Beware of complexity. It creeps on you like a thief in the night, and it takes away the peace that we carry with us. I feel so incredibly stressed sometimes from all the things I do during my day to day life between school, work, exercise, financial goals, language goals, relationship goals. Cellphones, book purchases and trying to keep your money in your pocket is tough in a society where everything is so convenient. Even I, someone who considers himself to be as independent as possible, finds it hard to stay away from all the modern luxuries that our society has to offer, even at the cost of my simplicity. I sometimes ask myself why I put myself through this, and is it worth it? The amount of effort I put in to try and keep everything together, to hold this job, to pay my rent and such. It seems like I don’t enjoy anything because it is always in the midst of doing something else. I just want to be at ease; simplicity, and nothing more. And even then I wonder if I will be truly happy and at peace again. I have fallen victim to the identity trap that my work defines me, that who I am is based on where I work and how much money I make. I contemplated leaving back home a couple of months ago, and the thought of losing my income, my job, and moving back in with my mom made me feel weak and like a failure. I started having thoughts like “what woman is going to respect you when you are 24, making minimum wage and living with your mom?” or “if you quit what are you going to do now? Is it that simple for you? Just quit after working so hard to make it to where you are?” I think the worst thing about being me is not that I don’t have the drive to put in the hard work, but I would ideally like to place it into something that I enjoy, that doesn’t stress me as much and that allows me to be who I wanna be. I wonder if this is a struggle for all men of this world, after all, we must all pay a price to achieve what we want. It doesn’t help that in between all this business, sometimes the things in your personal become complex. Bills, budgets, and repairs will all creep up on you. The old cliche that more money brings more problems is pretty accurate. I was making less money less year and felt like I was doing more with my time and saving more money. I now make about 10,000 more a year and feel like I am in the same place, just with more bills and more stress.
Today, I am going to try to get rid of as much stuff as I can. I don’t want the burden of complexity anymore. I never wanted it. Whether it is clothes, candles, or even books (this one is tough for me as I love books and I buy them new which is expensive) if the book did not serve you, what is the point of keeping it around? I don’t mean to sound like the hippies on youtube, but I really do believe that the less stuff you have laying around the house, the less stress you will feel in your day to day life.
