Chapter 76: Motivation

I woke up this morning before my alarm went off. Not just a few minutes before my alarm went off, but a whole 35 minutes before it went off. 6:55am. When I woke up and checked my phone for the time, I considered trying to go back to sleep until 7:30am, when the alarm would go off, but I decided that there was nothing wrong with getting up before 7am and, while I did feel a little groggy, it would be good to get an earlier start on the day. I got up and went to the bathroom and started the morning routine, then got myself a soda and spent a little leisurely time in front of the computer, checking my Twitter, Facebook, music blogs, etc. After a little while my Mom woke up and made some coffee, which was definitely helpful, and I actually managed to eat something this morning before work. I was talking to somebody recently about the fact that I have started working out with my Mom and about how I could also stand to work on my eating habits. I haven’t talked about this in too much detail here in the blog, but three or four years back I found myself suffering from an eating disorder. I have never had a healthy relationship with food, I suppose, and it really came to a head at that time. I was a pretty big mess. My typical eating habits have always been the same: Don’t eat breakfast, don’t eat lunch, eat a large dinner. That large dinner normally came pretty late in the evening, too. Essentially, it is the antithesis of all of those little hints you always hear. Back in 2006 it got to an extreme, though, where I wouldn’t eat a large dinner for days at a time. I have normalized it now to the point where I am back to the no breakfast, no lunch, large dinner plan. I am trying to work on it now, but the issue is that I don’t really know how to correct it. I just don’t know how to eat properly. This is something I definitely need to work on. I know that eating regular meals is something I need to start working on. Of course, this morning’s breakfast was nowhere near regular: it was a leftover burrito from Taco Bell. Still, it was some form of sustenance in the morning and I consider that a step in the right direction, if nothing else.

After my burrito, coffee and a few cigarettes, it came to the time when my Mom and I have been starting the workout. She asked me if I would be pissed off if we didn’t do it today and I told her that it was up to her. I would do it if she would. She then said she didn’t want to, and I said that was okay. Apparently, she felt bad, though, and we wound up doing it. It was a better workout than yesterday. I still only did the one-mile and, despite the fact that she protested at first, my Mom continued on for a second mile. A few times later in the day she tried to apologize to me for trying to back out on it, which I thought was really silly. She said that she should be encouraging me instead of trying to skip days and such, and she also thanked me for being her motivation today. It’s silly, but I completely understand what she is saying. She has been an inspiration to me in even getting started with the whole thing, and I can think of times when I have inspired people to try something different and the sense of responsibility that you feel towards that and trying to help them move forward with it. It’s kind of like we said to each other when we first discussed me joining her in her workout, it is always really helpful to have a workout partner, because you can both help to keep each other motivated and moving forward. It is completely natural for us to have days where we just don’t feel like doing it or feel exceptionally lazy or tired. Chances are that our workout partner won’t be feeling that way on the same days that we are, and the one can motivate the other to push through those feelings and stay on track. It is really a good thing, and I am very glad that we are doing it. I am really enjoying it and look forward to continuing on with it and, especially, seeing the results of it!

When I got to work this morning, it was exceptionally slow again. It wasn’t as slow as Monday was, but considerably less busy than Tuesday was. This brought on another of those silly, useless conversations that pop up in my workplace every couple months or so: “We’re slow now, imagine what it will be like in the summer.” “They’re bound to start letting people go.” “I wonder if the company is having trouble.” “I don’t know how much longer this account is going to be around.” I really hate that kind of talk. It only serves to stir up paranoia and create doubt and panic in people’s minds. We don’t know what’s going to happen by the summer. We don’t know what’s going to happen next week. It just seems so unnecessary to speculate, particularly when that speculation is solely focused on something negative. There are a lot of really great things that could happen between now and then, too. With the current economic climate, most businesses are considerably slower than they were this time last year. You don’t see them all shutting down. Even if the company we are currently working with were to shut down or make changes that included us losing our jobs, the place that shall not be named for security purposes is full of other companies and are very good at finding spots for people who wind up getting laid off from the jobs they are already in. I don’t see a single reason to be concerned at this point. There is really nothing at all that indicates that we are in any danger of losing our jobs. Still, I do understand that we have been conditioned by society to constantly fear for and expect the worst. I wish more people were willing to look past what they’ve been taught, though, and choose to see the world from another angle.

