Sunday, March 31, 2019

Forced Focus

I haven't written in quite some time. I feel I should write out something just to see if I can squeeze some insights out. Writing has a way of doing that:

Life is good. My finances are in order and I no longer worry about money. I purchased a new car, have two rental properties and am slowly fixing up the house I am living in. It will soon be a really nice place to stay. I have a puppy, the promotion I wanted, a CAIA (and am working on level III of the CFA), money in the bank, savings for retirement, and a nice girl who is there for me. My biggest gripe has and continues to be the lack of a solid friend circle in Columbia. Everyone keeps moving away and I straddle multiple social groups in the city but don't have a natural social home. I don't like the "cool" millennials, not a fan of hanging with married couples, I'm tired of partying with college kids, don't fit in with the hipsters, and certainly don't have a place in the hood. This city doesn't have a lot of smart, working professionals (mainly because we don't have a lot of jobs that would retain these people). They have all left for NYC, Boston, Charlotte and Atlanta. Realistically, I don't see the employment picture turning around anytime soon and probably just need to accept this fact. Things could be more interesting if I were in a relationship (it seems like there are probably many more couples I could relate to), but for now, I don't have a lot of options. It feels a bit weird to type that because I am CONSTANTLY surrounded by people. I am an extreme extrovert and enjoy talking to people but have difficulty connecting. I usually just compensate for this by letting people tell me their stories. I ask lots of little questions about their lives or emotional questions about their family. Sometimes this is tedious or I come off as too prying. Overall, I suppose it exposes me to a much wider circle of people, but I do long for the days when I connect with people.
   Overall though, I don't really feel the same nagging sense of discontent that I had a few years ago. I feel relatively at ease with things. I am traveling a good bit which I enjoy, Angie is really kind, and I think having a pet really does help with my sense of being alone. Hard to beat having a constant companion.
   I guess in closing I need to work on building deeper relationships with a more narrow set of people. Probably need to apply the same medicine to my network  that I have applied to my closet, house and car. Just clean it out, declutter and keep what I really enjoy.

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