The Processee

Here I am, my name is Jake and I am about to turn 29, which means the 30th year of my life will begin. I'm (fairly) well educated, not (too) bad looking, (relatively) optimistic and (possibly) quite smart next door guy and my life is a complete and utter mess. Thus, I've decided to give myself one year and see what I can do about it. My goal is to make my life work by 27/05/2012, the day when I turn 30.


So, what have I done with my life up until now and why is it a mess?


Truth is, up until now I've lived very full, very interesting and fairly adventurous life. You could say this is due to the fact that I always live in the moment, I tend to go with what seems to be the best idea at the time, I'm spontaneous and I want to learn as much about this wonderful world of ours as possible.

Right! After years of pondering, I would say it is due to the complete inability to look and plan ahead, lack of any kind of impulse control and attention span of a goldfish.

I mean, I've left my homeland when I was 19 and I eventually moved to Greece, where, somehow, after few years of academic break, I've managed to major in Psychology at one of the many British universities (I still haven't been able to pay for it, though). I was on a sinking cruise ship (and I almost stayed there, ha). I was arrested in a bank (that's a good one). I've met bunch of interesting people and, of course, I've slept with quite a few of them (but, being a gentleman, I don't kiss and tell). I was in an extremely unhealthy and abusive relationship (after the break up we lived together but haven't spoken to each other for 2 and 1/2 years, not a single sentence) and the relationship I'm in right now is more than great, but the price I pay is, literally, me being practically unemployed (long story... apparently, nothing ever is simple, at least not for me).

So, I've been places and I've had fun, but, despite all the interesting stuff that I've seen and done, my life doesn't actually lead anywhere and frankly, I'm not happy with it, not happy at all. I've always assumed that comes the big 30 I'll have a great career, my life will have a meaning and will be full of big and small achievements and I'll be ridiculously independent. And cool.

You see, since I was a kid, I've always had this feeling of being so damn special, that I just knew that one day, when I grow up, everything I'll try is gonna work out for me like magic, without much of any kind of effort. The problem is, it actually worked, at least for a while, if only because of the attitude I had. So you can imagine the shock when one day, pretty much out of the blue (but long overdue), I looked in the metaphorical mirror and realized how wrong I was all this time.

I believe life is like a puzzle, to make it work, you have to have the full set of pieces. Some are in the box and for some you have to look under the sofa. But if you really want to make the picture complete, you have to find them all.

Here's a couple of pieces I've found so far.

First of all, no matter how great a relationship you are in, no matter how great the person next to you is, if you put your life on hold and compromise all you goals and needs for the sake of it, it won't work. Because   "You have to be happy with your life first and then you can share it with someone"  . To put it simply, things should be in balance, the "me" and "us" should have the same importance and neither should be prioritised all the time.

My second missing piece was even more important, since the absence of it has affected my whole life. As simple as it seems, my second missing piece is the  "if I work hard" part in   "being special, I can become anything I want when I grow up, if I work hard on it"   . You might think it's silly or >use you own adjective<, but it really took me all those years and hell lot of struggling to find this one piece of my personal puzzle. And now, somehow, I would like to make up for all those lost years and wasted time.

That is why I have given myself a deadline and this is the reason I've decided to write a blog about the road that lies ahead of me.

I want help, I want to know what people think about how I prioritise, about the decisions I'm about to make, about the directions I'm taking. And about the pieces of puzzle I'm still missing.

I am motivated, I have the drive to get me where I need to be and, hopefully, for the first time I actually have enough pieces of the puzzle to figure out how to get there. Still, I would like to know what you think...