Life has not gone the way that I expected. How often have you seen me say that of late? But what do you want me to say? Would you rather I say that things are fine? That everything is up to snuff? I know for a fact that neither of those things is true—I’d be delusional to think otherwise. I can be and need to be doing more with my life. I’m capable of much much more. Where I’m at right now is not where I’m meant to be. I’ve been called to a higher purpose, I’m quite confident in that. There’s so much untapped potential within me that’s being wasted at the moment. So why haven’t I made any meaningful changes yet?

It’s just not that simple… The opportunities have been tough to come by. Something that’s been true for my entire life. When I was a teenager, I used to see this as “proof” that God hated me or that the universe wanted to see me fail. But that was just an excuse that oversimplified things. The truth is, that was just a defense mechanism that provided me with an easy way out, allowing me to shuck responsibility, avoid taking accountability, and pin the blame on someone or something other than myself. If I accepted that statement as truth then the implication was that no matter what I did I would never be good enough. Damn… That’s a rather fatalistic judgment for a seventeen-year-old to be making. How did I know with that much certainty that my life would amount to nothing? My life hadn’t even started yet and I’d already given up.

It’s kinda no wonder then that the first quarter century of my life ended up playing out the way that it did. How can you expect to find success if you have zero self-belief? But at the same time, how do you gain self-belief if you don’t have success to point back to? Obviously that circular argument is overly simplistic and rather short-sighted. There’s much more to it than just those two things. Yes you probably need to have self-belief to find success, but you don’t necessarily need success to find self-belief. Confidence can be found any number of ways, from any number of places. But my mental fortitude in my teenage years was minimal or non-existent. In my underdeveloped brain there were only two ways to gain confidence: externally or internally. The former came from praise and affirmation for academic or personal achievements. The latter I saw as drive and ambition that was inherent in some individuals but not in others. For a long time, I believed I had neither of those things. That being said, whatever confidence I started out with dissipated over time and I didn’t have a meaningful way of regaining it. Little did I know that all I was doing was setting myself up for failure. 

If I didn’t have confidence, and I couldn’t gain it, then what exactly was the point? Clearly there was a flaw in the logic. But I was incapable of thinking in non-black & -white terms back then. Either I had confidence or I didn’t and there was no in between. Because of my small-minded point of view, my mind was left spinning around a conundrum that had plenty of answers, but they were ones I wasn’t able to see. Without any sort of ambition to work towards I felt directionless and lost. There was thus no easy way out of this vicious cycle (at least in my mind) because I’d already limited myself. I falsely believed that my fate had been decided. So if I was already destined to be a loser then I didn’t see much point in giving my full effort. Unbeknownst to me, I had fallen hook, line & sinker for the self-fulfilling prophecy. My fate hadn’t been determined yet—the world was still my oyster. My options were limitless, all I needed to do was work towards something, anything… But because I’d somehow convinced myself that I was a predestined failure, a flop, a dud, a nobody I ended up writing my own fate. And not in a good way. 

But that’s the thing. My so-called fate hadn’t been pre-determined at all. Nothing about my life was ever written in stone (it still isn’t). People can change. They can grow, improve, heal, get better, gain knowledge. Jobs and careers may come and go. Relationship dynamics can shift. Everyone has parts of their story that are yet to be written. I think as humans we choose to believe in fate because it helps explain why and how certain things come to pass. It helps us explain the unexplainable, but that’s just it. Not everything has an explanation, nor does it need to have one. There’s an infinite amount of knowledge out there, much more than what our finite brains can comprehend. As much as we want to know everything, it’s just not going to happen. But it doesn’t mean we stop trying to learn new things. It doesn’t mean we stop seeking out new experiences and opportunities. It doesn’t mean we stop striving for greatness. For someone with a healthy mindset, it should actually push us to do the opposite. Seeing how much we don’t know should actually motivate us to want to learn more. 

