It's The Journey, Not The Destination

I’ve lived my whole life really easily. I’ve become comfortable with not trying. Life always came REALLY REALLY easily in all aspects. I was brilliant, a prodigy, so I never had to work to achieve any greatness or substance throughout school. The quintessential reference I use is when I was a freshman in college and never went to my Environmental Science class, because it was too early in the morning for my lazy ass, but I would ace every single test without studying or coming to class or anything, Even though that was the subject I knew least about, I always aced the tests because somehow the information just came to me, it was just there and it all made sense. I’d be one of the first three done with every test I took and I’d leave the class and go hang out at my friend’s dorms and surf the internet and just chill. Really, it was a great time, other than the random bouts of guilt I felt.

Throughout my life, even well past childhood, I got basically whatever I wanted, served to me on a platter. It’s not that I was a spoiled kid, and I was not bratty in the least. My parents had taught me to be polite and humble and respect that which I was given, and because I was the baby and the only boy, my parents would just give me everything in the world. I wouldn’t ask for it, I wouldn’t cry about it, and I mean, there are some things that I wanted that I never got, but overall I got basically whatever I wanted, and was treated as if I deserved the world. It was a great upbringing. Even after the divorce, I still got a lot…my mom felt like it would keep us happy and feeling normal and keep us from hating our lives and keep us together as a family if we went on a bunch of vacations, so my teens were filled with vacations to amazing places at least once a year. I mean, what 12-year-old can say that two years prior, his father had rocked our world by leaving us, thus taking away about two-thirds of the income, and now he was going to Hawai’i and staying in a $500-a-night beachside resort, followed the next year by heading to Florida and cruising to Key West (where his mom bought him an indigenous-style tribal mask that cost $125) and then to Cozumel, Mexico – a location that most adults have always wanted to visit yet never have? And that was just the tip of the iceberg. I had a very privileged childhood, but I never felt I deserved any of it.

As a child, I was always surprised when I received things because I never had any forethought that I “deserved” those things, or that I “should” have things, so I never tacked onto those items the belief that I was more worthy than others for receiving the items. Conversely, after my parents divorced, my soul spiraled to utter death and I tacked onto EVERYthing that it meant that I didn’t deserve love and that I wasn’t worthy of ANYthing. Spending a dream-week in Hawai’i wouldn’t change that. Spending a week cruising the West Caribbean wouldn’t change that. Being given the gift from my family of flying alone to Missouri to meet up with them instead of having to fly out earlier with them and miss a play I was supposed to be in didn’t change that belief. Additionally, within the span of ten years of my childhood (a liberal allotment for the purposes of this post), traveling to Illinois (at least once every year or two), Jackson Hole and Yellowstone a couple times, Montana, Idaho, California (at least once or twice a year), Arizona a few times, Wyoming, Kansas several times, Nebraska, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Mexico, Florida and Vegas a few times never changed that. Cruising from L.A. to Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas didn’t change it. Borrowing my dad’s truck with 3 of my friends and going on a Senior Trip to San Francisco, spending all my money on beautiful clothes and hanging out on the piers, visiting Angel Island and Alcatraz and living it up, three teenagers running amok in Frisco didn’t change any beliefs I held.

The next year, when I road tripped with a friend to San Francisco, Vegas, L.A. – where her rich aunt put us up in the nicest hotel in the city for free so we wouldn’t have to sleep in the car or a hostel – and then, after calling my dad and asking him to wire us a couple hundred more dollars so we could continue our vacation, stopped into Phoenix to visit another friend before all three of us then headed to Puerto Penasco in Baja California, Mexico to spend a weekend for free in the Phoenix friend’s boyfriend’s multi-million-dollar BEACHSIDE CONDO with a rainforest shower right outside the back door and prime access to the beach just by exiting the back door didn’t even prove those “I’m irreparably broken and unworthy” beliefs to be wrong. Hell, even just recently, the five amazing, basically free days I spent in Cabo barely changed any of those beliefs! Even going to Vegas with my best friend and receiving everything down there for free, including several hundred dollars to gamble with, $250 in beautiful Armani Exchange clothing and even the tattoos on my wrists – which so deeply define me as a spirit in this secular world – didn’t remove my limiting beliefs.

One belief I carried around to define and make sense of most of these events remained: that these were all just things I had to do, as part of the family, or as a good friend, or just because the vacation was something I decided to do in my life, so it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary or anything that made me special. Over the last thirteen years, who else could go on forty-four vacations personally costing me under probably two or three grand TOTAL and still hold the belief that life is ordinary and plain and that I don’t deserve anything and that I had such a terrible childhood?? And that’s really only the vacations that came easily to my mind…there were others I’m remembering even now that I went on with my dad and his new family throughout those years… On the conservative estimate, that’s one vacation every 4 months, if not more often, for thirteen years straight, each one averaging me ONLY $45-$100. And they were never run-of-the-mill vacations, either. They were fabulous vacations that would make most any other person incredibly jealous and excited.

