This is not where I want to be

This is not where I want to be.

Every superhero has their origin story, and I feel like this point in my life - on the doorstep of 30 - is as good as any.

I want to preface this email by saying that I don’t feel depressed. I am still enjoying my time with my loved ones and friends and find joy and humor and enjoyment in my day-to-day.

The main thing is I haven’t shown and seen evidence of my ability to do hard things and it has impacted my feelings of “worth” - mostly monetarily and in my skillset.

I won’t dive into solutions in this email. I just wanted to lay out where I’m at so that I can truly tell you, “I’ve been there”.

I am there.

Career/Money

I was laid off in February. I was excited at the challenge of taking time off and going full-time into working for myself.

I had previously found consulting projects on the side that brought in money. Those projects eventually dried up, but it didn’t matter because I had a salary that made life comfortable.

I was sure I could always fall back on consulting, but I wanted to focus on building a product or service that I could show up to enthusiastically while supporting my life.

But instead, for the second time in “trying to do my own thing”, I’ve found myself with no results or money to show for it.

I’ve burned through most of the money that I had saved up for this time period. And more importantly, I still haven’t gotten clearer on what the product or service I’m going to provide is. And there hasn’t been consistent action to build.

Fitness/Health

I stepped on the scale the other day and saw a number I had never seen before. I’m 10-15 pounds over where I’d like to be.

Even with my wedding coming up in 71 days, I still haven’t found the “motivation” to work out regularly and lose my beer belly.

The worst sign of my physical decline is that it ends up in pain in my knees or ankle or back and leads to me feeling like there are physical feats I can’t do. Even the thought of participating in a 3-on-3 basketball tournament for my church feels daunting.

Faith/Family

The time off has actually given me a good amount of time to spend with my family. I’m still working on being patient and kind to my parents and siblings, but I enjoy this time I get to spend with them.

I’ve also worked on my secretarial duties for the church, but I also found myself not praying regularly. I’ve started to do that again this week which has felt nice.

It’s only up from here!
Aswin