The workday was pretty bland, honestly. It felt like it couldn’t have possibly passed any slower. I got in a little bit of a tiff with one of my co-workers early this morning. I wouldn’t even really call it a tiff. I just felt like she was pretty loudly trying to call me out for having made a minor mistake. I know that she didn’t do it intentionally but I couldn’t help but feel like I was being pointed and laughed at. It equated to, in my mind at that moment, her basically shouting to the rest of our co-workers, “HEY, LOOK EVERYBODY! JASON CAN’T DO ANYTHING RIGHT!” Like I said, I know this wasn’t her intention and I immediately felt really guilty for snapping at her the way that I did. I apologized for it immediately afterwards. This is exactly what I was talking about in last night’s blog, actually. It was reactive behavior. Instead of stopping, processing what was being said and letting it go, I went with my immediate, knee-jerk, ego-driven reaction and snapped back. It was wrong of me. I hate when I do things like that. It is just a reminder to me that I am human and make mistakes. I hate that whole being human thing. It just sucks because I have a tendency to feel like I am really good at resisting my reactive behavior and then something like this happens and I have to face the facts again: I am not perfect. I am not even close. I understand the beauty of imperfection, and I embrace it most of the time, but when something like this happens I have a tendency to become very disappointed with myself. What I have to remember, though, is that nobody is perfect and we are all going to react sometimes; the important thing is to recognize the terrible, negative feelings that come from it and try our best to do better the next time. I still feel really guilty for doing that, though.

I’ve realized recently that I am not a good friend. I try really hard and always have good intentions, but I have a lot of difficulty following through on those intentions. I am just like my father in that way. My father is a man who is full of promises, and he seems to really want to hold himself to them, but never really does. As I grow up more and more, I come to see how similar I really am to my father. I don’t want to end up like him, though. Not to say that he isn’t a good person or is in a bad place or anything, but he is kind of living the same life now that he has since he was my age. He’s noncommittal, he seems to have no true loyalty, tends not to stay in one place for too long, and is full of pipe dreams. He’s also very charming, funny and knows how to make himself the center of attention. That could be a description of me. I don’t want to stay this way, though. I want to grow. I want to evolve. I want to change. I have realized recently how much so many of the things I do have been a major letdown to the people who are important to me; the people I will go as far as to call my friends. Friend is not really a term I use lightly. There aren’t a whole lot of people I would genuinely call my friends. People I work with are a great example. I get along with pretty much all of them, but I wouldn’t call most of them friends of mine. There aren’t many of them I would choose to spend time with outside of work. They aren’t friends they are people I happen to know. Still, it seems that the ones I do choose to call my friends tend to be the ones I disappoint. I don’t want to do that anymore. As I have mentioned before, this is a large part of why I have decided to stay here in Florida. In creative and professional terms, I feel like this has already proven to be the right choice. The harder work for me here is in repairing my interpersonal relationships. It’s not just a matter of repairing relationships – it is a matter of repairing myself and building relationships that don’t need to be repaired. I have actually been thinking a lot lately about looking into possibly going into therapy. One of my co-workers was telling me that our insurance would most likely cover it. If that is the case, I can’t really think of much of a reason not to. There is a lot of stuff in my head that really needs to be sorted out and I have no idea where to begin. A professional would surely be able to help with that. I also know that my friend Whitney has been in therapy for a while now and it has really done wonders for her. I just always kind of thought I wouldn’t REALLY need therapy because I have always been a very spiritually awake person but I realize now that one doesn’t necessarily have a lot to do with the other. Of course, spirituality is a part of everything we do, but being spiritually awake doesn’t necessarily equate to understanding yourself any better. That, to me, seems to be what therapy is about. I think it could possibly do me a lot of good.

This evening my Mom happened to find an ad on Craig’s List with a heading of “ARTISTS WANTED! EARN EXTRA CASH T-SHIRT DESIGNS!” She emailed this listing to me and I emailed the poster inquiring about what exactly they were doing. They stated in the ad simply that they were a clothing company looking for multiple artists for t-shirt designs. It just seems funny that she stumbled upon this right as I have started drawing for that specific purpose. I don’t know exactly what type of designs this company is looking for but if they are looking for something unique, interesting and different from what you normally see on t-shirts my work could be right up their alley. I must admit, though, I am a little self-conscious about my works because I understand my limitations and that I am not a trained artist by any means. Still, if nothing else, I can at least say that I have a vision and some really great ideas. Like I said, I emailed them asking for more of an idea of what they are looking for and kind of explaining some of my work and the inspirations behind it. I can’t help but feel good about it, at least a little bit, considering it has popped up suddenly right when I have started working on this idea. The Universe is still working in my favor, after all. I was talking to my sister this evening about my whole concept for doing t-shirts, and kind of explaining that Threadless website to her and she actually responded really well to the idea, even stating that I should invest in Photoshop again because I was really good at it. As anyone reading this should know by now, music is my true passion and the main driving force in my life but if I can find a way to earn some cash by way of working in the visual arts and doing something else that I enjoy and do for fun, why not take a chance on it? Like I said, The Universe is still working in my favor and I am keeping my eyes open for it’s signs of what I should do next or what direction I should move in. Since making the decision to stay here in Florida, it seems to have been working overtime to make sure that I don’t regret that decision, and I am eternally grateful for that.

It is nearly midnight now and my head is already full of dreams. It seems like now would be a great time to go to bed and let those dreams take over for a while. I feel really genuinely happy where I am at in life right now, understanding that there is more to figure out but also understanding that I know what I want and having complete faith that I will find a way to get it. I understand that I don’t have it all figured out, but there is one thing I do have that will somehow make all the rest fall into place: MOTIVATION.