A few nights ago, I entered a tournament for the first time. It’s a small shop near where I work. I’d been eyeballing it for a couple of weeks now; the shopkeeper advertises its tournaments on the buy and sell group. A few things drew me towards it - the fact that it was close to my work but also, it had reported very low numbers, and it happened on a Friday night. Perfect! I wanted it to be small so I wouldn’t be overwhelmed by a sea of people and the noise; and I wouldn’t have to go to work the next day. Surprisingly enough, I won. We played 3 rounds of swiss; it started around 8 and we finished by 9 which was perfect. I was incredibly nervous at the beginning, made a few misplays / illegal moves but people were really nice about it. It’s helped me learn, to be honest. The only problem is I finish work at 3… so there’s a 5 hour wait in between. I don’t know if I can wait that long. My friend said I should go watch a movie. I’ll see if I can catch up with people as well. I’ve also started spending more money on buying things I want. I guess I’ve given into hedonism. Mind you, I’m not spending out of my means but I’ve definitely spent quite a bit this past month, catching up on older cards that I never bought. It’s a bit embarrassing to admit but… I honestly felt superior to my brother for being able to control my spending. I thought it meant that I had good self control for being able to not give in to hedonism. I saw hedonism and spending money on yourself as a bad thing. I’d been consuming media telling you not to buy liabilities and that you should save and invest. I definitely have a lot of pent up frustrations - from both not indulging myself by buying overpriced cardboard as well as not playing as much as I’d like to. I read a quote about living life to the max… it was acknowledging that one Saturday in our lifetime might be our last; nothing is permanent so why not live life to its fullest? At the end of the day, you can’t take anything with you so one might as well enjoy it while you can. Why let others judge you for how you spend your money? Also, why judge yourself so harshly? I think I’ve been sleeping a lot better because I’ve given in to retail therapy. I’ve definitely spent less time thinking about the cards I want to buy, now that I’ve purchased them. I guess it’s buying a piece of mind; the price one pays for neuroticism. I’ve done the same thing for a virtual card game. I thought I’d never spend money on pixels but I used to binge play the game, spending hours and hours on end, trying to get in-game currency, just to buy one pack; then trying to save in-game resources. All of that was super stressful. I just wanted to have fun. So I gave in and haven’t looked back. I can now enjoy the game and support the developers. I spend less time worrying about the in-game resources. I do feel guilty about spending a bit but it’s freed up a lot of my time trying to grind resources and worrying over how to spend them. I think I’ll be invincible once that nagging voice that makes me feel bad for ‘wasting’ money disappears. It’s the price one pays for comfort. I can’t help I’m drawn to such avocations; I should be glad they’re not out of my means.

The OM! Characters as Retail Workers/Positions from my old job

Full disclosure: I’ve only had 1 retail job, and it was at a Homegoods. I worked there for 3+ years during college. Because I’ve only had this one experience, my below hc’s for the boys may be a little...specific to my previous job, and not universal traits that come with all retail jobs. 

Also I’m not including Luke because thattttt is child labor.

This is probably a very self-indulgent headcannon. Oh well.

Lucifer: 

(One of) the store managers. Specifically the assistant manager.

Nice to customers to their face, but will fantasize about stabbing them once they leave. 

Asmo once walked past the manager’s office and witnessed Lucifer professionally apologizing to a bitching customer over the phone, only to slam the receiver down moments later, sighing and mumbling “what an idiot.”

Very watchful of his staff. Do not slack off while he’s working....unless he likes you. In which case, he will take a moment to chat with you and give himself a much needed break. 

If he doesn’t like you, well...make yourself busy, or else you’ll get a stern talking to, and likely written up. Lucifer already has too much work to get done--he doesn’t want to babysit his staff.

Quietly schedules the people he likes to work during his shifts whenever he can, since he knows he can trust them to do their work. Not to mention, he enjoys their company a lot.

His favorite crew to have is Beel, Asmo, and Satan (and MC). Their schedules, of course, don’t always line up, but when they do he seriously thinks that he has the dream team.

Mammon: 

Cannot be trusted to actually organize the store, so he gets stuck at the registers.

However, the managers quickly realize that he's shit at anything front-end related aside from counting money (the man likes his money), and that he's prone to pulling out his phone when no one is around, so Lucifer forces him to work the floor. 

They start trying to give him more backroom shifts (because if he's not doing his work, they'll be able to tell easier).

HOWEVER--because Mammon is such a money lover, he’s very aware of every piece of expensive merchandise in the store. So if a customer attempts to switch tags, or peels the price tag off hoping to pull a quick one on the cashier, his coworkers always call him up so he can take a look.

Seriously, the amount of people that try to buy the $100+ gem rocks for $9.99 is crazy.

He feels very proud of himself whenever he manages to stop a customer from getting away with it.

He’s not the best worker in general, but the mangers would be lying if the said they didn’t appreciate his knack for remembering the expensive items.

Levi: 

Cash office.

Prefers to sit in the locked office by himself, listening to music on his phone as he runs checks the register balances from the previous day.

If he's not doing cash office, he's probably out gathering carts, or compacting boxes in the back.

Whatever keeps him away from the bulk of customers.

Whenever the managers need him to go help out on the floor, he gets permission to not wear his apron.

He seriously does not want anyone to talk to him. He just wants to work in peace.

Of course, if he’s seen organizing, or stocking shelves, customers tend to assume he’s an employee anyway--even without the apron.

Levi legitimately jumps anytime someone calls out to him and asks if he works there, and if he can help them. 

Oh, and he always brings his Switch to work and plays games on his lunch break. Do not talk to him if he’s playing his game--he will get mad at you.

Satan: 

Flow & mark-downs.

He's basically an all-rounder, but is superior to the others in putting out new merchandise (flow). He knows where things go, and how they should be organized. 

Secretly gets annoyed when customers ask him for help when he's in the zone, but is very good at faking a smile.

Will do what’s asked of him without any lip in return.

However, rude customers should beware of him, because his anger tends to flip on like a switch. If a customer is badmouthing him, or one of his coworkers--he has no issue telling them they’re a fool, and that they should just leave instead of causing issues.

He gets in trouble with management for doing this, but honestly has no regrets.

Definitely has regular customers that he is enemies with.

Gets left in charge of the store if the managers ever need to step away for their lunch break, or otherwise.

Asmo: 

Lead cashier. 

Super charming, great customer service voice. 

Always gives a good impression on the phone, and manages to make peppy announcements. 

If there’s ever a fundraiser going on, and the cashiers are supposed to ask for donations, Asmo is guaranteed to rake in the most.

He is very good at calming a customer if they're upset--apologizing and and being so sweet and polite that it’s nearly impossible to stay mad.

However, if they're rude to him, or his apologies go on deaf ears, he has no problem politely telling them to fuck off.

If he’s not at the registers, he’s probably off in the bath section--smelling soap--or the candle section--sniffing literally every candle in existence.

He’ll also be sure to get a whiff of whatever candle/soap a customer has brought to the register to purchase.

Runs off to visit other stores in the mall/strip when he’s on his break. (Aka. he spends way too much of his paycheck shopping).

Beel: 

Back room - heavy lifter. 

Dude spends most of the day in the stock room emptying the truck and building furniture.

Seriously can move big things with very little effort. He once carried an entire couch out onto the sales floor buy himself. 

While other coworkers may need to use carts or flatbeds to move larger items, Beel can legit just throw them over his shoulder and continue on his way like he’s not carrying anything at all.

He looks intimidating but is actually super friendly.

Will always work extra hours if you ask him to. Will also come in for extra shifts if you ask him to.

He always feels so guilty if he can’t accept, or needs to call off.

The type of coworker that goes out to buy snacks on his break, and ends up buy snacks for the rest of the staff. He just leaves them on the break room table with a note that says “Eat up :)”

Belphie: 

Closer - Sales Floor. 

The managers tried to work him on morning or midday shifts, but he was continuously too groggy, and ended up knocking things over on accident.

Hes more energetic at night, so they put him on the sales floor (since he’s honestly...not the best at the register. Don’t get me wrong, he can work the register as well as anyone else, but...he just...doesn’t sound friendly. (Lucifer: “Belphie...at least try to sound like you’re not working here against your will when talking to the customers. You applied for this job.”))

He honestly doesn't mind organizing merchandise, but gets annoyed if he ends up doing the bulk of the work. (Whether it’s because they’re short staffed, or because his coworkers are slacking).

