There is a prompt over on twitter that I responded to both as a joke and semi-seriously, and I have to say it makes me feel extremely old. If you look through the thread you see a lot of individuals with massive changes that they have gone through during the previous decade. Me… I have more or less been in maintenance mode. For me all of those big changes in my life happened last decade during the years of 2000 and 2010, but even then… you probably need to bump down to at least 1994 to start the clock of major changes given that’s when I graduated from High School and started a series of rapid events.
It is also making me realize that I have lived a really freaking charmed life. I more or less didn’t severely fuck up my life at any point and have to rebuild from scratch. I went to High School, went to a weird sequence of schools that eventually added up to being a 4 year College degree, and then upon exiting nailed a job as a developer right out of the gate. I didn’t spend time languishing in the service industry or working a sequence of dead end jobs waiting for my break. I just exited out one door and entered another. I’ve never really left the path that was the most obvious one laid out in front of me.
It does at least on some level make me wonder if I failed to grasp the point of life. Did I just take the easiest sequence of options and not really try at all? There is a version of me that probably has no clue how I got to this point in my life. That version wanted to go into video game development, which I pretty early decided was an unrealistic goal. I always sorta figured it was the equivalent of a kid who likes Football wanting to play for a professional team. I was nowhere good enough to make the cut so I sort of self censored myself and went for the more realistic options where were web development and eventually the comfortable life of a corporate developer.
The problem with comfort is that it can be a prison cell. I’ve reached a point in my life where it would be very difficult to make a serious change because it would ultimately come with some pretty dire financial ramifications. I flirted with writing piecemeal articles for pay and quickly realized that you have to work a hell of a lot harder doing that to cobble together something resembling a living. Yeah I could make it work probably, but as it stands my salary is what subsidizes my wife’s “teaching habit” so that isn’t really an option. Same goes with making a leap into some sort of game development, because I would ultimately be starting back over at square one.
I am jealous of the folks who have had the strength to burn down one life in order to build a new one that better suits them. I don’t think I have that in me, and the truth is I am actually happy in the life that I did build by following whatever path was laid out before me. Sure there are frustrations and when those mount it makes me wonder what life might have been had I made a few tweaks here or there to the plan. I think this questioning if I made the right choices however is what helps to fuel my sense of impostor syndrome. I feel like I just sort of accidentally ended up in the position that I am in and that I didn’t necessarily “earn” anything that I have.
I realize this is a weird downer of a blog piece, but I sat down and it just sort started pouring out of my fingertips. The truth is I have been having this conversation with you in one form or another for the last decade given that this blog was started in 2009. I’ve also been active on Twitter and built a sort of extended family there for the entirety of this decade as well. I’ve played so many games and through them gathered up a bunch of people that have followed me in the various bits of nonsense I have managed to get up to… and they have became another family as well. Then there is the AggroChat crew which really is closer than most of my family. I hate the term “blessed” because it seems so damned trite at this point… but I am not even sure what other word I could use to represent the same concept.
I am exceptionally lucky to be here sharing everything with you, and when I feel down and like nuking everything I have built from orbit… it is that realization that slowly moves me back from the ledge. Thanks for being with me for the last decade, and thanks for caring enough to talk me through the issues that I occasionally have. I’m not super close with my natural family, but over the last several decades I have managed to build a brand new one and I think that is probably my big accomplishment for these past ten years. I love you fine assortment of folks. Now I am going to stop writing before I somehow ruin the moment.
Today marks my 10 year anniversary of my first major pain attack, the one that had me gasping for air. I thought I was going to do die because I can’t breath properly and my anxiety hit the roof because of it. I was 21.
I think your twenties are when the biggest changes in your life happens, with your thirties next. I got my bachelor and master degree, became chronically ill, had part time jobs, one full time job before my body told I just can’t anymore and went to full time writing. I found my husband and got married. We have a dog and own a house (not many of our gen can say that).
Lots of changes, but I don’t rule out that the next decade of my life will be just a interesting.
Ultimately, life is about following your path, no matter what it is. Some bends in the road you can’t anticipate. And sometimes you don’t see the fork. That’s okay. The Path you’ve walked brought you where you are today and that’s good. You’re here. And I’m here with you.
Life is for living, not achieving. I’ve never had a particular desire to “do” anything with my life other than keep it going for as long as possible with the minimum of unpleasantness. I put a lot of that down to having been partially raised by retired grandparents. My role models in early childhood and adolescence were peope whose days consisted of pottering about, doing what they wanted to do while generally minding their own business. Seemed like a good life to me then and still does now.
In four or five years I will actually retire but I’ve lived most of life as though that had already happened – except for those inconvenient hours when I had to go to work. Even then, I managed to spend a couple of decades in jobs where I had a good deal of the day to myself to do things I wanted to do, not what I was being paid to do. These days I do actually have to work the hours I’m paid for – but I work fewer hours so it all balances out.
From everything you write in your blog I think you seem to be doing just fine lifestyle-wise. Sit back and enjoy it!
Accomplishments are not a measure of happiness. I know very successful (in the work sense) people who are living a mental nightmare. Just like I know people who have not “met their potential”, yet are extremely happy.
If you enjoy your work, your friends, your health, your hobbies – then that in itself is a thing to celebrate.
I’d say for the first 20 years I really enjoyed my job. These last 15? It’s just a job. The level of additional work that’s come about from the computer age has reached a point where I spend more time doing accounting and paperwork than actually drawing something. To think of something similar, imagine being an artist, but having to fill out requisition forms, submit schedules for completion progress, dealing with dozens of format changes, most after the work has started, and having the client demanding it get done sooner because if they don’t get it by a certain date, they will have to lay off 15 people, and it’s all your fault.
2031 can’t come soon enough.
A lot of what you said has a familiar ring to it for me, except I’m about 13 years older.
I’ve worked at the same job for almost 34 years. When I started I made $5.50 an hour which was certainly a lot more than the $2.65 I made while working part time at nights at the mall while going to tech school for drafting. The irony for me was the tech school I ended up at, had offered a full scholarship to me when I was in high school, thanks to a drafting instructor in school that had recommended me to them as a top student. My mom had gotten the letter, $5500 covered. But she had in her head that I would go to college, because you had to have a degree to get anywhere. I spent a year and a half struggling, being a top 10% in your class may mean something in high school, but when you get to college and everyone is top 10% or better? In the end I had a year and a half of college debt, and paid for the tech school. I had a 12 year old car that I would drive my sister to a local college in the morning, would drive 35 miles to go to school, back to pick her up at the end of the day, home for a quick bite, then work 3-4 hours at the mall. I did that for a year, graduated, got a job, been here ever since. Married in 97, bought my home in 99, we weren’t fortunate in having kids. I’ve been to Ireland, Canada, every state east of the Mississippi, and Colorado. I’ve been to GenCon, and a D&D convention in Washington DC.
Looking back at my working career, I’ve done drawings for somewhere between 250-300 buildings, elementary schools, shopping malls, luxury apartments in the center of Philadelphia, to low income senior living, I’ve drawn the football stadium for Rutgers University, to the Newark Airport Parking garage. Hospital parking garages, casino garages, even the corporate headquarters for the old MBNA credit card in Delaware. My life has been interesting I guess, my job is a job, I’m not making the kind of salary I thought I would be making if you asked me 35 years ago, and like you said, making a change would be a huge financial hit. I’m just ok. Sure I’ve had a few major hits over the years, but I managed to get through in one piece. I don’t look at those what have you done survey things anymore. I’m happy I survived, and hopefully in 10 years, I might be able to think about retiring. I will probably need to work longer to keep surviving.