So here we are. It’s 12am on a Tuesday and I’m in no danger of falling asleep. My last resort is to sit down and put pen to paper in the hope that spilling my mind on a page will help to quieten it down enough for slumber. I know what you’re thinking, “how da hell is this guy preaching about happiness when he clearly hasn’t got his own shit together”. Truth is, I’m not preaching about happiness. This blog is not about answers, it’s about questions. It’s about following someone else’s journey in the hopes of learning through someone else’s mistakes and triumphs. Probably the only guarantee that I can offer is that there are no guarantees, just a rambling stream of flotsam on a page. To call it anything else would be misleading. In short, I ain’t no guru.
So what do I want right now? hard question so I’ll give you a hard answer. Firstly, I want sleep. It’s eluding me like a mirage in a desert. I feel like I’m getting closer and then realize it’s still on the horizon. Secondly, I want happiness. I often can’t tell in the moment if I am happy, maybe I am, maybe I’m not. I’m still working on that. Thirdly, I want an artisan cheeseburger from an artisan food truck sitting outside an artisan brewery. Why artisan? because when I say that word I think of someone that really gives a shit about their craft. They’re normally hairy and wearing a trucker’s cap but they seem so bloody happy. They seem to cram everything that beautiful into a toasted brioche bun with aged cheddar and fried onions oozing out the sides. A good burger is alluding me too.
So in this self-indulgent stream of consciousness, I wonder what I could be passionate about? I was passionate as a young boy, sometimes a little too passionate. I would try something new and fall head over heels, giving my heart to it and falling in love. Cricket, rugby or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It didn’t matter, if it had my attention for more than a few minutes, I was hooked. So what’s changed? What happens in your 30’s that drains your ability to be passionate? Are you only allowed to be passionate about your wife and kids? I feel like that’s putting a whole lot of pressure on those cherubs to be the ONE thing a guy trully loves.
In defense of my lack of passion diversity, I seem to only exist to do three things. They are, raise kids, home improvement and bring home the bacon. Between those three things exists small slivers of moments; time in which I am allowed flashes of “me time”. They’re roughly 12 minutes long (about as long as a Fireman Sam episode) to do with as I wish. Sometimes I feel guilty for using this time to melt into the couch and plug in to whatever app is on my phone. Truth be told I feel guilty for even writing this as I’m sure my wife does more than me in the housework, child rearing stakes. That said she is MUCH better than me at unplugging from parenting and regularily carves out time for herself to see her friends. While I’m happy for her, I’m also slightly jealious that her friends are reliable enough to do this with. I see the good it does for her as when she returns, she’s visibly relaxed as if she’s just come home from a holiday. I just wonder why I haven’t managed to get my act together in a similar way.
So why haven’t I tried to connect with other guys? Am I embarrased to ask another bloke out to brunch? do guys even do that? seems weird, or maybe I’m weird for thinking it’s weird. Wouldn’t be weird if it was for something cool like kayaking down a river mouth, but geez, a guy gotta eat too! Where’s that cheeseburger? Let’s put a pin in mandates for now and visit that in another article.
On reflection, I am anxious and to help solve my anxiety, I plan to become passionate about something. The problem is that I have no idea what I’m passionate about which in turn makes me more anxious….
In retrospect, all of my passions feel minial or trivial. They feel like they lack substance. Sport? really? every year there’s a premiership so why get so excited about this one? what am I doing when I invest myself in a sport’s teams fanbase? am I just looking for a tribe? my flock?
My thinking is that a better way to invest time into passion is to perhaps look to something that teaches me a skill. Something that, even after I’ve grown bored of it, I can hold on to the skills that I’ve learnt and not think of the time spent as a waste. But what? painting? guitar? gardening? writing? actually, reading those back to myself, they all sound pretty bloody good.
That’s it. Check back soon as I fully intend to act on this. move over Picasso, Toby is looking for passion 🙂