When I went to Iceland, I didn’t know how to explain it to anyone else, really for one reason only. I felt like it was something normal, so I didn’t know how to convey to others how amazing it in fact was. Everyone asked me when I returned “Wow, how was that??” with such eager anticipation and I killed it with “Yeah, it was pretty superb/amazing/wonderful.” I could see the excited look in their face just sit there waiting for more detail about exactly just how unique and special it was, and I could find no words to say…in my eyes, it felt special (a little), but it seemed so run-of-the-mill to me…I mean, it’s Iceland for god sake! That is not a run-of-the-mill locale, but it felt like it to me because I took it for granted so quickly. Right now, I’m planning my year out, and I plan to head to Pismo Beach, India, and back to Iceland and I’m not incredibly inspired by it…not as much as I think I should be, at least. When people learn my plans to visit India, they inquire “Wow, what for!? How amazing would that be??” and my only reply is “Yeah. I mean, I haven’t experienced it, so I don’t know, but I’m sure it will be pretty awesome.”

And truthfully, part of me is nervous I’ll spend the thousand to fly there and totally not enjoy it. And I think that is why part of me is putting off earning the money to go. I have a virtually perfect setup: I have a continuous temporary job that expires the last week of May (right before my lease ends and right before I want to head out to Pismo) that will earn me almost enough to visit Pismo and India, and I just got hired on with the text-answer service ChaCha, which will provide me with probably an extra $300 a month while I’m still in the states, as well as once I’m overseas, and I am sabotaging it already. I can only assume I am because I’m apprehensive about not enjoying India, so instead of potentially waste the money, I’d rather just fuck myself over so I can’t go in the first place. But why?? Because if I go, and I spend all that money, and I don’t like it, then not only will I be out the money that I spent time saving up, but even deeper, I’ll be wrong, and I’ll have to deal with telling everyone that I didn’t really enjoy it, and see their faces sink once again. Just in this one sentence, I have made up so many stories that go very deep and completely run my life if I don’t stay aware of them…think about how many other stories I and we all create for the REST of our lives…

First off: I don’t HAVE to tell anyone anything about my trip. Well, actually, that should be at least second…let’s go a little further back…first off, I don’t have to retain the belief around money that I currently have, which is that I have to work, doing something I hate to receive any of it, especially any amount in excess. So far, I have not had ANY experience otherwise. I wish I could break through that belief because it limits me so heavily…I’d say it is the belief I have that most limits my life and my expression of myself. Oh my God, I could go so deep with this one…and even though it’s way too late, I am going to, because right now is the time, I feel it…Maybe it limits me from expressing my true self most because it is the challenge that I need to face in order to express myself freely, and once I truly do that, especially on a consistent basis, then I will break that limit…it’s not about the barrier being broken (or me waiting for the barrier to be removed for me) in order for me to be free; it is that being free breaks the barrier. But I have lost myself and felt identity-less for so long that I don’t know what aspect of me is the “right” aspect to express freely. And I don’t want to hurt people by expressing myself how I want and then later learning that that was a juvenile part of me and as I mature and find my true self I find something else in me that is the “actual me” and I’m not believed because I cried wolf in a sense by expressing something else totally different, and branding myself in a totally different way. I wonder who else and how many others think of expressing themselves as branding themselves. My mindset is SO businessman, it’s freakin’ crazy. Probably literally. If only I could execute, I would be the perfect businessman or business partner.

Maybe I will learn to execute by being Myself. By ascertaining the real Me, and creating routines around that Me in order to procure a stable and consistent Me then I will be able to learn how to execute in a business manner as well. Now I feel almost complete…The things I want to do most in the world are: to learn how to execute efficiently and create immense value in this world (financially); to learn how to SCUBA dive, surf, dance ballet professionally, and play the piano; to go skydiving; to get fit and FINE and go out to a sexy gay club and “superparty it up” as I like to call it and have gorgeous sweaty men all over me and glitter and confetti falling all around us have the time of my life ALL THE TIME; and to be a leader, evolver and mover-and-shaker in politics, specifically in the gay movement, beginning at the regional level, then moving up to the state level, then moving up to the national level and then enjoying the international arena. With all of that accomplished, I would feel I’d lived a truly full and successful life, and would know that there was much more incredible life to come. I’m beginning this by fully quitting smoking cold turkey and implementing P90X again in my life. I have created systems to assist me in really achieving these goals: Creating sheets to hang up on my bedroom wall where I can mark off how many days I’ve been free of nicotine and how many days I’ve exercised with P90X that basically congratulate me for doing both those things, as well as hanging up lighters around my room that have a paper taped to them that says “NO!!” in bold lettering, so that it reminds me that even picking up any part of the habit is something I’ve committed to myself that I never want to do. Additionally, I’ve planned my schedule out such that I create a routine that works for me in that I wake up every morning between 5 and 5:30 (based on that day’s events) and workout for an hour and get everything ready first thing of the day, before I even go to work so that I’m in a routine mindset where working out comes first no matter what, and so I’m always energized for the day before I head to work, thereby starting my day off with MUCH more clarity and peace of mind.

Hmm, I feel like there’s a sliver more somewhere in me, but I can’t immediately find it and I’d rather get a decent amount of sleep tonight than stay up for hours searching for it…and after getting all of that out, I can finally get to sleep anyhow, haha. So good night, thanks for listening, and I truly hope this inspired you somewhere in your life…somewhere deep. I know it did for me.

Peace and Love, Blog Buddies


Upcoming blogs to look forward to this week:
“A Letter To My Body,” “How Kindness Has Affected My Life” and “My Calm and Rational But Nowhere Near P.C. Beliefs About Religion” – Enjoy!