Dislike

There’s a mix in my head right now, calm and chaos. I suppose that’s pretty normal.

But what I can’t seem to shake is how much time I spend doing things I don’t like. Look, I don’t mean things cleaning the bathroom - nobody likes cleaning the bathroom but I’d rather be cleaning the bathroom than 99.9% of the stuff I do for work, and I appreciate the end result, so it’s fine.

What I mean is time spent stroking the egos of people I don’t particularly care for. Or focusing my intelligence on projects I’m not genuinely invested in if they fail or succeed, so long as I get my paycheck. Or furthering the pursuits of people that I don’t particularly care about (which, admittedly, is an upgrade from this time last year when I was furthering the pursuits of people I flat-out couldn’t stand and made my life miserable).

In the big scheme of things, it’s probably not that hard to make sure my efforts are supporting a person, a cause or an entity that I value. And the things I want to be doing with my life - growing food, taking care of living things, fixing broken things - are actually very practical and sound ideas. It’s not as if I want to ride in hot air balloons for a living (which, no disrespect to those of you who do that and have made it work but, for me, riding around in a hot air balloon all day wouldn’t make me particularly happy or productive … at least, I don’t think. Maybe it would).

But, no, I’m getting more and more comfortable with the realization that what I want to do with my life is fine and it’s enough. It’s more than enough. Taking care of my little world, my little homestead, is noble and I think I would enjoy it immensely.

And getting multiple hand slaps in one day from my boss doesn’t do a lot to make me feel good about what I’m doing.