My Worst Enemy

This morning I woke up and I felt like shit (pardon my French). I guess it happens to all of us, every now and then. We wake up on the wrong side of bed, or whatever, filled with doubts of our self worth, wondering whether our attempts to succeed have any decent ground to stand on.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not whining here, nor am I looking for pity and sympathy, I just want to describe my morning struggle with myself, and the aftereffects of thereof...

Although objectively, during the past few weeks, I've been quite productive, (you know, getting my life back together, becoming a proud owner of new washing machine, buying a bicycle and actually riding it daily, managing to get a "shared custody" of my dog, working on my design skills (see below), reconnecting with my old friends and making some new ones), subjectively I don't really feel I've achieved that much.

The thing that threw me off this morning was that little nagging voice back in the darkest pits of my mind, asking a simple question, "you are just playing around, what the hell are you doing and where the hell do you think it will lead?"... Of course, since it was the voice of that little monster hiding in all of us, it provided me with an answer right away... "nothing and nowhere"...

So, I say, nay, I shout for the whole wide world to hear it, "F*ck you, you little b*tch, I'm gonna show you who's the BOSS here"...

I've never expected to get my life together in one week and if it's small steps it takes, then small steps it is!

The small step of today is cleaning this mess of an apartment. For the past two and something years I've been keeping this place solely as a storage space for all my stuff. Since I've rented it, I slept here not more than a dozen times, dropping by every now and then just to get different clothes (depending on season), pick up some paperwork or documents I needed and that was it. This place, for two years, has basically been gathering dust, excess clothes and piles of paperwork. It looks accordingly to what its purpose has been so far. I haven't even unpacked the stuff my ex dropped off after the break up (although there might be an underlying reason there).

Frankly, I think this place needs to be organized, rather than cleaned, but you get what I mean. Today I finally unpack, reorganize my stuff and put it all away. There are some power outlets that need fixing. Kitchen is going to be a bit of a challenge, but hey. Tomorrow (today it's Sunday and I'm in Greece, I don't think I need to say more) I'm getting a decent vacuum cleaner (the one I have now must have been manufactured in 70's, at this point it's easier to try to kick the dust to death, rather than using that old piece of junk) and I'm gonna do some serious damage.

As a small bonus step for tomorrow, I found the cheapest gym around (which is still ridiculously expensive, c'est la vie) and I'm signing up...

Anyway, so you can agree with me that the time I put into improving and reinventing myself hasn't been wasted, here are some examples of what I've been working on...

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...