If Anyone Is Out There...

I'm sure anyone who may have read this at one time has since forgotten about it - I know I have.  I guess I lost the inspiration to continue...however a reader contacted me recently to comment on something they had read from here so I figured...what the heck. 

It's interesting what a year can do.  It can be the trek forged to a better time and place where you look back on where you were and quietly admire how much progress you’ve made.  Or, it can be a despairing one to look back and feel like you have missed something or have been without.  I find myself somewhere in the middle.  In some regards, I have made giant leaps…I moved and changed jobs, forged many new friendships and cleaned up some of the proverbial rubbish in my life.  However, I do look back and wonder why certain things never came to fruition, why certain people have vanished from my life and whether or not next year will be better.  I’ve superstitiously always thought the even years were kinder…but it appears that is a figment of my imagination.  In any case, if you asked me to provide one word that would define where I am at in my life it would be, restless.

Like many in my age group – there is a constant pull, almost a compulsion, to always be in the pursuit of the next thing and be better at it than you were at the last.  Whether it is be more traveled, to go on to grad school, know what a Gastropub is, move on and forward and to New York and before you know it, you forgot what it was you started out to do.  In so creates restlessness from within…one which perhaps all generations feel.  However, I can only speak for a small percentage using the simple anecdotes from my own life.   

I recently stumbled upon a popular blog called the Thought Catalog.  It has been around for a while…but it had never come up on my radar until a few weeks ago.  Even a cursory glance at the content would suggest that it is authored by folks that are still coming of age...or the millennials so they (we) are fondly called  Of course, I did find myself reading a handful of the different articles – of which I found a similar sentiment of my own.  The majority of writers extrapolate on the struggles of isolation and how the uncertainties of life can manifest into many different maladies…most of them are all in our heads.  In a world driven by social media where you can be the star in your own show – and your audience is watching and waiting for the comedic gaff to come in the form of a break up, loss of a job or whatever… it is no wonder antidepressants are one of the most prescribed drugs given to young people.  How does anyone cope living in a self-produced fish bowl?  My suggestion, get a dog.  Nothing (except for maybe a kid) will humble, reward and teach you selflessness faster. Or, as my mom famously always says "simply don’t borrow trouble.”   In any case, I think the time has come to put the restlessness to good use…even if only for a couple of paragraphs.