Purpose (clearly it's 42)

(Holy burnt bacon Batman! A lot of words incoming!)

What do you feel the purpose of living is? I think all of us have spent time deciding what we want to do with our lives, or perhaps to find fulfillment and purpose... But how do we know the things we are doing and the path we are traveling is the right one? Is there a right one? (I'm a left kind of a guy..) Or is it just better to decide to go down the wrong street than to hesitate? Personally I don't mind circling the block a few times to find where I'm supposed to go as opposed to being in that awkward state of mind where you aren't sure what you're doing and there's someone behind you creeping up on you, hopefully not texting and doesn't rear-end you...

Where do you find purpose, if you can't find it within yourself? Do you reach out to others indirectly for it? I think it's common, that you find people that you admire for reasons you cannot explain, and you seek their purpose, and then manipulate and transform the purpose to best fit what you're searching for, and what kind of fulfillment you require during this process of acquiring purpose. But the problem with this logic is that you never know if that person, that role model - is actually genuine; and therefore you base your own logic and reasoning off the idea of someone's genuine nature, and genuine characteristics (at least in my own experience).

What then if you get let down? Does your life fall apart?
Probably not, you probably have good ideals, or good morals set for yourself so therefore you have some stability in life. I have this thought in my mind: if I build a good foundation, there's no ditch I can fall into anymore. I find this to be true with a lot of things in my life - relationships, friendships, my career.. If I take the time to build foundation, even if I fall (get out of a relationship, lose a friendship, lose a job) - I know I'm setting myself up mentally, and in my career with a skillset to handle the sorts of falling that could occur. It's just precaution, but it's worth doing in most cases. And in my career, it's just helping my build a better career, so it's a win-win there..

If you find your life falling apart, I urge you to build foundation. Start with the basics: means to survive, taking care of the important things, determine what you need to do for yourself and your state of mind, and start building on that - find a good group of people that have common interests who bring the best parts of your personality out - the ones you can tell anything to, the ones you can goof off with, the ones who aren't afraid to tell you when you're stepping out line - and be humble enough to appreciate their words and their friendship to know when you need to re-evaluate!

I rant a good bit, and go back and forth on issues, but it's the meat (to my vegan friends: tofu) and potatoes that I want to discuss here. The purpose of the plate of food, the purpose of waking up on time for things, the purpose of life - the universe, and everything in it. (Besides the obvious answer of 42..)

I look at my life, and the hardships I've endured as some sort of preface or some sort of start of an epic journey in which I'm meant to do something amazing. I've felt my entire life that I didn't quite understand why - I have to do something meaningful. I can't live this entire life struggling and not have anything to show for it. I can't live a life without purpose, I won't allow myself to do that. I know I can't be the only one. It could be my imagination that refuses to believe that I'm some normal guy, meant to just live a dull life and die, but I can tell you regardless of the reason, I will make a difference in this world. So this brings me back to the plate of food in front of us.

The meat represents our life goals.  We want to have kids, we want to buy a house (or at least live in one), we want to get married. These goals, are usually tailored towards our own individual outlook on life. For example, adoption vs. fostering vs. having kids the ol' fashion way. It's funny though, just like our meat we have our own idea of what we want - what we like - how we like our food marinated, cooked, etc - and nobody can change that. Sometimes we don't always get it though, and we manage just fine. It's because we have learned over the years to have expectations - hope for the best, expect the worse-  and react accordingly. We have learned to adapt. Arguably one of my best qualities that I don't feel arrogant admitting, is my ability to adapt. I wouldn't call me a chameleon or anything close to having the advantageous ability to have my body react to the environment around me, however mentally, I'm fully capable of thinking through any problem that comes my way. I can deal with meat that's medium, I can deal with meat that's fully cooked, I can deal with no meat at all (yay tofu friends!).

The potatoes refer to our ideals, and our maturity. At times we want our potatoes fried, sometimes we want them baked, sometimes we want them plain, sometimes we want them with bacon, sometimes with want them with sour cream. Sometimes want them at breakfast, and sometimes we want.. you get the point. At times we feel like being silly, at times we feel like we need to act a certain way based on society, but our core personality comes from however we're feeling and what emotions we decide to show at the current time.

