Friday, December 20, 2013

Weird Stuff is Happening

This whole job thing is pretty weird, at least for me so far.  I think I'm doing pretty well with it, and objectively it's causing me way less stress than poker ever did, but that lower amount of incurred stress and more free time doesn't seem to be translating into me actually being all that much more relaxed.  And I completely don't understand that.  I have more time, yet I still seem to be struggling to get things done.  I don't have as many frustrating or anger inducing things happen to me throughout the day (in fact that number is basically zero), yet I still seem to be kind of angry a lot.  I don't make nearly as many decisions, and I don't have nearly as much social interaction in a day, which should amount to me being less tired.  But I'm still really tired all the time.  It's absurd.  I should have more time to get to the gym, but it's still a struggle.  I should hardly ever think about money because now I just go in, do my thing, and a check comes in every two week.  Yet somehow I'm thinking about it as much as I was before, maybe even more.  For the first time in over five years I am actually free to do some financial planning;  I'm making a budget for crying out loud, something I have literally never had in my entire life.  Maybe it's just because Christmas is here and holy shit (I mean holy shit) but  all of it just adds up to making no sense whatsoever.  Everything should be better and yet...my mind is finding a way to let be not great.  I dunno, maybe I need to spend more time thinking about the fact that "this is water" but that doesn't seem to help.  Is it just human nature (or my nature) to elevate whatever minor problems or stresses one has to the appropriate level of catastrophe or pain to cause yourself to feel the amount of stress and pain you're used to?  They say that more money almost never makes you happy; that never made sense to me growing up, but over the last few years I've come to believe it's completely true.  Is it also the case that "more happiness" also doesn't make you happier?  That we become so accustomed to our own status quo that no matter how many small changes we make it's almost impossible to change the way we feel?

I dunno, but this is definitely not what I expected.

7 comments:

armor said...

Play poker part time.

jesse8888 said...

dear god why would i do that

Matt said...

Maybe you are an extrovert?

Ken said...

Try focusing on yourself. Take the time to truly understand what would make you happy, then go do that. Happiness and money have very little to do with each other (unless you truly don't have enough).

md said...

Try focusing on poker. Take the time to truly understand that poker would make you happy, then go play and grind. Happiness and money and poker have a lot to do with each other (unless you truly don't play enough).

Ace said...

You can think of emotions as a line that has a positive slope and the higher you climb the more happy you'll be. But, I believe, emotions are a sine wave. There are peaks and troughs and you are forced to ride the wave. Happiness is a peak of the emotion wave and the negative emotions are the troughs. It's a finite scale!

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you should start drinking more often Jesse