What I originally set out to be a weekly project with a consist release deadline has quickly tumbled into yet another of my fleeting projects. It’s more about discipline than inspiration, I suppose, and late is still better than never, so here we are. Welcome to 2019; we’ve begun another lap around the astronomical phenom that gives us life (see also: the sun), and unsurprisingly, it doesn’t feel that much different from 2018 so far.

In our last outing, I gave SparkNotes versions of how the last few years of my life have gone down, my bubbling, fetid anxieties, and some other generally wordy bullshit in that special way that only I and about 6 million other aspiring somethings can. Since then, Mrs. Fish and I have successfully made the trek down I-25 and we’re now officially roach-fighting city slickers. In between feverishly perusing job board sites, staring at my resume in abject self-loathing frustration, and reveling in my new lair (holy shit I have roommates and a dishwasher and a washer and a dryer and), I’ve had quite a bit of downtime to chew on my thoughts.
Over the past two years or so, I’ve gradually come to terms with the fact that I’ve got some type of anxiety issue. I don’t know enough with any certainty to call it a disorder, I’m not sure how the sliding scale of mental illness functions. It manifests itself in many ways: general irritability, avoidance of social situations, dermatophagia (just Google it it’s kinda embarrassing but here we are), difficulty sleeping, a fleeting sense of depersonalization, nagging stomach issues, etc. That said, I don’t find myself struggling to maintain my basic humanity. I do my best not to put off chores or tasks with deadlines until the last inning, I don’t cancel plans with people I’ve given my word to, and I do my best to avoid skipping meals or basic hygienic practices. It’s an issue I’m unsure how to tackle completely until I gain the financial stability to talk to a professional, so in the meantime I’ve taken to pretending as if there were two of me, with the important caveat of taking responsibility for the actions of both.
One version of me, the one I feel in control of, wants. I want to get a job that is more than just tolerable at best. I want to regularly play music that I enjoy in a band with people that I enjoy. I want to write, I want to play, I want to create, I want to inspire, and narcissistically I want to be recognized for the talents and traits I feel I am capable of showcasing. I want to be the best husband and tag-team partner I possibly can be for my wife, who successfully triumphs over her own demons each and every day (even if it doesn’t seem like it to her). I want to be informed on what I’m talking about each time my mouth opens or my hands lay words on paper. This version of me does his best (at least in his own mind) to be kind to other people, help those he realistically can who are in need of it, be an empathetic friend and hard worker, and be someone that others can be proud to know and have in their corner. He’s also aware he can be a bit of a callous, self-important cockhole who has difficulty committing to his interests and just putting the fucking work in, but something something only human something something shit happens something something tomorrow’s another day.
Then, there’s the version of me that reacts, the one that feels completely out of control. A flippant customer or a belligerently dickish coworker, a snide comment on an empty stomach, or an overdraft caused by a banking oversight (what do you mean I get charged for not using my card enough times in a month how the fuck does that even make sense) are enough to bring him to the surface. My very own Mr. Hyde. He snaps at his wife without any merited reason, he broods and revisits the ways his culture and government fuck him incessantly, he favors loading a bowl and playing another twelve rounds of Rocket League over finishing a podcast or writing a blog post. He reminisces about past successes as if they were one-time-only, completely unattainable feats. He bellows as if his opinion had any merit or validity over all others. He’s an irritable, unapproachable, grouchy asshole that behaves as if everyone around him is wasting his time and as if he had better things to be doing, but for some reason he isn’t doing any of them.
For better or worse, both of ‘him’ are me. I am thou, thou art I, so on and so forth. Rather than pass all of my shitty qualities and behaviors off onto an aforementioned “Mr. Hyde,” I’ve instead tried my hardest to acknowledge the fact that I generally have a choice in which of those two people I am at any given moment. I can choose to let an incompetent coworker or manager ruin the entire tone of my day. I can choose to take a criticism or innocent jab the wrong way for the sake of having justification in my anger. I can choose to hide behind the fear of failure and the assumed inadequacies of others to justify my own lack of action. These are choices made reflexively rather than consciously, and to me that means that there’s an issue in the programming that needs to be reconfigured. Be it my own outlook, my behavior, or my discipline, I acknowledge that I am my own person with my own agency, and only I can take the steps necessary to change for the better.
Now, that all sounds great in theory and on paper, but putting it into practice is the real clincher. It’s easy to get home from a shitty day and dump it all on your spouse without bothering to ask how their own day went or how they’re dealing with their own struggles. It’s difficult to reflect on one’s own flaws and behavior and identify the need for a change. It’s hard to stare those negativities in the face and make the effort to defy them. It’s even harder to maintain the diligence to alter those aspects within one’s self until “positive” becomes the default setting. I’m not the type of person to simplify down the entirety of a person’s day as being attributed to their outlook. Good days can turn bad and vice versa. Humans are infinitely complex and emotional creatures, to say that one can never have a bad day or never feel sorry for themselves is simply to be idealistic to a fault. Negativity is a drug, one with a necessary and vital role to our humanity, but one that proves to be dangerously addictive. Existence is suffering, yes, we know that, but existence has so much more to yield than that.
So, rather than use some fleeting TEDTalk-esque bout of inspiration to try and tackle some herculean, fucking impossible task all in one go, I’ve instead begun to look at tentative hopefulness and small, attainable goals as a rudder. On Friday I have an appointment to obtain a MED (Marijuana Enforcement Division) Support Badge that will allow me to get a job working in an industry I have an interest in, be it as a sales associate or a janitor. If I’m going to do “dead-end” work, I’d rather do it in a setting I care about as opposed to snatching up the first bill-paying endeavor that comes along. If I succeed, then that’s at least a single step closer than the day before. My brain has the annoying tendency to jump immediately to “What if ____ goes wrong? What if ____ happens?” Sometimes, it’s right, and dealing with it sucks, but I survive and the world continues to turn.
But where’s the harm in instead asking “What if ___ works out? What if ___ isn’t so bad?” Both outcomes are, after all, equally likely. I’m lucky enough to have the wealth of close friends and family who express the utmost confidence in me. Who am I to tell them that their faith is misplaced? Setbacks happen. Life is rough and then you die, or so they say. But I’ve grown tired of compounding my own misery and just accepting what I considered to be my nihilistic, unremarkable fate.
Maybe I’ll hate my new job. Maybe I’ll have a coworker that I regularly fantasize about murdering horribly. Maybe I’ll feel unfulfilled and underutilized and want to come home and bitch until I’m blue in the face. Maybe. But I’ve done all of those things before, I know what kind of result they’ll yield, and I know how both versions of me will want to react to them. So, instead, we’re going to try and shake things up and go with: Maybe I’ll get a job that is at least palatable. Maybe that’ll afford me the time to reignite my passions. Maybe.
Only one way to find out.
Spero