The keyword there is healthy. You need to get your mind right first. It’s non-negotiable. You will think so much clearer if your mental is on point, I can guarantee that. Once you start thinking in a healthier way it’ll be easier for you to make important decisions. Facing adversity won’t be as stressful. The future won’t feel as scary. It’ll allow you to put a plan in place to get you to where you want to go. It may or may not work, but it at least gives you something to work towards and adds some well-needed structure to your goal setting. Obviously, what healthiness entails is different for each individual. But it’s important just the same. Make your mental health your priority and soon things will fall in place. I wish I had understood the importance of this at an earlier age. But sometimes you have to go through some shit before you’re able to figure out what to do. “I didn’t walk through all that fire just to smell the smoke.” I believe that even if fate can be overstated sometimes, things still happen for a reason. 

I hold on tightly to that. Because the truth is, every experience is an opportunity to learn something new. Even if you’re able to find success, there may still be a more efficient way of doing things. Even if things didn’t quite work out the way you had hoped, you might still learn a few things about yourself. Don’t look at that as a failure, but rather see it as a setback. Just because things didn’t work out the one time, doesn’t mean that they’ll never work out. You’ll just need to adjust and try again. That’s how life goes. It’s a never-ending series of trial & error. You can’t rewind. You can’t go back to a previous save file and make a different decision—you only get one chance. You can’t take back the things you say or do. Life is not a video game. What you can do is learn from your mistakes, learn from the mistakes of others, use hindsight and reflection to guide your future decision making. Everything that happens in life can be used to help inform your future. That’s really what it’s all about: trying to set yourself up for success, trying to put your future self in the best position possible. 

As with most things, that’s easier said than done. In the social media age we’ve been conditioned to seek instant gratification. Obviously, getting immediate results and recognition makes us feel good, but it’s not the most realistic of expectations. Going viral or blowing up out of nowhere just doesn’t happen that often. You have like a one in a million chance. It’s something you can hope for, but it is not reliable enough to be the expectation. Using something that’s out of your control as an emotional support beam will only lead to disappointment if things don’t work out. It’s better to lean on something more stable—the things within your control, namely your effort and determination. That’s what it will come down to at the end of the day. The best things in life take time to create. Your favorite guitar player didn’t learn how to shred overnight. It took hours and hours of practice. Your favorite center fielder wasn’t able to track a deep ball right off the rip. It took years of practice for him to get good enough to play in the MLB. Whatever it is you want to do, you will need to work hard at it. That’s just a fact. 

But at the same time though, it’s much more complicated than that. Just because you work hard doesn’t necessarily mean that things will work out the way that you want. Life is random and sometimes shit happens. It could be the cards you’re dealt, it could be bad timing, or bad luck or what have you. Everyones situation is different, so there is no such thing as a guaranteed success or a guaranteed failure. What may work for one person might not work for another. There aren’t many things that are guaranteed in life. One thing’s for sure though, you will go through adversity, you will run into speed bumps, you will go through hardships in life. That’s just the truth. Life is hard. You’ll likely encounter moments of smooth sailing, but don’t get too comfortable, because there will also be rocky roads ahead. We won’t know ahead of time what type of adversity we’ll face, so we have to be prepared for anything. There’s a wide range of outcomes out there. How we handle the adversity says a lot about our character. 

But just because there will be adversity doesn’t mean that we stop dreaming or stop trying. We just have to learn how to adapt and pivot. We will have setbacks, but how will we deal with them? We have to keep pushing forward. Keep believing that the handwork will pay off. It won’t be immediate, it might not even be soon, but we have to maintain self-belief. Otherwise, what’s the point? Why did I spend all this time working on my craft? Why did I spend so many hours typing on my keyboard? Why did I spend months daydreaming, fantasizing, worldbuilding, and plotting the story I wanted to tell? My writing was the first major thing in life that gave me satisfaction and fulfillment, so I can’t just give up on it. Before this, I had spent 4.5 years double majoring: pursuing one field that I didn’t necessarily like and another that I didn’t think I could get a job in (without going to grad school). After that, I spent 8 years at companies that I didn’t fully buy into. No matter how good my grades were or how many hours I worked, it just did not give me purpose. Trust me I tried to find it, but something always felt like it was missing—they just did not satisfy.

