Looking back on 2010

So, I just want to write out my major events/accomplishments for the past year just so I don't feel like it was a total waste, which is what I feel like a good bit of the time. I feel like I could have done 10 times as much.

sorted out my religious views
sorted out my insecurities and dealt with them
-loosened my grip on my image
-Don't care as much about money (started giving it away)
-talked with my dad
-admitted my fears
Made it past a break up (and was honest with someone else about all of it)
Passed Level one of CAIA
took level one of CFA (waiting on results - Hopefully I passed)
Lived in Charleston for a month
Went to Mardi Gras
Went to NYC a few times (and did my last on a shoestring budget just to prove to myself that I could do it with just a few bucks)
Spent a week in Louisville
Went to Miami/Everglades/Key West
Camped out and went off of the grid for a week
Shorter roadtrips to:
-Atlanta
-Auburn
-DC
-Hilton Head
-Ecovillage
started painting again
worked on my photography
ran my first 5k and sprint triathlon
finished USMC mud run
Kayaked ~50 miles down Congaree river
Got in shape (still need to get to goal of 180 lb)
Grew a beard!
Fixed up my house (proud of it now)
worked with neighborhood to make the area better
- community gardens
- litter clean ups
- police enforcement
- Trees! Trees! Trees!
- street sweeping
- New code enforcement officers (got old ones removed)

In retrospect. I feel like I really can accomplish anything once I write it down and make it an explicit objective. I think this is key. When I think about the things I am the proudest of over the past 12 months, it is those for which I put pen to paper (or at least pecked them out on a list on my iphone). It's almost as if I have the power to create my own destiny. The hard part is still trying to figure out what's worth spending time on, but it seems anything is better than just sitting on my ass which seems to be my natural tendency (that or just going out and hanging with friends drinking/dancing/laughing and chasing girls - which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does, in the end, seem a little hollow).

Found on a sidwewalk

...it reminded me of my last post

self observations...

I feel like I have two faces. A serious one, which is the one I show on here, and a silly one which I show to most people and what I market, if you will, on Facebook.

I think I may have written about this before, but it's interesting how clinging to my last relationship sort of warped who I was. I felt like I was putting myself into a box that would make her happy and even long after the relationship was over, I still changed my public face to something more palatable to her tastes. Anyway, in the last month or two I feel like I have finally gone back to being the mischievous, reasonably clever jester I enjoy being.

For a while I felt like she accepted and understood this side of me, but in retrospect, I wonder if she just put up with it because the other side was worth it.

Either way, I know going forward I don't want to have to work to make my most salient characteristics fit, particularly the ones I enjoy. I also didn't realize how much the people who like me, really like me for this side of me. It seems perverse to please someone who doesn't like me for who I am at the expense of those who really enjoy what I am all about.

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In other news...

I have also seriously considered being a Unitarian Universalist minister for the past few weeks, given it basically gives me exactly the type of lifestyle I want: constant interaction, a chance to talk/discuss interesting ideas, help people from a philosophical perspective, a very flexible schedule, a chance to run an organization that can affect change in the community I live in, and very open ended subject matter. I think I would actually make a good public face, could help to run a good organization (though working with committees would be tough for me), BUT as much as I would be good at those things, I feel like I don't have the deep and painful life experiences which help you to relate to people.

In some ways I think this IS part of the reason people who like me, do like me, because I have this perpetual optimism (alternately maybe I have been through as many painful things as other people and I am just better at letting them roll off of my back). I am torn because I feel like this could be my greatest asset, but at the same time my biggest weakness as a "minister." I have sympathy but not empathy. I have so much trouble wrapping my head around why other people feel the way they do. I can certainly help them to think a different way, but the emotions that seem to overrun people I just don't really have much familiarity with. Anyway, I was thinking I might be better served, if I were to wait until I was much older and have sort of seen the gamut of human emotions, at which point I would be able to give some very pointed insights, BUT at the same time I do think I have something special to offer right now. I am not sure which would be the best course of action... I think i am going to stick with finance for the near future, but I definitely see a fork down the road.

One thing that makes me angry

I knew each of you
hours upon hours we talked
growing closer
things, circumstances bring us apart
months, years later we meet again
things have changed, but souls have not
but now, walls, retrenchment
like a frightened turtle
hidden inside the shell
but that's only part
the other is the dreams you cling to
fairy tales of happiness
fairy tales of monogamy
I don't like your rules
they just get in the way

Hmmm

I think I have some latent hostility towards women deep down inside.
I'm not sure where it came from. This might take a while to sort
out...

I like this city when I walk it's streets
I like this city when I feel it's heart beat
I like this city when I feel it breathe
I like this city just as soon as I leave
I know it well and I feel it knows me
We go way back, kinda got a history
The lonely nights and the cold dark roads
The summer lights and the way time flows
My life is here, but my spirits gone
Back on the road searching for a home
I like this city when I walk it's streets
I like this city when it's myself I meet




I can settle down and be doin’ just fine
Til I hear an old train rollin’ down the line
Then I hurry straight home and pack
And if I didn’t go, I believe I’d blow my stack
I love you baby, but you gotta understand
When the lord made me
He made a ramblin’ man.

Some folks might say that I’m no good
That I wouldn’t settle down if I could
But when that open road starts to callin’ me
There’s somethin’ o’er the hill that I gotta see
Sometimes it’s hard but you gotta understand
When the lord made me, he made a ramblin’ man

I love to see the towns a-passin’ by
And to ride these rails ’neath god’s blue sky
Let me travel this land from the mountains to the sea
’cause that’s the life I believe he meant for me
And when I’m gone and at my grave you stand
Just say God called home your ramblin’ man.

Changes

I used to be critical and dismiss people before I even met them, and I think I do it a lot less than I used to, but something new has happened recently and I just realized it about five minutes ago. I have started preemptively dismissing people because I assume they will judge me and I just go ahead and make the decision for them that they won't like me. I am not sure if it's more the fact that I don't want to waste my or other people's time or if it's just a defense mechanism so that I don't have to explain myself in such depth to people who might end up still making me feel like crap in the end no matter how reasonable my explanation. Anyway, just something I noticed and wanted to share... I think I am going to try to stop doing it though, whatever the cauase. There is no reason I should be making those decisions for other people, I let them reject me on their own terms. Though at the same time I will probably still be up front about what I think will irritate them the most about me. And who knows, I might be weeding out people who can open my eyes to something new....

Sadly

Fairy tales say I'll always love you, but the truth is I'll always hate you