That is hands down the best fortune I’ve ever gotten in my life. Seriously.
Suzi likes to hate all over Panda Express, but they definitely have some great fortune cookie oracles (and orange chicken).
As the traveler who has lost his way, throws his reins on his horse’s neck, and trusts to the instinct of the animal to find his road, so must we do with the divine animal who carries us through this world.
I try to make informed decisions; and the more important a particular decision is, the more effort I put in to understanding the situation, the choices, and the possible outcomes. But in the end, it seems like most of the big decisions in my life are left up to my gut feeling. I’m not going to argue that going with your gut is the smartest method, however anecdotaly it’s usually worked out OK.
Back in October 2006 when I decided to leave San Antonio regardless of whether or not I knew what I was going to do afterwards, it felt right. So I started the ball rolling. Moving at Kane’s pace, but rolling nonetheless.
The last half of 2007 to the first half of 2008 was a pretty tumultuous time in my personal life. During that time work on the house came to a halt. Then one day I decided to start working on it again. Start wrapping things up. So I got to working, and started knuckles & teeth tell the story. I didn’t recognize it at the time, but as I started back on the road out things weren’t quite the same.
I was really having to force myself to keep things moving forward. I tried putting in 1 hour every weeknight + time on the weekends. After that failed I switched to using a list and doing a certain number of tasks. Failing again, I decided to take a more laid back approach and just do things when I felt like doing them; that turned into never. So I finally decided to stop forcing myself and just let it go. It didn’t make any sense. If I wanted to go so badly then I would do what I needed to do, but obviously my priorities had changed. So I quit.
That was about 6 weeks ago. During the first three weeks I did nothing. And I mean nothing! I got back into meditating, I slept more, I watched more DVDs, and just enjoyed every second I could. Over that time the stress melted away and I found myself more relaxed than I have been for several years now. By week three I was flirting with the idea of getting back to working on the house, but I told myself not to. I would force myself to wait until I felt like I really wanted it.
Finally last week I started working on the house again. The pace was leisurely, but I was working. Then this past weekend came along and I did some more. It was during these last few days that I realized why it was so hard for me to get motivated.
When I started working on the house again back in April it was just because it was the thing to do in my life at the time. Just following procedure I guess. This weekend I started feeling like it’s time to start wrapping things up. I once again feel like it’s time to go. That’s what’s been missing; it wasn’t until leaving felt right again that I was able to understand that it had indeed gone missing.
So let’s see what happens. I still have my list, and I’ll keep attacking it at whatever pace I feel like. I hope to be done soon, thought it’s looking more & more likely that I’ll wait out the winter before I leave. But I’m hoping long before the winter ends my list will be emptied and I’ll be back to watching too many DVDs.
I wanted to be out of here by the Summer of 2008. So according to the calendar I’m almost a fully year behind schedule. But according to my internal clock, lately I’m feeling right on time. 
Life is good.
As government bailouts is a hot topic right now I thought this link would be worth sharing. It’s an interesting post: “How Many Zeros in a Billion?”
Be glad that you’re greedy; the national economy would collapse if you weren’t.
My life is a constant struggle with the dichotomy that exists between my disdain for endless consumerism and my love for new, shiny (often electronic) toys. Historically the latter is the stronger force. 
That battle is raging on as I type this.
For the past few months I’ve been web-window-shopping (?) for netbooks. Recently Target has started carrying the Asus 8.9″ eee PC, and the first time I saw it in the store my first reaction was to just buy it then and there. It’s so small!! But I held off; I knew that I was just being dumb. I also worry that the keyboard is a little too small to actually be useful.
Well yesterday I had to run to a local computer store for a few things and they had the Acer ONE not just for sale, but on display! I quickly opened up Notepad and started typing away. It was actually pretty good. I would say I had no more mistakes on that little keyboard than I do on my big ass ergo keyboard that I use with my desktop. Again, I considered leaving the store with one, and again I talked myself out of it.
I’ve been using my laptop more & more outside of the house (my previous two posts were both done AFH) and I can see that it would be nice to have an itty bitty laptop with a long battery life (Can you tell I’m actively convincing myself that I need one?). I still can’t quite justify the purchase, but I’m getting closer to it. If I was living in a cool city, with cool mass transportation, and cool places to chill at (maybe with free wi-fi) I’d definitely be sporting a netbook right now. But as it is, it’s hard to justify needing a smaller laptop when mine works just fine and my Honda Civic can fit my 14″ just fine.
But I did just get a raise…
Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.
I wish I could remember who gave me this piece of advice, because they deserve quite a bit of credit. Whomever it was said it many years ago, and as I’ve stumbled along through life I’ve found myself remembering those words on multiple occasions.
In life we meet many people and engage in many, many types of relationships. Every relationship, whether it’s friendship, romance, or the regular cashier who sells you a bagel and coffee every morning can be crashed and set ablaze. Trust me, I know. Sometimes we’re glad to end a relationship, sometimes we’re even glad to end it in an ugly fashion. But sometimes things falls apart whether we like it or not, no matter how hard we try to keep them from happening.
Now when things end ugly, often times one of you (or both of you) have engaged in very douchey behavior. If you’re not an actual douche, this means that you’ll feel bad later on and wish to make things better. Unfortunately life doesn’t have a rewind button and we can’t undo our fuck ups. In some situations we can make things better; however there are other times when we can’t. That’s when this advice comes in handy.
If ever in life you’re the guy who shit the bed you need to remember: sometimes you’re the asshole. You may want to fix things, but you should recognize when you can’t. Because at times the more you try to fix them, the bigger asshole you appear to be. Sometimes you can’t just kiss the boo-boo and make things better. When you recognize that’s the case, stop trying.
Whether we like it or not, there are times in life when the best thing to do is nothing. If it makes you feel better, the rest of us don’t think you’re an asshole. 
Well… the rest of them don’t… I do.