Has no problem telling customers to gtfo when it’s closing time.

If people are still in the store 5 minutes after closing, he’ll follow them around until they finally take the hint and leave.

Always stops for fast food on his way home after work because making himself a meal sounds like too much effort.

Diavolo:

Store Manager.

Is very kind to all of his employees, but will also have hard conversations with them if there’s an issue regarding their performance that needs to be addressed.

However, he always does his best to maintain good relationships with everyone he works with.

Will buy lunch for the staff on busy weekends, even if he has to pay for the food himself. He wants to let his employees know that they’re appreciated, and while he’s the type to give verbal affirmation of a job well done, a luncheon doesn’t hurt either.

Even if customers are bitchy, he never raises his voice, or yells. He handles complaints like a champ.

If the customer physically or verbally abuses one of his workers, however...he will threaten to call the police. Do not fuck with his work children.

If his employees ever find him sighing, or looking like he’s stressed, then they know he’s definitely having a rough day. Please work hard, and help him out, and he’ll very much appreciate it. 

Barbatos:

The 4th key. (Basically a manager)

Some workers are scared of him because he always seems to be in a good mood--even if the store is packed, and things get overwhelming.

A very by-the-book type. While Lucifer and Diavolo may allow for some things to get overlooked, or for there to be a lapse in proper procedure, Barbatos is not like that. Rules are rules, and they shall be followed.

Honestly is a very nice guy, but working a closing shift with him can be the worst. Especially if Diavolo is the opening manager the next day. 

He will keep his staff there after closing as long as he needs to for the store to be in an acceptable condition. (The worst part is that Diavolo honestly is so easy going that if Barbatos had just opted to say “we were very busy and didn’t have the time to get everything done”, Diavolo wouldn’t blame him. Shit gets crazy).

Alas, Barbatos wants to please Diavolo and takes his role very seriously.

At least he brings in homemade baked goods for the staff sometimes. (His good cooking usually makes up for all the times he has kept them late).

Solomon:

Another all rounder. Usually get scheduled on midday shifts to bridge the gap between the openers, and closers. 

Is very good at keeping up his “customer service” facade. 

However, once there are no customers around his smile will fall, and he’ll mumble complaints under his breath. 

“Why does one couple need 15 candles?” “Lady, I don’t care about your chihuahua’s sleeping habits--just buy the pet bed already.”

Will always tease his coworkers if he gets along with them. Bickering with Solomon can become a very entertaining past time if he likes you.

Whenever new crystals, or rocks come in, usually he’ll spend a while inspecting them. Apparently he can tell which ones are real, or fake. (And he always ends up buying the real ones).

He’s the type of coworker that will sneak up behind you and scare you when you’re not paying attention. Just because he can. (Fight him, he loves it).

Simeon: 

One of the sweetest staff members, but he’s prone to getting flustered and making mistakes.

If he’s on registers, he’s so busy trying to start a conversation with the customer that he’ll short them on their change. 

Luckily, the customer is either patient in waiting for the manager to come up and open the register, or doesn’t care about the 22 cents Simeon forgot to give them.

He loves reorganizing the towel section of the store the most. Getting to stand there and refold towels almost feels like meditation to him.

Always goes out of his way to ask the customer if he can help them with anything, or if they’re finding everything alright.

Is prone to accidentally cutting himself when something sharp breaks. (It has literally gotten to the point where if a ceramic plate or something glass breaks, the managers have instructed Simeon to call someone else to clean it up, rather than doing it himself.)

Honestly, in the end, he’s a fabulous worker tho.

Quinquennial Life Assessment

So, it’s been a few years.  When I was 19 I posted a sort of “roadmap” for the evolution of my life on this blog.  Today I thought I’d revisit that.  I want to take a look back and see what progress I’ve made, and then in a separate post I want to turn to the future, think about how my vision for it has changed, and consider how I can reincorporate these goals into that vision.

This is the list of things I wanted to get done in varying time frames.  I’ve crossed off the things I’ve done to get a sense of my progress:

1 year:

At 19, my hopes were to accomplish the following things by age 20:

- Joined, and consistently participated in, at least 2 campus organizations that suit my interests, at least 1 of which should be competitive in nature - well, I joined the ISO and KVRX, my college radio station!  Neither of those were competitive, but in retrospect I don’t really care about that :-)

- Made concrete plans to study abroad - Nope, unfortunately I never did this.  I’m not quite sure I regret that, all things considered - I traded that experience for other things.  I did make plans to spend a few months abroad of my own accord, and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for that meddling global pandemic.  But as it stands I haven’t done this.

- Learned C++ and python to proficiency - Hm.  “Proficient” is a relative term.  But I think I have a tendency to downplay my skills, so in the interest of counteracting that I’m going to count myself as “proficient” in these languages.  I think that’s fair.

- Gone on at least a several day road trip with at least 1 friend - I’ve gone on several trips with @meeshbug​, my very lovely girlfriend and best friend in the world :-)

- Decided on a concentration beyond the extremely vague umbrella of “computer science” - Unfortunately as far as my education is concerned I never really did this.  If anything my interests have *broadened* rather than becoming more focused.  More on this later...

- Made meaningful, ongoing contributions to an open-source project - You know what?  I’ve published the source of everything I’ve ever made, and I’ve gotten to the point where I can make stuff that’s not trivial.  So I’m giving myself credit for this one.

- Learned to cook enough meals to eat in most days and not get sick of my own food - I wish.  I’ve learned to cook a fair amount of stuff but I still get way too depressed and lethargic to apply that consistently.  Whether I consider myself to have achieved this honestly depends on the month.

- Learned to keep my living area clean - I’m much better at this than I was at 19, but at 19 I could barely clear a path to walk across my room.  So there’s more work to do.  More on these last two later.

- Gotten a pet - Meesh and I have a dog named Courage (after the dog of cowardly fame) and a cat named Jax!

2 years:

- Independently written a piece of software to completion and deployed it publicly - I’ve always pretty bad at actually seeing projects through to completion, but I do have a few full, independent projects under my belt at this point.  I’ve built a simple game engine, a pathtracer, plugins for games I like, and some other stuff.

- purchased and begun regularly using some basic amateur radio equipment - Ah man.  I got my license but I still haven’t gotten any equipment.  I guess I have to get on that...

- purchased and begun experimenting with some basic music recording equipment - This one I’ve done, but I haven’t done as much experimenting as I’d like.

- hosted a party - I did this for my 21st birthday and it’s one of my favorite memories!  Honestly this was probably the last time I had all my really close friends in one place.  I’m actually getting kind of emotional about that.

- done some kind of hallucinogen - I have now done this.  I definitely did get something out of it, albeit not what I expected.  This is something I actually only did pretty recently and it’s still having a pretty profound effect.  Maybe I’ll write a separate post about this.

- Gone camping with friends - Despite my best efforts, this hasn’t happened yet.  Pretty fucked up.

3 years:

- learned to play another instrument besides the piano (guitar?) - I don’t feel comfortable crossing this one off quite yet, but I went ahead and bought myself some guitar equipment and have been messing around with it lately :-) I think I’m going to have to bite the bullet and pay for lessons if I’m serious about this, which I am.

- Written and recorded a song - Damn, I can’t believe it’s been 5 years and I haven’t even done this.

- Met a group of people I can play music with - nope

- Owned a leather jacket.  I can’t believe I’ve still never even owned a leather jacket - I’ve done this and wore it frankly too much.  Kinda cringe.

- Worked as a professional software developer - Yep!  Worked as a software developer for a retail company for a couple years.  I’m actually not working as a software developer right now, though; I’m working in a sort of adjacent position.  More on this later.

- Participated in research related to my field - That’s pretty ambitious.  Not sure I’ll ever do this, unfortunately.  But we’ll see.

- Been to a film festival - Oh shit, I totally forgot about having written this.  That’s a cool idea.  I should do this, it’s not like it’s hard (well, at least in principle.  I guess covid kind of changes the situation).

- Gotten a dog - Courage is one of those, I think, although he might also be part rat.

- collected 50 records - Lol, my dumb ass really thought I was going to buy $1,000 worth of records on college money.  No, I haven’t done this, but I’m on my way there.

- Purchased a desktop computer - Well, my dad gave me his old desktop.  That’s not really a purchase but I think it counts.

