Well, all the things I planned to do yesterday are done, I think – I went out and did some sightseeing, spent some time fishing, and just generally lazed around the Nelson Bay area. As of this morning I jumped in the ute and headed back to Sydney, where I’ll be getting on the boat tomorrow to head home to Tasmania.
It’s been an interesting few weeks – I think if anything I’ve had too much time to think, and looking back over some of my previous postings here, I do sound like a depressed old sadsack. I never meant to sound that way. It’s just that when all the excitement ends and all the dust settles, that’s what seems to be left.
Which reminds me – the MD of the company I work for is running an invite-only course for future leaders within our company – I’ve been lucky enough to be invited in one of the first groups that’s doing the course. (I may have mentioned this earlier – that first instalment of the course is the reason I was in Sydney last week, but anyway, I digress.)
While we were sitting there last week he said something that’s really true, but that a lot of us probably don’t think about all that much. Everyone has their own definition of success.
Everyone has different goals that they want to achieve. It’s up to us to work out what we want for ourselves to achieve the level of satisfaction we want for our lives.
One thing I’ve realised, while I’ve been spending all this time thinking over the course of this trip, is that what’s making me sad is that I’m quite aimless. I’ve got no sense of where I want to go with my life, and it’s been that way probably ever since Cas and I split up – yes, I’m going to say her name now.
So that’s really my goal – the problem is that most of the people I come into contact with in my life already see me as successful. I’ve certainly been blessed with success in my professional career, and for a while that gave me a great sense of satisfaction, but now that I’m where I am, living in a really pleasant place, driving a nice car, not working insanely hard and earning a good income, it really all pales in significance when I think about how hopelessly lonely I am.
Somehow I need to remove the social inhibitions that have been plaguing my life for years and get out there and meet some people! I’ve spent so long withdrawing from the world that I’m not sure I remember how – but that’s OK. It’s really only just dawned on me (although I’ve known it all along) that I have so many blessings I should be counting. I also think that there’s a couple of people back home who have even tried to get me out of my shell a little bit, and I haven’t really been paying any attention.
Oh, and one more thing. I’m going to start jogging. At least three mornings a week. Can I do it? We’ll see. But I’d really like to lose about 20 kilos, and while changing my diet has been helping, it’s not working fast enough. So while I’m sitting here in the motel, and I’m feeling really positive about it, I’ve promised myself that I’ll start doing it as soon as I get home.
But only on work days. I’ll be damned if I’ll get out of bed at 6am for a jog on my days off 🙂
Then I’ve got to work on deciding what I want out of my life. Otherwise this issue is just going to crop up again and again.
Recently (a month or so back) I was offered the chance to take on a management role (same as what I’m doing now) in other parts of Australia. At the time, I actually said yes, I’d move again, and then later I rescinded my acceptance and said I’d rather stay where I was. Right now, I’m feeling more and more comfortable with that decision by the day. If I’d moved, then the most likely outcome is that I’d feel a sense of purpose again for a short time, and then after 12 months or so I’d start to feel listless and depressed again, just like what’s happened at every other place I’ve moved to. And it’s happened with increasing severity each time.
At least by staying I can hopefully get to the root of the issue. My gut feeling is that I just need to discover some career aspirations, a small circle of friends and a woman to take care of/take care of me. The career side of things, well, I’m having some ideas about that – but I’ll save that for another time. The rest, remains to be seen.