A couple of months ago my therapist suggested that I make a list of my 10 top priorities. I have found this assignment to be so overwhelming that I’ve continued to waffle on it ever since. He suggested it again at my last session and I think maybe, unless I actually do it, I will be unable to make any serious movement in the direction I’d like to go in.
Naturally, following the long-established history of sharing too much information about myself with the vast jungles of the internets, I feel the need to think through this list here on the blog. So, ordered as I think of them, my top 10 priorities:
- My Wife — I’d say one of the main reasons I am still with Kim and probably the biggest reason we are even married is that she doesn’t let me get away with everything I’d like to get away with. She let’s me get away with a lot, but I wouldn’t even be in therapy right now if she had not suggested it. I initially did simply because she asked me to, but ultimately I am glad I did it. She’s always my sounding board for any major decisions I make. Sometimes I wish she voiced her opinion even more than she does, but the fact that she foils me at all is a blessing. Most people just let me run rampant and I end up flat on my face.
- Playing Music — Always a struggle. Always a topic of contention for me. I will contradict myself a thousand times a week when it comes to making music a priority. This last week I even seriously considered giving it up for good. After drawing the conclusion that if music was such a priority I’d just be be playing it more– not just simply telling myself I should be, I came to see the the flip side of that coin; If music was not a priority for me I wouldn’t be telling myself I need to play it. There is baggage here that I need to work out, but the truth is that I feel better when I walk in the shoes of a musician. My entire outlook on life is better when I do as little as play a few songs at an open mic once a week. The natural drive to play isn’t always there and I need to work on overcoming that lethargy. Playing music is like going to the gym: It’s something I’m never too jazzed about until after I’ve done it and I feel the benefit.
- Finding Rational Solutions — In my day-job I am surrounded by people’s irrationality. I am surrounded by exclamations from users that computers “just don’t like me and how they regard me as having some kind of magical presence that makes the PC behave as expected. I don’t think they genuinely believe this, but I it is more than obvious that they have no desire to truly understand what is going on. I want simplicity. I want rationality. I want things to make sense. When I can understand something I can conquer it. This is true in my life as musician and my life as a geek. I’m not always in search of perfection or a detailed understanding of the universe or anything so grand and unfathomable. I just desire a big picture sense of what is going on around me. Up until now, I’ve made decisions based on either irrational panic, or found vaguely rational solutions to avoid panic (which is irrational in nature). Moving forward, I want to set goals that make sense and resolve problems in ways that make sense.
- Reducing Debt — It’s a priority but it is also a necessity. My student loans still range in the hundreds of thousands. By the end of the summer, Kim and I will have managed to decimate all of our non-student loan debt (I think we have less than $1000 left in some miscellaneous credit card debt). The next hurdle will be to pay off the smallest of my student loans. I don’t know if I will ever be able to pay off the largest bill ahead of schedule, but I would like to be overpaying on at least one loan at all times.
- My Friends — Real life being what it is, I don’t get to see my closest friends as much as I would like to. Most of them don’t live anywhere near me and it seems like more and more of them are moving further away. Sometimes I think I place my friends on the same level as music, at one point it took no effort to maintain friendships just as it took no effort to be a musician. There are days when I, after talking on the phone for several hours with a college friend, will just feel the overwhelming sense of relief.
- Being Challenged — It’s hard to say it’s a priority because, once again, challenges are something I am content to avoid. On the other hand, I am with my wife because I ultimately enjoy a challenge and I continue playing music because I enjoy being challenged. My work does not challenge me and it is a source of unhappiness for me. As much as I am content to sit and procrastinate, I know that procrastination is sometimes a way that I make unchallenging tasks more exhilarating by putting them off until their most critical moment.
- Work — Making a decent income is an unfortunate requirement for me. I don’t enjoy my day job, but it is a priority for me at the moment because I depend on the income to fulfill the needs of several other priorities and that is an unavoidable fact. It can be hoped that this situation will change in some way in the future so that I can afford to have a job without such a high level of responsibility, but at the moment I just don’t see it happening.
- Weight Loss — As I am making this list I am realizing that most of priorities are a struggle to maintain. I accomplished a great deal in the area of weight loss in the last couple of years and my current situation with anti-depressants is (maybe not directly) responsible for some counter-productivity in this area. I know I am not as vigilant about my eating like I was, but I think that lack of vigilance may stem from just not giving a fuck. Ultimately, I do give a fuck and I need to get back on the wagon. My cut off day is Memorial Day. After then I am back on South Beach Phase 1 and hitting the gym twice a week.
- Coffee — It’s stupid to list it here but coffee is a fucking priority in my life. Call it an addiction if you want to but sometimes a giant cup of coffee or a french press is the only reason I will do something. The idea of sitting at home and watching a movie might be “just ok” but sitting an watching a movie and drinking coffee is a fucking event. Some of my best moments in life are a result of staying up way too late and drinking coffee with friends, or listening to music alone. It’s my only real vice, and I am not sorry for it.
- Technology — Regardless of what I ever say, I dig technology. I’m not obsessive about gadgets or about getting the latest and greatest things, but I spend a fair amount of time working with computers and the internet, and I am interested in it as a subculture. It’s not something I enjoy doing as a career but its always been a part of my life since I was a kid so it’s hard to say that it is not a priority to some degree.