5 years:

- Begun accepting freelance development gigs - haven’t gotten here yet and I’m not totally sure this is a direction I want to go in my career.  Freelancing has its own stressors as I’ve come to learn from others.  No career path is sunshine and roses and I’m trying to internalize this fact.

- Participated in a student film - Nope.  I don’t even know why I wrote this down to be honest.

- Gotten laid by solving a 5x5 Rubik’s Cube in front of a girl because surely that’s gonna have to work on someone eventually, otherwise I wasted a lot of time - These are getting weird.  Surely I didn’t really expect this to happen, right?  Well, either way I now have a long-term girlfriend, so I don’t - wait, Meesh has seen me solve a Rubik’s cube and she saw it before we started dating.  So actually I’m going to give myself credit for it.  I’m the one who makes the rules here.

- Fleshed out my political opinions - Yes, I now know everything about politics and can answer 100% of questions on political issues.  Just kidding.  But I know where I stand.

- Participated in a protest or some other kind of political event - Done!  Went to a few protests as part of the ISO, participated in lots of their events, and attended some protests with friends as well.

- Studied abroad - Nope :-/

- Learned a language other than Spanish - I took a semester of French!  But I don’t quite want to give myself credit for this one because I really would like to learn a different language to something resembling fluency.

- Run a marathon - Lmao.  I am in much worse shape now than I was when I wrote this post, and even at that time I could probably do like 7 miles if I really pushed myself.  How sad.

- Gone hiking outside of texas - This is weird because I’d literally already done this when I wrote this post.  But I’ve done it more since then, so hey!

- Been out of the country with a friend - This I had also already done.  I guess the point is to have done it without “adult supervision” or whatever.  I haven’t done this since writing this list so I guess I have to leave it uncrossed.

10 years:

- Lived with a girl for an extended period of time - Meesh 🥰

- Spent at least 6 months living on the road in an RV, preferably with a dog and a girl - God, I am so close to being able to do this.  I don’t want it to be an RV anymore - those things are expensive.  But a van?  Still pricey, but doable, especially if I’m willing to sacrifice some comfort.  This has actually been front-of-mind for a while.  I’ll let you know when I get the balls to pull the trigger.

- Started making Real Money - Well, yep, I have gotten to that point.  I do have other thoughts on this, though.  Money is weird, man.

- Lived in a long-term living space outside of Texas (i.e. not including RV time) - How long is long-term?  Three months?  If so, I’ve done this by living in Boston with Meesh for a few months after she went there for law school.  However, I anticipate staying there much longer in the near future, so I’ll wait on this crossing this one off.

- Written a book about something, idk - Not yet.  I’m halfway to the deadline on this one and I have some ideas, but ideas aren’t worth all that much, especially to me, who rarely sees them through.  We’ll see where this goes.  It’s not exactly a priority and historically I struggle to get even my priorities done.  It might make more sense to replace this with recording a concept or narrative album, for which I also have ideas that I happen to take more seriously.

- Learned to solve a 6x6 Rubik’s Cube - nope

- Gotten laid by solving a 6x6 Rubik’s Cube - nope

- Lived in an apartment where I pay all the rent - Yes!  :-))) We love independence

- Earned an advanced degree (this one’s iffy) - This hasn’t happened, and whether it will ever happen is something I’ve been thinking a lot about.  I sort of decided half-way through college that I would be totally burned out on school by the time I graduated.  But in retrospect it takes way less time to burn out on work than it does to burn out on school, and grad degrees are a different kind of thing.  So it’s worth revisiting.’

- Given a best man speech (Sam, this means you have to get married within the next 10 years.  Good luck out there.) - Holy shit, Sam, you maniac, you actually did it!  Sam got married back in 2019 and I gave his best man speech! It’s another one of my favorite memories :-) 

- Gone on a cruise with someone I’m dating - Hmm, not yet.  I’ve gone on cool trips, but none on a boat.  Maybe that’s something to aim for after the pandemic passes :-)

Retrospective:

1yr: Completed: 5/9

More than half isn’t bad!  I’m not gonna worry too much about whether I got these things done within their assigned “time-frame”.  I’m a procrastinator in my heart and I don’t see any reason to put that kind of pressure on myself.  The point is, they got done.  That’s enough for me.

The things I did best in in this category were academic things, and things to do with relationships.  I’m proud of the academic achievements, I really feel like doing them has increased my belief in myself and my sense that I’m good at the thing I’ve spent the last four years studying.  And of course, I am so happy to be in a loving, fulfilling relationship that brings so many good things into my life.  I almost feel like the things I accomplished sort of fell into my lap - of course I’m gonna do programming stuff as a programming student, and getting pets / going on road trips are things I did as a result of my relationship with Meesh.  I don’t say that to downplay the accomplishments, but I do think it’s worth noting.

The things I haven’t done are more to do with personal development, which is disappointing.  I would like to be able to say, 5 years down the road, that I’ve done the personal development I expected to do in just a single year, but maybe that’s a lot to expect.  These are problems I’ve dealt with my whole life.  I think what this means is that I can’t expect everything to fall into my lap.  Those things are going to take real concerted effort to change.  I’m not quite sure how to go about that, though.

2yrs: Completed: 4/6

Two-thirds!  Even better!

Lots of these are one-time accomplishments, not so much long-term commitments to personal development.  The good news is, I did them, and I think those resulted in some development in their own right :-)

Again, though, the things I didn’t do so well are the things that require long-term, concerted effort.  For instance, while I crossed off the one about experimenting with music, it’s really only the initial investment that I’ve really done at this point.  It remains to be seen whether I’ll be able to follow through on the commitment to actually experiment and learn.

3yrs: Completed: 4/10

This category also follows the same pattern I’ve noticed with the last two.  The other thing I’m noticing is that so, so much of my effort over the past few years has been going towards developing a very particular skill: programming / computer science.  Music and art are so important to me, but I’ve done very little real development in those areas.  I mean, I’ve done some.  But not as much as I would have hoped for half a decade.

5yrs: Completed: 4/10

This is getting a little more fun because less of my goals have to do explicitly with my degree.  I’m starting to think beyond college, which is good, because the stage of life I’m in right now requires me to start thinking about the kind of life I want to build now that I’m done with school.  Also, I’m at the deadline for this one right now!  So this is a particularly interesting category because it really shows where I thought I’d be by this time.

The goals I accomplished in this timeframe are, again, mostly things I’ve done through my relationship, but politics also feature pretty prominently on this part of the list.  I spent a lot of time reading and researching political issues during college and really did look for ways to participate.  I honestly made politics a pretty big part of my identity over the last 5 years, and I think it will stay that way forever, but I’ve gotten to the point where I think I need to devote less of my mental energy to knowing more.  I know what I need to know.  It’s time to think about other things.

10yrs: Completed: 4/11 (and counting!)

There’s some career stuff in this section that I’ve been able to do, which is good news.  I’ve always been scared about entering the working world.  All things told, it’s gone more smoothly than it could have.  But I also have lots of lingering doubts about what I want to do in the long term.  So one of the most pressing goals I should aim for is to resolve those doubts.

Ultimately, I have a lot of time left, and I’m not even done with this time frame, so I’m not gonna spend much time dissecting the things I haven’t done.  What I’ll do instead is say that while I didn’t do everything on this list, I feel proud of the things I have accomplished.  I said when I first wrote this list that it’s sometimes hard for me to feel that my life is moving in any particular direction, and I’m still feeling like that five years later, to be honest.  But looking back on these things has helped me see that I actually am making progress in my life.  Not in all the ways I want to, but that’s OK.  There’s still time.

In the next couple days I want to come back to this and reorganize this list into an updated set of goals, for the same time frames.  Maybe that will help me think through exactly what it is I want out of the next five-ten years, with the benefit of having analyzed the things that I did and didn’t do well over the previous five.

I love The Sims. 

Which is why I will never stop being disappointed in TS4. 

Lets do some math, and I’m going to keep this mainly between TS3 & TS4. While I did play TS2, there isn’t a lot of information readily available on what the games themselves cost at the time of release. I have some information on that, but I’m not sure if it’s 100% accurate as I was baby when they came out and my mom had to buy them for me. I’ll release it later if anyone is curious. 

TS3 launched with a base game priced at $49.99, and throughout it’s lifetime accrued nine stuff packs at $19.99 each, and eleven expansion packs priced at $39.99 a pop. This comes to a total of $669.79. 