So if we're talking a plate of food here, we're all over the place. Do we serve meat, how cooked do we want it, etc etc. What about our potatoes, do we even want potatoes tonight, what about pasta instead? Are we feeling upto having sour cream again? It's not even sour.. If we're talking life goals and morals, we should have that ironed out right? At 26 years old, I'm still trying to piece this together. I feel like people in their 30s (my siblings are a good example) have their lives together. Why can't I have mine together at 26? They have kids, they have a purpose, they have meaning. If our plates keep changing, our meals are always different, how can we have a grasp of what our goals, and ideals are? We can't forget our veggies either, which of course I'll save for another conversation - love me those veggies.

Why do we wake up every morning when an alarm goes off? Why do we subject ourselves to a nine to five lifestyle, or a curfew, or going to sleep at a certain time so we can function at a certain hour in the morning. Our bodies are just being used and abused, and we do it all the time hoping we bounce back. More times than not, we bounce back so we find it acceptable to do this. I think the reason we wake up is because we find our present moment more important than the dreams we were in. Our day-dreams become our realities, our night-dreams.... have many meanings. I don't often remember mine, so I can't speak to this much. I think purpose is the reason we wake up, we have things to do - and the things build on other things - which inevitably work towards our goals. So we wake up for purpose, got it! What if our goals aren't in sight, or are skewed, this could explain why I don't like getting out of bed recently.

I look at my life and question whether I'm putting forth effort correctly to go after my goals, or should be putting forth effort in other places. My mind runs, it goes a million miles a minute. The motorcycle calms it down, but also speeds it up. Music calms it down, but there never seems to be a good source for music based on whatever mood I'm in. There are other things that calm me, or that ease the mind, but it's so few and far between. There isn't enough steak sauce to go with the steak. There isn't enough sour cream for the potatoes. I'm just not sure what the next step is, or if I'm even focusing on the right things. I'd like to believe I am, but how did I end up jobless, and in a certain state of disarray? Is the reflection really needed for my next step? Am I really impacting enough people, is there more I could be doing? Why don't I have the motivation I should? Is negativity getting ahold of me? Too much time without a focus which has previously been my career, and that might be getting to me.

Clearly my focus should be health - getting a handle on the CF and building a foundation that I can't fall from, but it's been difficult to grasp - difficult to get ahead of; and then finding another job to fulfill me and work towards getting out of debt to have more time to spend with the people I love and care about; and then perhaps change the world for the better.

Without focus, we lose sight of what's important and we get lost.

I'm feeling this moment of lost now, even with the momentary boost of optimism, I don't know if building my career, and spending the time I'm spending is really helping my purpose of changing this planet. I need to find a way to mesh these two goals together without losing sight of my health. I can figure out many problems, my health is not one of them that I have any sort of groundbreaking movement on-  but working on it at least. Fulfillment is important, it helps me keep moving when I don't know how, and I get that out of my career, so I've got that going for me at least.

I can't change this planet alone, I need others who have the drive to help, to do so! There's no reason we need to subject ourselves to a linear way of thinking. There's no reason we need to be a slave to routine and refuse to step outside of our bubble. We need to think critically, we need to solve problems, and we need to be happy! There is so much in this world to be happy, let it fill you up and don't let go of it. Only then will we advance human beings, be unconditionally loved, and impact things positively. It starts with you and I. Every drop of poison to our minds from every word of negativity, every bad habit - changes our reality - our plate of food. It changes how we think, what our current mood is, and what our end goal is. Remember that in every situation, good or bad, you must accept and not let it negativity impact you and your future!

If you want to know how this relates to food - try being angry while eating, or making pasta and expecting potatoes instead. It just doesn't work out the way you want it to, but you eat it anyways. Your life doesn't have to be this way. You don't have to eat the plate of food (your goals), you can change them!