It wasn’t until 2020, when I started writing consistently that I felt passion and spark in my life. I’d felt brief moments of it before—I had been blogging on & off for many years before that, and had found joy in small personal projects. But up til then, I had never really known what my purpose was. I struggled to find meaning in life. And the question in the back of my mind was always this: how do I fit in to society? What role do I play? I was and still am having an existential crisis. I want what I do to matter, maybe not in the grand scheme of things, but I want to at least make a positive impact on the people around me. Writing is the best way I know how. This is my purpose—I’ve finally found what I’m looking for. And having found it, I want to hold onto it for as long as I can. 

But it’s been four long years, without anything to show for it as of yet. The spark has faded since then, but hasn’t died. And I won’t let it. I will make something of this if it’s the last thing I do. What that looks like at the end of the day is yet to be known. Will I ever get traditionally published? Will my novel ever sell? I don’t know the answer to either of those yet, but it won’t be for lack of trying. What an agent or a publisher does is out of my control. And all of this speculation is in fact, looking too far forward. I still need to finish the manuscript first before anything. I know I’ve already been saying that for years—the writing is going way slower than I anticipated. But I need to rededicate myself to the process, because I don’t have anything else to hang my hat on at the moment. 

I admit that I made several mistakes along the way. There was faultiness in the expectations I set. There were delusions of grandeur. There were flaws in my thought process. But all of that is in the past. I’m aware of all that now, but there’s nothing I can do to change it. This stuff already happened. So all I can do is use these mistakes to inform my decision making moving forward. I’ve been trying my best to do that, but it’s tough for me to stay focused on the work and on the here & now. Because there’s so much else to worry about. It’s hard to prepare for my future given my financial situation. As I’ve said before, I waited too long to start my job search. Again, that’s a mistake that was made in the past that I’m trying to correct. 

All I can do is focus on the things I need to do and wait. Which gets harder by the week. While I am an extremely patient individual, and waiting is something I generally don’t mind doing, it’s starting to weigh on me. The longer I have to wait for the next opportunity, the easier it is for doubt to take hold. I’ve been trying my best to fight it, but it keeps coming back time after time. Every time I have a good month, it’s followed by a down period that may last days or weeks. And while I’ve been hoping for more stability in that regard, I don’t expect it to happen unless my circumstances change. I can’t give up, I won’t let my doubt win. But it’s become so hard…

I realize now that my writing career and my job search are two separate pursuits. Two equally important aspects of my life. But they both feed back into a singular tank of confidence. So when one takes a hit, they both take a hit. I’ve been letting that meter tick down for too long. Mentally, I’m not where I was at three years ago. I’m just not as resilient. I can build it back up, but something needs to change soon. I’m holding out hope though. I’m confident something will come my way. I just don’t know when, which is what fills me with anxiety. But I can’t focus on that because that will only lead to discouragement—a surefire way of leading me down an unhealthy path. The only way I can get through this is if I stay strong, keep pushing on. Keep working on the manuscript and keep looking for jobs.

I know what it looks like from the outside. I’m the guy who hasn’t earned a steady income in four years. Who hasn’t had a real job in that time. The guy who’s been living off his parents’ money. It’s easy to point to me and say, “What the fuck is wrong with that guy? Why is he so lazy? Why isn’t he working? Why is he just sitting around wasting time?” I’ve heard it before but I need to ignore the noise, even if it comes from people I thought were close. I guess that’s what hurts the most. Because you think certain people understand you and have compassion for you only to find out that you’re wrong. But they just don’t know the full story. They don’t know what’s going on in my mind. They don’t know how hard I’ve been working. They don’t know how many words I’ve written. How many job applications I’ve sent out. I just haven’t had any luck, and the right opportunity hasn’t come by. It doesn’t mean I’m sitting around on my ass, not doing anything. It doesn’t mean I’m a deadbeat or a loser. This situation is only temporary. Things will change at some point, only a matter of time. But until my job status changes I guess I’m just that guy. Just you wait though. I’ll rebound, I’ll come back, but for now I wait.