TS4 launched with a base game price of $59.99 (that price soon dropped to $49.99 because the backlash was immediate), and introduced the new game pack. In total (as of 4/15/2020), TS4 has sixteen stuff packs at $9.99 each, eight expansion packs at $39.99, and eight game packs at $19.99. That comes to a total of $699.67. 

That’s not a huge price difference. All in all, it’s about $30 if you want to get the whole, complete collection, so why do I dislike TS4 so vehemently? 

Quality. 

Let’s compare a few expansion packs just to get a feel for what the difference is.

 TS3 launched the “Late Night” expansion at $39.99, and it included: 

A new world (Bridgeport) with 82 lots

Fame & reputation systems

Bars & night clubs

Apartments with penthouse suites

Subways

Elevators

Breast & muscle sliders in CAS*

Zodiac signs

A fountain tool*

Height adjustment for wall objects

Groups & bands

Butlers

Vampires!

The mixology skill

2 new traits (shy & star quality)

TS4 launched the “Get Famous” expansion at $39.99, and it included: 

A new world (Del Sol Valley) with 11 lots

Fame & reputation systems

Active acting career

Multiple ways to become famous 

Music, video station, etc.

And that’s about it. 

Now I’ll be the first person to admit that TS3 wasn’t perfect. Although it was a very full game, it struggled in areas of performance. With such large, open worlds, and detailed customization systems, it was pretty buggy for a lot of people, but we’ll talk on that more later. 

But what I want to focus on is the disparity between these two packs, as they’re supposed to be mirrors of one another. “Get Famous” is the TS4 version of “Late Night”, so where did all the stuff go?

Well, EA broke it into 3 packs. 

To get the full experience of “Late Night” in TS4, or at least something similar, you would need to purchase, “Get Famous”, “City Living”, and “Vampires”. That’s 2 expansion packs, and 1 game pack. So, to replicate the experience of “Late Night” you would need to spend $99.97. 

That’s almost $100. 

So, for an experience we paid $39.99 previously in the last installment, we’re now being asked to pay $100 for. 

Is that fair? 

Lets do another expansion pack comparison: 

TS3 launched “Ambitions” at $39.99, and it included: 

A new world (Twinbrook) with 82 lots

5 new active jobs that take you all around the world your sims inhabit

Firefighter, investigator, ghost hunter, stylist, and architectural designer

Self-employment

Sculptors, inventors, painters, writers, gardeners, and so on can all profit from at home work

Laundry

Tattooing career

New traits (eco-friendly, good observer, weirdo, etc.)

Consignment stores

Inventing

Sculpting

TS4 launched “Get to Work” at $39.99, and it included: 

A new world (Magnolia Promenade) with 4 lots

3 new active jobs that take place in one location

Detective, doctor, scientist

Baking & photography skills

Retail lots

Illnesses for sims

Aliens

There’s definitely more crossover here, but “Get to Work” still falls short. $39.99 for a full game and all we get is a world with 4 lots? Even in TS2 “Open for Business” we had more to do.

And, that isn’t to mention the fact that “Get to Work” launched separately from the TS4 “Laundry Day Stuff” pack. So, to get a similar experience to TS3′s “Ambitions” you would need to purchase both “Get to Work” and “Laundry Day Stuff” at a total of $49.98. 

One more comparison for good measure. 

TS3 launched “Island Paradise” at $39.99, and it included: 

A new world (Isla Paradiso) with 118 lots, the most of ANY TS3 expansion

Houseboats that can move anywhere around the island

Resorts that you can either visit, or own, manage & edit

New transportation modes

Boating, skiing, and windsurfing

3 new careers

Lifeguard, resort manager, scuba diver

Diving into fully realized underwater scenes

Sims could also catch fish, explore underwater caves & find sunken treasure

Shark & kraken attacks

Mermaids!

Missions to discover and unlock new islands

Blueprint templates*

TS4 launched “Island Living” at $39.99, and it included: 

A new world (Sulani) with 11 lots

Docks & new foundation types

4 new careers

Conservationist, diving, fishing, and lifeguard

Mermaids! 

Boats

Missions to clean up the island

2 new traits

In the case of “Island Paradise” vs. “Island Living” there are a quite a few similarities, but the disparity remains. Thankfully, this time around EA didn’t break “Island Living” into multiple packs, but imagine if in a few months we get a resort style pack? Honestly, I wouldn’t put it past EA. 

In these pack comparisons, I hope I’ve highlighted some of the issues between what should have been pretty similar packs. 

And, to clarify, I’m not saying that EA should have just copy pasted TS3 packs into the TS4 style, but for the amount of money they’re asking, the quality should remain the same. There should be a similar amount of features between each pack, but there isn’t.   

With each expansion, it feels like EA is spending less and less time working on the unique gameplay features, and pouring more time into the general aesthetics of the packs. So, while TS4 is the prettiest of all The Sims titles, it’s also the emptiest. 

Despite the shiny veneer of a good game with solid graphics, TS4 ultimately lacks depth. It doesn’t feel like a game, but rather a character creator. I spend more time building sims and their homes than I do actually playing out their lives.

All in all, I find that the “life simulation” part of TS4 is severely lacking. It mostly comes down to the little things, which is exemplified whenever I go back and replay TS2. Sims would cuddle their partner in their sleep, burglars were a real and present danger, raccoons would topple your trash can at any given chance, and friends would call all the time to ask if you wanted to go downtown. 

It’s been 6 years since TS4 came out, and, from what the dev’s have said, they aren’t planning on pushing out TS5 anytime soon, but let’s dream a little bit about what could be. 

In my perfect game, TS5 would include aspects of TS3 and TS2. The open worlds were great, but not many people’s computers were beefy enough to run them. The one thing I will applaud about TS4, is that its made with everyone in mind. We can’t all afford big, gaming computers, a lot of simmers play on their laptops, and we should all be able to play regardless of what type of machine we’re working with. 

So, instead of fully open works with 90+ lots, I would like to see open neighborhoods. If we take the open concept of TS3, and combine it with the neighborhood style of TS4, we’d get an open world of about 15-20 lots. That’s nowhere near as big as TS3, but would allow for more fun neighbor interactions, and remove the constant load screens. 

I’d also like to see a return of the color wheel. This is also a point of contention, where I understand that excessive customization really dragged down TS3 and made it unplayable for a lot of people. So instead of full customization, relegate it to just colors (instead of different materials like fabric, metal, wood, etc.,) and just CAS. 

I think a lot of what gummed up TS4 was the fact that you could customize everything. Hair color, eye color, makeup, clothes, accessories, wallpaper, paint, tiles, flooring, chairs, sofas, decorations, and on and on. Restricting it just to CAS, and in a simple color wheel would give us so much more freedom. 

A color wheel in CAS would also solve EA’s issue of diversity. While they’ve given us the ability to create trans and nonbinary sims (which is fantastic!), they’ve been really slow on any progress when it comes to skin tones. A color wheel would allow us to create sims of all colors, and give power to the players to create more realistic and diverse representations of their lives as sims. 

The last thing I would really love to see is a return to the little details. Give us more randomness. Genies, walking skeletons, ruins we can explore that aren’t just rabbit holes, more active careers, more opportunities. Don’t be afraid to give us the weird things, we love the weird things! But don’t forget about the little things. Sims sitting in the grass together and chatting, sims leaving flowers at your door after a really great date, sims scooting together to cuddle while watching a movie together on the couch. 

Overall, TS5 should just include more more, if that makes sense. 

Leave your comments & thoughts below! I’d love to talk to ya’ll about this, its really been brewing for awhile. 

*Features included in TS4 base game. 

The Only Post

Hello.

 This is probably going to be the only post that I will post on here, but I just wanted to unload my life without the world know who this person is.

You don’t know me, but you might have felt the way I have. I just wanted to let you know that if you have, you aren’t alone.

My story starts here: My grandmother just passed away. I was young and I didn’t understand what death was. Why should I? It wasn’t going to happen to me or anyone near me, right?

I was 9 when it happened. I saw a lifeless body on a bed. A body I knew, but it didn’t know me. Well, not anymore. It’s soul what made up the body was gone forever.

