It’s Time We Embraced Our Messy Lives
Basically my life is a mess. I haven’t been able to answer the question So, what do you do? for years.
Years! You’d think I’d be good at bullshitting it by now. I’m not. I don’t even know what I do.
I’m not saying this in the I’m a person! Why can’t people just appreciate me for that! sense. I’m saying it in the straightforward professional sense.
I don’t even know.
I work on this and that. I do those things and I do these.
I have weird hours that makes it look like I do nothing but I’m always working on something.
My life is a mess. I want to get my shit together.
I want consistency, stability, whatever makes it look and feel like together-shit.
I want those things. I refuse to take them, though.
Why?
They suck worse. Salaried jobs always feel like they’re choking me. A tight schedule takes away my feeling of freedom. My mind is numbed when I don’t follow my interests.
Every time I get my shit together I blow it apart again. (Pardon the image.)
I do it on purpose because I’m allergic. Not just to pollen but also to cats. Especially large caged cats.
The lion in the zoo is safe. His job will be there until he dies. He’s guaranteed to get food. His home is always neat and he rarely has to move.
He’s also depressed and bored.
The lion not in the zoo isn’t sure whether or not he will starve. He never knows when he’s going to have to move and he doesn’t know where his meal for the day will come from. He has to work hard.
The first lion seems to have his shit together.
I don’t actually want my shit together. I want to want to have my shit together.
What I actually want is to do the things that interest me while I’m alive. To help others live their lives more alive. I want to try different things.
What I actually want is a messy life. One that embraces uncertainty instead of sweeping it under the rug. One that appreciates the moment as well as the future. One that remembers this is the first and last.
We don’t get to do this again.
I know that’s not an argument for anything except maybe pay attention!
Next time someone asks me what I’m doing I’ll tell them I’m writing things on Thought Catalog and teaching people how to start importing businesses.
The time after that, though? It’ll be different. I’ll be embarrassed that it’s different than the thing I told them last time.
Emerson said that “consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” and maybe that’s true. Maybe it’s different. I don’t even know what a little mind is and what a big one is. I’ve seen a lot of people with little minds do big things and a lot of people with big minds do nothing. That’s only what I’ve perceived, though. They probably see the world differently.
I know the world sees me differently.
Some envy my life, some scoff, but most probably just worry. I don’t know.
Most things I don’t know, but one I do:
Here lies Kyle. He had his shit together. R.I.P.
Would be a pretty underwhelming epitaph.