I still haven’t convinced myself that we can’t achieve perfection, to be honest. Unfortunately. Every day I wake up and realize I can’t be perfect. You can’t be perfect. The world can’t be perfect. Actually it’s worse because I get anxious at my inability to reach perfection, subconscious wreaking havoc everywhere. And then I breathe and realize I have ridiculous expectations and I’m asking for a unicorn (which I still do quite frequently, along with the email fairy).
I hate that life is messy, but it is. But I think that out of the chaos we create something beautiful. It’s usually only beautiful in hindsight. Except that rare breed of people that can appreciate the day for the day, the moment for the moment, and realize that THIS IS LIFE. It’s not yesterday, it’s not tomorrow, it’s RIGHT NOW. I’m still wrapping my head around that concept, it’s so insane to me. To me life was always the future. What I would be next year, what I’d do tomorrow, where I would be in 5 years. What’s that saying? Life is what happens when you’re making other plans? Something like that.
If you imagine life as a dynamically changing equation, where every day new variables enter and you have to re-optimize given the new data, how is it possible to know where you’re going next week, let alone 5 years from now? That scares the hell out of me. But it’s true. Even in my own life. God damn you data.
We also like to lie to ourselves. A lot. At least I do. I’m so good at it, bonafide liarface. (That is the technical term for it, btw). One of our advisors had this great phrase. In God we trust. For everything else there’s data. I think collecting data is useful, it’s also useless sometimes. The trick is to know when and what context to use it in. I find out a lot about myself looking at the data points in my life. Which contradicts what I believe about myself, turns out. That’s also crazy. But coming to terms with that too.
The truth is I don’t know. Something about being here now, observing who you really are, and letting that guide the direction of your life. Also dealing with the fear and uncertainty of the unknown. Staring it right in the face and saying yes I see you. I will invite you to tea, you scary beast you.
That’s what I’m thinking about life right now.
Happy Holidays
So I Quit My Job and Moved to India 