A few years later, middle school happened. That nasty time in my life where I didn’t know half of the things that were going on. I just knew that I had to get up, eat, get ready, go to school, go home, eat, do chores, do homework, maybe play outside or video games, go to sleep. I would honestly hesitate to get up each morning and fall asleep each night. Why? My parents. They would fight constantly. I got scared if that morning I woke up and they were fighting again or if I laid myself to sleep, would they turn their anger and hurt me.

I got the nerves one day during one of their fights to try and stop it. I was tired of it. My sibling didn’t need to see it either. I felt bad. He was much younger than me and wide eye like I was, clueless to the world a round him.

I got hit. Hit so much that I went to the school’s counselor and showed them what happened. A nice big burse on my leg. I told them how I’ve been feeling. That why should I even be alive if my parents are just going to keep fighting and not even listen to me?  But I didn’t tell them this. I started hearing voices, not my own but of others I never heard before. Telling me to just kill myself, you aren’t worth anything to you parents, no one cares about you, everything everyone says about you is a lie, why should you even care about them, the world has enough idiots – get rid of your idiot self. It was lot of them. Just on a constant echo. It honestly gave me headaches, but I didn’t want to tell anyone. What if they I thought I was weird?

The counselor, of course, called the department of social services. Instead of my parents getting in trouble for it… I did. My consequence? I got sent to this mental ward via back of a metal police van. I wasn’t handcuffed thank god, but I was so scared.

When I got there, it was like being in jail. Honestly, I didn’t mind it. It was quiet and didn’t have the yelling minus the outburst of other patients. I had to talk to this guy. He told me that I needed to pay attention to him. I honestly couldn’t his room had all these neat things to look at and the voices, they were aggressive this time, I couldn’t silence them. I just started at a picture of him and his family. He had two sons and his wife. They where in a park it looked like. He asked me questions, which I quickly answered, but as much as his room was neat… I wanted out. Then he asked me, what was the first question he asked me. I told him I don’t know and that I didn’t care. I looked at him and told him to be honest, I want out and the voices to shut up. He stared at me for a moment when I said that.

Voices? What are they telling you? Are they your own? Have you done anything to yourself?

Then I told him, in the promise that I could get out. I told him about what happened with my parents, then at the counselor, and my day to day. It was getting loud and annoying. I just wanted it to stop.

He told me, he could try. Then told me a word I never heard before: schizophrenia.

He said him and his nurses were going to keep an eye on me. That they did. I was doing well though out my day, whatever meds they gave me, help the voices a bit. But one day… I remember sitting down in the hall way and then just crying. They got so loud that I couldn’t control it anymore. Then BLACK. I found myself in a room, on a bed with an IV stuck to me. When I came to, one of the nurses came told me that I started banging my head into the wall, screaming that I needed to get out and that the voices in my head were right. They had to put me to sleep to stop me from hurting myself and the other people around me.

I was shocked. They gave me more meds and they, the nurses, kept even a more watchful eye on me. Then I was released, fit to go back into the world knowing I wasn’t going to cause harm to myself or anyone around me.

I had to counselors, talk to doctors, take meds… The normal stuff a mental case had to go through.

The bullying got worse at school for me though. Someone found out about what I had and told EVERYONE at school. I started skipping class and barely eating. Of course, my doctors caught on to this, told my parents that I needed to find a new school. They didn’t. I just had to “deal” with it. Me “dealing” with it, was smoking weed and not even taking the meds anymore. I just let those voices have the time of their lives in my head. I started to see things and pretend that this world we live in is not real. I was in my own fantasy.

My psychologist was the one who caught on. When I came in to the office, the one-hour meeting turned into three. A lot of telling me of what you are going to with your life and that I was young and need to care about the future. I remember telling her that my life didn’t matter, my parents have another one other one that can do better than I can. Why would anyone want to deal with me when I get older? I have no name to myself. Why waste the money for meds, food, a roof over my head, any of that? It would have been better to end it in this world I made up for myself to block the bullying, the responsibilities, just life. She stared at me. I remember that stare. It was cold and it was blue. She got up and open a window. I honestly thought she was going to tell me to go ahead, jump out that window, end it.

She told me this: “You hear the horns honking? The birds chirruping? The wind blowing into the buildings? Everything has life in it. This world is what makes us special. You will never be another you in this world. We don’t even know if another world exists. What you are doing is not letting your life come out. You are blocking it. Don’t care about what anyone says. You are a girl who has a full life ahead of you. Yes, you might be handicapped in mentally, but I believe you can overcome it. Prove to this world, you belong in it. Honestly, fucking prove to this world you belong in it. I just need you to prove to me you want to stay in it.”

I remember leaving that room rethinking everything but the voices telling me to think that she was an idiot for even suggesting of proving I should stay in this world.

If I was going to prove anything… Its that I could take meds. So, I took them again. The voices started to calm down and reality came back into play. Crying though started to become a normality for me…

I got though High School with lots of downs. My parents didn’t understand the idea of fighting. Of course, like before, I tried to stop them. Then I would get in trouble as usual. I would get hit, screamed at, grounded, etc. I started running away from home. On days I was home, I stopped eating. I pretending nothing was wrong when I was at school though. I started to get use to hiding myself and pretending to be normal. Lunch periods was me hiding in the restrooms crying. I had extra curriculars but I just did them and went home. I got along with my parents on some days and others… Lets just say, I’m pretty sure the police knew where my house was without a map.

I did start to cut myself. It was actually pain releasing to have myself drag knife across my arm, leg, stomach. I was actually really close on killing myself when I decided to cut a wound so deep that my own body barely could heal itself. My parents didn’t know of course. Long sleeve shirts and jackets are all I wore. I stopped going outside like I use to and stated in my room most days.

I cried. I tried talking to people but no one listened.

What about the meds or the doctors? I was told to stop going. I didn’t need them anymore, per my mother.

It was so tempting. To release it all.

College came around. Some how I made it here. I got a boyfriend, lost my virginity, and take high school life and times it by like a thousand. I got a car. Drove it. Crashed it.

Then my father died. I watched his life escape from his eyes. He died from cancer. That’s fine. He was a lying asshole who was seeing and talking to women on the side behind his wife’s back. His voice got added to all the other voices. Great.

I got kicked out of the house. That’s fine. Fuck you too mother.

My boyfriend’s parents were nice enough to supply a roof over my head and to take care of me. The fake world I thought of when I was in middle school came back. I pretended everything was okay when it wasn’t. I even made a fake friend for myself and gave all my dolls voices. I got overly defensive on everything. Every time someone yelled at me, I fought back and cried when I was alone. I still didn’t take any meds or even tried reaching out to anyone because I didn’t care. If it ends… It ends.

-skip a couple of years-

You know how hard it is to work retail when you are trying to focus on your job and keep it but voices tell you otherwise…? Well, that was me. I at least now how a place on my own with a fiancé and going to university now. I found myself pretending so hard to keep myself alive. The only thing that was stopping me from ending it all was… my brother. I couldn’t think about how his face would look if I just… left. So, I grinded a bared it. There has been times throughout all of this that I tried though. I don’t even remember what came over me when I get like those. It’s like my body isn’t even my own. I drank bleach, sinked deeper cuts in my body, stopped eating, smoked weed, never went to sleep. It was a person from university who, like my psychologist, figured it out.

This person was in my life when I was in high school. A friend of my dad’s. She knew how hard life was on me, but I never really once paid attention to her. I just kept going on about my “life”.

She told me to call out of work one day after school. She asked for an uber and took me to the hospital. Of course I fought back, I was thinking she was repeating what happened when I was in middle school… Mental ward. It wasn’t. It was just to a psychologist. She told me to own up to everything. I did. I told both of them what was going on everything from middle school to high school to now. The both just nodded. The psychologist didn’t think I had schizophrenia till I told her about the world I would go into when things just get too tough here in the real world. I even told her at times I would pretend to be someone I’m not so people don’t belittle me.

She told me she was amazed how long I lasted with out meds, but that I should really get back on them. Talk to someone on a weekly basis and then monthly if she found it to be okay to.

So, it was back to talking. Telling people how I felt. I was made to promise not to lie. Which after the talking and the realization… I hated my fiancé and how he was treating me. So I gave him back my engagement ring. When it was time to, I moved out. Lived on my own against the wishes of my friend.

“Who is going to watch you if you have another episode?”

Episodes are moments of pure: not-knowing-what-the-fuck-was-going-on that ends up with me hurting myself.

