue (In LARP for instance I’m playing a Bigwig), or realize that they’re some of the activities that are keeping me sane (Buffy, Dancing). The things I want to keep around are becoming harder and harder, and so I try to multitask them (JE and Stu need to get their lazy asses to dance one night . What I need to do is focus. Take a day, a week, a month, find a small corner in a forest somewhere, and let everything drain out of me. Let the tension relax, let the needs and obligations fade away. And then look at myself, figure out who I am, and prioritize.

And then have the balls to cut out the things know I shouldn’t waste my time on anymore.

Cripes- I’ll be honest. I already know what that list is going to look like, and it’s killing me to recognize that gaming really isn’t… I mean, yeah. Mage is awesome, I’m loving it a lot, but… it is the one obligation I have that is most in the way of all the other ones (save the degree, which will hopefully be over in december. Oh man, am I looking forward to December. Anyway, I have goals, they’re pretty simple. In fact, they pretty much align with everyone elses- fiscal security, skill and peer recognition, love, family, etc etc and all that jazz. Quite frankly, I will never reach any of those goals if I keep getting distracted.

No wonder I’m single. I swear, my next dating profile will say: SWM seeking S?F willing to see me about once a month, talk to me maybe once a week, and is capable of understanding that my life is crazy busy.

If I could ever focus on one single thing? It would be a frightening, frightening thing.

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