So if you asked me what my purpose in this life is, I'd simply smile, look you in the eyes with my brown eyes, and tell you: This life of mine is exactly what I've made it out to be, and it will continue to unfold and be the book that I choose to write. I will encourage others to make positive choices in their lives in hopes they will make better people out of themselves and in turn hopefully change the planet one friendship at a time. My overall purpose is to have a positive impact on this planet, to the people on it, and to live a fulfilling life for myself by whatever means possible. Regardless of what the plate of food is, or how we eat it, we must have a solid agreement with ourselves on what we want to accomplish in this world, and we must let nothing stand in our way.



As always, thanks for reading - open to suggestions and feedback.

Shadows of the past

On Friday a shadow -which I have not even thought about- was seen. It's like a groundhog coming out when nobody was looking. The shadow was only seen by a select few, who didn't like the shape of the shadow. They looked at it, and then proceeded to cast me aside as if the shadow had predicted some unseen future of catastrophic events. In the old days we'd look at this as some superstition or some lack of reasoning. I could go on and on about our historic failures based on not enough information, we've seen many things in our history of man based on rash decisions.

You would think a business in this day would be different. You'd think that, wouldn't you? I did. I was naive to think that a large organization would at least give me a chance to speak for myself, to talk to me about things.

If you have not caught it so far in this message, basically I got fired due to my background. The same background which landed me in jail for some time, and cost me nearly 8000$ total, a felony on my record, the same shadow which seems to never fade no matter how many sunsets come and go, it's the same thing that's so far in my past, I don't even remember people's names. Drugs, it was all over drugs. We're all young, adventurous, and quite naive about life at our earlier years. For me it was a bit more extreme than others I thought I was smarter than everyone. I was wrong. But I found out very quickly that I couldn't rely on so-called friends, girlfriends, or family to pick me up out of this giant crater that I formed in my own life, I had to do it myself. And this is what I've done.

It's been nearly 6 years since my 20th birthday, which I celebrated in a cell. I do not think I'll ever forget that, and I can surely tell you I don't think about it much. It's only when events happen that require me to explain "my record", or if I feel like telling my life story will somehow help motivate someone close to me. I'll go into detail again for their sake.

Over 5 years have passed, and I look at the 3.5 years of amazing IT career and 18 months of college where I got my associates graduating with honors, and I feel accomplished. I am not content with where I am in my career, and it makes it challenging. How do I continue to learn, grow, thrive, and excel if not given the opportunity to do so? I'll tell you how, find someone who will give me that opportunity.


As I digress, my anger seems to be at peak, my anger for which people judge me without even hearing their peers, without listening to my words, without even recognizing me as nothing more than a name, a number, a sheep. I will not be a sheep. I will not allow myself to become one of those people. See my value, or I'll move on to someone who will. Life is too short to spend the majority of my time working for someone who isn't going to appreciate me. Luckily I had a lot of appreciation for most of the last year or so, it's a shame that only recently that had to change.

I'm highly qualified, I'm highly skilled, I have an inept ability to thrive, and learn almost anything. It's rare that I am not able to figure something out, commit it to memory, compare it with logic to understand it and move on. I'm a very organized, fast paced, high energy person who thrives on his accomplishments and is enthralled by challenges. It's this type of environment that I need. It's this type of environment that I am now seeking. I can look at things from many perspectives, find the best solution, and plan a way to implement the solution with minimal impact on business productivity. These skills alone should be highly valued, as I do not see many people like me in the various jobs I have been. There is only one me, I have been through way too much in this life to look back, get down about this, or give up. I will succeed, I will make something of myself, and I will give back to this world. I will keep all of these thoughts in my head, these recent - more positive - thoughts over the next few weeks while I get back to job searching. I will keep remembering that not every company is full of capitalist ignorance, some will actually care about the single employee who manages their entire infrastructure.

I'm just trying to figure out how to do all of that and still maintain some semblance of good health. I'm working on that though....Now to find a better career opportunity now.

Thanks for reading my rant. I do actually feel better this time, not just words on the screen.