I told her to trust me.

She did.

I clean slated myself. With this new “life”, I watched myself. She watched me. I got a new job, with old friends. I started to take my meds every day. I have episodes here and there but I haven’t cut myself. I made tons of more friends and even got the courage to rebuild my relationship with my mother.

But do I still hear them? Yes.

It sucks, but honestly, it made me sorta stronger if that makes any sense. Like almost the idiotic drill instructor telling you aren’t doing well, but you want to prove that mother fucker wrong each time. Sometimes I lose. I’ll come home and just sit into the foyer and just start crying. Its less and less now.

There are something I have omitted out symptoms wise because I am uncomfortable to bring them up here and also, I want to keep this as anonymous as I can.

But all in all, don’t let a mental disorder make what you are. It’s the hardest thing to be honest. For me, it’s the worlds worst handicap because no one can see it. Even in worse cases, someone can fall the handicap and never come back. I’m count myself lucky that each time I almost did, someone caught on before it was too late.

 Again, why even write this?

I just needed to get my life off my chest without the world knowing who I am. It’s not a cry for help, but a want for awareness.

 Being depressed, sucks.

Hearing voices, sucks.

Pretending this world is fake and your fake world is real, hurts.

Cuts, hurt.

 I am just don’t want to be the only lucky one who was saved at each lowest time. If you ever have ANYONE seem at their lowest, just talk to them if they are wanting to. They may need to unload like I am right now. Shit, if you are the one who wants to unload, do what I’m doing. Don’t give a damn about the consequences. I will give you the worlds biggest virtual hug. We all are human in this tiny blue world. We are all special and the world might need you to be its hero.

 In all seriousness though, anyone who mentions that they want the pain to stop, hurt, or attempt to hurt themselves. You should call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255. Even if you are feeling this way, honestly no one should. It happens though. Just, just talk it out. Please. Not for me… For yourself.

20 Questions for Simmers

1.) Favorite Sims Game

While I have played and loved every version of The Sims, I think my absolute favorite was The Sims 2. It was the one I couldn’t put down! The little details and humor are what really stand out when I look back, and I don’t remember having any real problems with it either since the game itself was pretty solidly developed and bugs tended to be squashed quickly. Overall, I was never bored playing The Sims 2 and I still occasionally boot it up just to reminisce.

2.) Yourself in 3 Traits

Ambitious, dog lover, neat

3.) CC or No CC

I play with a small amount of CC. Everything I download is Maxis-match, and I pull pieces out whenever we get new official content that I can use instead.

4.) Preferred Part of the Game

I really like each part of the game and try to spend my time evenly among them. Lately I’ve been building and messing around in CAS more than actually playing though. Oops!

5.) Favorite Expansion Pack

In The Sims, my favorite EP was Makin’ Magic. I was so young when I played that I thought I was incredibly clever for figuring out the pattern to the spells in the dueling arena so that I’d win every time. And I had a lot of fun creating one of each type of potion and then trying them out on the poor, unsuspecting townies!

In The Sims 2, my favorite EP was Bon Voyage. I spent so much time completing every single vacation memento! Some of them were really hard to figure out too, so finishing the collection was really rewarding to me. All three of the destinations were equally fun to explore with their local dances, gestures, foods, and massages. I could really feel the difference between visiting Takemizu Village, Twikki Island, and Three Lakes.

In The Sims 3, my favorite EP was Ambitions. The firefighter career and the new inventing skill were the real highlights to me. I spent weeks creating a Simbot without cheating, and firefighting was a really exciting change from the standard rabbithole careers. Another neat feature was the ability to sculpt statues of Sims. Never-melting ice sculptures looked great in mansions, and of course stone sculptures made great monuments to ‘famous’ Sims in town.

In The Sims 4, my favorite EP (so far) is Seasons. The weather effects are beautiful, the raincoats and rainboots and umbrellas are adorable, kiddie pools are the greatest item ever created, and temperature is just such a vital addition that it's finally starting to feel like a full game for me! Seasons and weather in general also function differently in each world, which is perfect. I didn’t want snow in Oasis Springs, and Brindleton Bay desperately needed fog and rain to feel complete.

6.) Favorite Game Pack

In The Sims 4, my favorite GP (so far) is Vampires. I never really liked this life state before, but this time around they’re fantastic! The abilities help differentiate each vampire from one another, and I love that they don’t have to ask permission nicely before biting a Sim. The sticker cracks and spider webs are also something I’d been wanting to help make places seem less perfect. Overall, the life state seems so detailed and sets a much higher bar for future life states. I don’t even mind paying for each individually if they’re this well-done.

7.) Favorite Stuff Pack

In The Sims 2, my favorite SP was H&M Fashion. Honestly, I just really loved all the new clothing that kept my Sims from constantly matching each other. And building a clothing store with all the cool retail items that came with it was a lot of fun too!

In The Sims 3, my favorite SP was Town Life. The rabbitholes were more modern and added some variety since most of the others were the same building with slightly different colors. I had a lot of fun remodeling my more modern worlds with them.

In The Sims 4, my favorite SP (so far) is Laundry Day. I’m a sucker for realism elements so adding another menial chore for my Sims makes me happy. The laundry system is surprisingly complex, the furniture filled in a lacking farmhouse style I felt was missing from the game, and stackable machines look perfect in apartments. The clothing and hairstyles were also very well-done and I have to actively try not to overuse them on all my Sims.

8.) Least Favorite Expansion Pack

In The Sims, my least favorite EP was House Party. It felt like the smallest addition we were given, and parties weren’t enough for me to explore more than a handful of times before I got bored. As soon as the next EP came out, I moved on to the new content and I don’t think I ever threw another party again.

In The Sims 2, my least favorite EP was Nightlife. It wasn’t bad at all, it was just the one I used the least. My personal gameplay style at the time was incredibly family-oriented and you just don’t take your kids to clubs. I only ever went to the new Downtown subhood for first dates and a few marriage proposals since the date interactions were pretty cute.

In The Sims 3, my least favorite EP was Showtime. I don’t think I ever really played with anything from it. The ‘optional’ online connection where you would send your Sims to someone else’s game to perform really made me mad since some of the items you paid for were locked away behind it and I had no desire to participate. And the whole in-game news feed and achievement system were horrible and really caused problems. The venues were also super glitchy so even when I did give the new active careers a go, trying to complete a performance was almost impossible. Overall, the whole thing felt like more trouble than it was worth.

In The Sims 4, my least favorite EP (so far) is Get to Work. I think my expectations were just too high going into it. The active careers are okay, but none of them make me actually want to follow my Sims to work past the first few days because they get highly repetitive and there’s no real risk associated with them. The retail system also seems a bit lacking. There are very few retail items to use when building a store, although I do have to mention that the clothing mannequins are pretty cool. And actually running it is too easy since you can just instantly restock the items even if they’re unique things that you’ve made your Sims create.

9.) Least Favorite Game Pack

In The Sims 4, my least favorite GP (so far) is Spa Day. It’s not nearly as immersive as the others. There isn’t much to do outside of getting a massage or doing yoga, and both are kind of boring to do repeatedly over and over. It doesn’t expand on the gameplay nearly enough to be categorized as a GP in my opinion; I’d demote it to SP.

10.) Least Favorite Stuff Pack

In The Sims 2, my least favorite SP was Glamour Life. It added the least versatile stuff. Most of my Sims weren’t swimming in cash, so the items, particularly the clothing, were rarely used since they’d look and feel out of place. 

In The Sims 3, my least favorite SP was Katy Perry’s Sweet Treats. I didn’t even buy it and I have no idea why anyone did. The objects were all horrible and cheesy. There was literally nothing good about it. At all. Ever.

In The Sims 4, my least favorite SP (so far) is My First Pet. No matter how many times they deny it, it’s a massive money grab. The furniture set literally completes what they left incomplete in Cats & Dogs! The clothing is for the most part just recolors of what we already have! And to top it all off, there’s just one new critter. They claim four, but it’s the same thing with a different skin overlay. I am perfectly fine with some items in a pack being dependent on owning previous packs so that they can continue to expand on past content. But to release this immediately after the associated EP and for it to pretty much be the rest of the items that we were missing from said EP...certainly seems like they withheld content just to wring an extra $10 from their players. Especially since it wasn’t even mentioned in their quarterly teaser. Haven’t bought it, and will not until it’s on sale.

11.) Custom or EA / Maxis Sims

EA / Maxis Sims are the best! I adore the premades and their unique, weird stories. My favorite thing to do is make them over and put an interesting spin on their storylines while still keeping them recognizable.

12.) Households or Single Sims

Definitely households. I prefer organized chaos with lots of things going on at once! There just isn’t enough to do when there’s only one Sim.

13.)  Free Will On or Off

Free will is always firmly set to off in my game. I’m a dictator when it comes to my Sims and I make no apologies for that.

14.)  Favorite Life Stage

Toddlers. They’re just so darn cute! The expanded skill building this time around is really cool since they actually learn in discernible stages instead of all at once, and I’m still not over their ability to go up and down stairs all on their own. The little mess-makers also have some of the cutest interactions with other Sims and their environment.

15.)  Favorite Life State

Aliens. The first time I ever had a Sim abducted was in The Sims 2, and it terrified me because I had no idea what was going on and didn’t know if he was ever going to come back. Then he was finally returned and popped out an alien baby! It was just so surprising and ever since I’ve had a particular fondness for extraterrestrials.

16.) Favorite Skill

Cooking is probably my favorite skill to build. Something about getting to see what those difficult dishes look like is just fun to me. Since The Sims 4 actually includes 3 separate skills for cooking, gourmet, and baking skills I’ve been having a blast discovering all the new recipes!

17.) Ever Completed a Legacy

Only once, way back in The Sims 2. It lasted a grand total of 16 generations before I wound up making the move to The Sims 3. I’ve tried numerous times since then, but The Sims 3 was too buggy to play a single file that long and The Sims 4 is still missing a couple of key features that I’d like to have before trying again.

18.) Longest Simming Session

When I had more free time (and was significantly younger), I happily confess to wasting away a full weekend playing The Sims 2. These days I’m lucky to get a couple hours a week here and there. Ah the joys of growing up!

19.) Personal Sims Wishlist

There are a few things I’m still really missing for The Sims 4. I’m hoping universities and witches are making a comeback soon as they’re crucial to my planned storylines. Fairies, werewolves, and a beach vacation world would also be wonderful to have but they’re less important to me.

20.) Unpopular Opinion

I don’t miss the open world system from The Sims 3 at all. I’m perfectly happy trading it for every world to be connected. Every save file is a megahood and I find that preferable to a single, completely open world. I also think that it makes the game more stable for everyone, especially lower-end computers. The loading screens are worth it!

Anyone else???

For a very long time now, I have settled on the fact that I will never be happy. I have happy moments, sure. But to actually say that I am "happy with life" is something that I dont think I will ever say. It's been there for a very long time and the more I took a step back from me, and started viewing myself in second person, essentially watching and observing my surroundings and how things interact with my life, even when I am not looking that way (think in terms of video games where your character doesnt see people creeping up, but YOU do yourself), the more I started putting pieces together.

It's so easy to blame my depression, anxiety, skepticism but even with that people will say "talking to someone helps" or "get medication." Heres the problem: I dont have people who care enough to listen and to help for free. Which also means I dont have money for medication (and I dont like how I feel (or rather dont feel?) when I take them. Working as a delivery driver pays the bills, and that's about it.

"So go get a new job." Easy, right? Well, not so much. I can get a new job, but this generation, if you dont have a bachelor's degree / 30 years experience then good luck. So I'm left with pretty much retail and food. What happens when I get a new job? I start off nervous, fake confidence. Then I gain the confidence that I learned how to do my job without help. I'm "happy". But it only lasts a few months before I get bored and when I get bored, I get irritable. I start noticing things people do and question why they can get away with it. The bored routine hits and I'm back in the hole. I dont want to job hop because not only does it look bad on paper, but it's also bad for myself because once that becomes routine, when I have to start looking for a new job, itll cause a whole 'nother sort of unhappiness, annoyances, and anxiety that turns to frustrations. Mostly because I'm stuck with retail or food and my interview / hire rate is probably around 10% if I'm lucky. Pop that in with depression and the feelings you're not good enough, and you've got yourself a very sad meal for one. (I am VERY aware of myself and can see how certain choices will play out and how it would affect me)

Growing up, watching everyone and everything happen from the outside in (or from the inside out, a trapped sense????) I've learned a LOT. I can see when my depression is coming, I can see when people are lying or don't care (and I pretend to not know but Holy fuck do I know), I even know why I feel the way I feel. But my issue is this: I dont know why.

I know why I will never be happy with life. But I also cant change that because I dont have the money because I dont have a good job, because I dont have a high education (just associates in arts and science), because I dont have money.

See? It is a vicious cycle.

I firmly believe that I am a product of society and how something can deeply affect an individual. I cant say it's bad in its entirety because it has lead me to become a more thoughtful person (always questioning, wanting to know) but not all thoughts are positive. This whole post being a HUGE example.

I've accepted it as far as I know I will never be happy, but theres a part of me that is sitting in the corner saying, "that's not fair." I have no desire for hobbies, because just like the job situation, it's fun at first, then it's just... pointless. It has no meaning. Why am I doing this puzzle? What purpose in life does that give me? Why am I drawing when I know I'm not good and always stop before I'm done? Why try to play an instrument when I'm not going to make money by playing it?

That is another huge factor in my life. Nothing has a purpose. Why should I spend my day off doing nothing when I could use that time to make money? But I dont really have anything that I NEED and when I do buy something with recreational purpose, I feel guilty because after so long, it just gathers dust. But I deserve a day off, I work most every day. But I dont work very hard at all. Maybe giving 60% on a great day, so I didnt earn a day to be lazy.

I guess long post short: I am constantly at battle with myself. I can see the positives, but a lot of the time, it's the negative that's speaking louder (I'm assuming my depression is acting like an amp) and I just shrug and go back to bed. Why? It's all pointless. Why do I want to go on dates when I know they just want sex and I'm not into having sex? Why do I want to be "vulnerable" in a relationship? That is like antagonizing a murderer, saying "betcha wont kill me!" It doesnt sound fun at all.

Maybe getting handed the short end of the stick has sucked all the potential I had, and instead of being where I was suppose to be, i have hit the opposite. Like maybe i was suppose to be a loving mom with the best marriage and job, and somewhere down the line, someone cursed me to have the knowledge and an understanding of what's going on around me, but I cant comprehend it. I understand... but what I dont understand is WHY I understand. I cant take that knowledge and put it to use. I can read the language, but I cant speak it.

I really have been struggling to try to find the answer as to why I feel this way. I feel helpless, but at the same time, I know why I feel and think the way I do. But I dont know why I know -- and I want to.

People say that it's the little things that count. I honestly do believe that, and while I dont expect much out of people / life anymore, the few things that I hold near and dear are literally the strands I hold onto. And when those strands break, I fall so deep and then everything just falls on top of me.

I am aware of my situation. I am knowledgeable about why I feel the way I do and how. What I dont know is WHY I am so aware. There is something out there for me, and through growing up, I feel as though I lost the piece. The one piece that was going to just make it all make sense. I had a wonderful purpose in life, and someone took it away because it had to have been something damn special to make me feel so lost without it.

surveys by mickey-mouse

[A]- On a scale of 1-10 how Athletic are you? normally when im not super sick I’d say like.. a 5 lol. I do hour long workouts and am on my feet almost the whole day. but now that i’m as sick as i am... i’m like a .5. its so bizarre. I literally do like one or two outings and i’m so tired and weak its just.. wild.

[B]- Can you name 3 different species of Bears? polar bears, black bears, brown bears, panda bears

[C]- When was the last time you were on a Carousel? ummmm over the summer with the kiddos.

[D]- Do you know anybody with Dentures? yes. 

[E]- What is the closest you have ever been to an Elephant? i’ve been in a like safari-esque truck thing and they come up to you and you feed them.

[F]- What subject do you think is unacceptable to ever get an F in? i mean i don’t really think subjects are one size fits all. i would say probably the most beneficial would be english proficiency so you can spell, speak, write, read, etc.

[G]- What is something cool about your Grandma/Grandpa? my dad’s parents didn’t talk to us and then they both were killed by a drunk driver. i don’t know too much positive about them. my grandpa on my mom’s side was super friendly and a hands-on grandparent. he was always down for taking us to the park or playing games. my gram is very smart, great with money, and a walking thesaurus

[H]- Have you ever played Halo? like for a few minutes when scott or nathan would play.

[I]- Do you have any idea how to build an Igloo? um heck’n yea

[J]- Name something - anything - that is Juicy: grapes

[K]- When was the last time you flew a Kite? uhhh not this summer but last summer.

[L]- Do you have a Library card? yes. two. one for my town and one for the neighboring town that has a different library coding system

[M]- Have you ever used the word Moolah in place of money? lol sure. i think more so in junior high cus that was the cool term.

[N]- Have you ever read a National Geographic magazine? yes but i wouldn’t say entirely thru. they would get boring.

[O]- What is something that makes you Original? blegh.

[P]- When was the last time you had a Pillow fight? i do this on the regular with my nephews.

[Q]- Any idea who the Queen of England is? Elizabeth!

[R]- Name somebody who you think deserves more Respect: retail workers/fastfood workers/grocery workers/ servers/gas attendants etc.

[S]- In your own words, define what the word Sexy means. im unsure of if you mean what i find sexy or what the word means in a broader sense.

[T]- What is the most popular Tourist attraction where you live? chicago

[U]- Without looking - do you know what brand your Underwear is? uhhhhhhh no probably not. maybe hanes lol

[V]- Are you any good at Volleyball? i used to be! im going to guess probably not anymore.

[W]- Have you ever had a Water balloon fight? yes and i loathe it.

[X]- Do you have any idea why Christmas is abbreviated Xmas? i haaaaaaaaaaate that abbreviation

[Y]- Yahoo or Google for search engine purposes? google

[Z]- Do you know what ZN is an abbreviation for on the periodic table? Zinc.

–

When was the last time you spent over $10.00? On what? yesterday for new pillows

Take a guess - do you have more pairs of socks or underwear? so since drastically cutting down on what i have, it would be very close. but i have an enormous bag of underwear from k that i need to get rid of but it makes me sad to do so.

Create a holiday - what day would it be on and what would it celebrate? thats more effort than i care to have rn lol

Have you ever smacked somebody’s butt? Teehee… oh heck’n yea. my last bf loved that lol

Honestly, have you ever stolen ANYTHING? Think hard. yes once as a child. it haunted me for years and i ended up returning it, apologizing, and paying money and then the manager wrote me back sending the money back to me and asking me to donate it to charity lol

Who is one person who you love but never ceases to piss you off? no comment

Who is one person who loves you that YOU never cease to piss off? uhhhhhhh probably mom. lol

Kids under the age of 13 with a cell phone; ok or ridiculous? I prefer kids to be without as long as possible so social media can be avoided. but i love the safety features.

Do you think you could you hop on one leg to your kitchen without falling? i wouldnt love it with the stairs.

What is the worst thing to drink right after brushing your teeth? orange juice

Are you careful with your money or does it burn a hole in your pocket? i have to be careful with it because i don’t have any.  Right now, are you wearing eyeliner? no

Are you better or worse off than you were two years ago? worse. but i am determined to turn over a new leaf. 

If Justin Bieber was your brother would you be proud to admit it? sure. i’m proud of my siblings.

As a kid (or even now. ;)) what was your favorite playground activity? swings

Who do you wish karma would bite in the ass? no one. not much of a revenge seeker

Have you ever given yourself a Google diagnosis when you were sick? eh no

Could you (willingly) go ten days without touching a computer? yes and i have plenty 

Have you ever dropped anything in a toilet on accident? a phone i had. that was the worst.

BAM! Chocolate no longer exists. Do you miss it? um yes

BAM! Dinosaurs are alive! Do you want one as a pet? i don’t think dinosaurs would allow themselves as pets, nor do i think that would be wise in any way shape or form.

What is the most annoying sound in your opinion? people eating, the sound of dry china, or screechy sounds

Are you more mean to people when you’re late for something? i couldn’t tell ya the last time i was late. but if i were late i probably would be irritable!

Honestly, do you think you give yourself enough credit? im learning to 

Pumpkin pie, vanilla ice cream, sugar cookies, cheese, apples - pick two. uhhhh apples and ice cream

Have you ever been caught in a lie? lol once in a while when it comes to lying about presents or surprises.

Congrats! You just won a $1,000 gift card to any store…which do you pick? oh man. old navy, tjmaxx, amazon, idk!

QUICK! Fill in the blanks: I wish that _______ would kiss me right now. lol no comment.....

Tarnish my honor? How about no money or job?

tl;dr will be at the bottom as this is quite long story.

Names, places and dates have all been changed to conceal people’s identity in this event.

Context

Let me set the scene first, I had joined the Army direct from “high school” (for my colonial friends) and had a great time, however my contract was up and I had decided that I really wanted to go back into further education and redo my high school (As I failed everything as I was so focused on joining the Army at the time) with the intention on going to University. So, with that in mind I did not sign on for another contract with the Army I just left.

Now, it’s a bit depressing being in my early 20s, ex serving solider and living at home with his mother but that’s the way it had to be as the money I had saved from the Army was going directly towards my higher education not to mention that I spent most of my time applying to colleges trying to get on a course. I needed a part time job; it’s not that I was not applying for jobs the minute I was back at my mum’s house I just spent more time trying to get onto a course, it was just that within 6 months I was not even getting any interviews. My friends and family all said its more than likely being an ex-solider and the social climate at the time in Europe would have been against me getting a job. Then out of know where I get a phone call from Awesome Area Boss from a low tier model Retail Company (From now on shall be called AAB). I go to the interview and get on very well with AAB, AAB tells me the position is what they called “Key timers” which in a nut shell meant weekend staff and public holidays which was fine with me as my goal was my education. The pay was ok, I could not save anything but it would keep me afloat as it were, and to be honest from what I understood about the company it was quite relaxed worked. AAB offers me the job on the spot to which I was over the moon with, he asked me to start the following week. The following week comes around and bright eyed and bushy tailed I get to the shop. ABB introduces me to “Matt” our opposing force in this story.

The opposing force,

“Matt” (not real name of course) is in his late 30s and has only ever worked at this model shop. Matt at first seemed like a nice guy, a little unhygienic with his dirty work uniform but maybe that’s just me with uniforms, in hindsight he was only ever nice to me when AAB was on site and sadly AAB had like 6-9 shops to look after so this meant our tiny little shop was not a priority for him unlike the mega store in the capital city that was making the big money. Matt took his job with a pinch of salt often being lazy with his duties and bashing our customers and their kids not to mention making fun of my military background, belittled me in front of customers (I took this at first as banter, you have to understand I thought what went on the military would more than likely move over to civilian life and just assumed this was a fact of life) then I started to notice a pattern that this was emotional bullying there is no way he could physically bully me as I was bigger than him and physically fit and to some extent had some training, he knew this and thus emotional bullying was his weapon of choice. When ABB was not there he would often “order” me (His words not mine) to do jobs he could not be bothered doing, such as set up sale displays. He would often tell me he was “higher ranking” than me and that with my back ground I should do as he says (he was not higher than me he was just the full time employee at the store, same pay scale just did more hours than me). I did everything he said, for a few reasons. My first priority was I needed to keep this job and I had 3/4 month trial period, so I needed to keep in everyone’s good books to keep this job. He gave me jobs like cleaning the toilet (Which has never been cleaned in years) as “I was used to this type of job”. He would ask me to do big tasks like inventory stock 5 minutes before closing the store while he went out drinking with his mates over the road at a bar as apparently “head office had asked me for the stock take and not him” although a little store doing stock takes hours, yes this was paid work. For context as I was new to the area I did not have any real friends anyway as my mother was divorced while I was in the Army and separated from my step dad and living in the new area. So at that time I did not complain and I also believed that they had asked me to do such things. I never questioned authority, something I later had to learn to do.

The recce

Anyway, the trial period pasts by really quickly and AAB asks me in for a post-trial interview. He sits me down and starts to explain this is serious and explains if I am ok with it anything I say now will be recorded. I just assumed that this was part in parcel of what happens in these types of interviews and agree. AAB goes on to explain that money and stock are missing on the days that I was working. I was stunned! Even speechless, I started to panic and off the bat told the AAB that I had never stolen anything. Although I liked working for the company I don’t paint or play with models, and with the money gone I told him honestly I had no idea about this and was confused by all this.

AAB then thanks me for the attending the interview and stops recording the conversation (Pen and paper recording). AAB then states that “I can’t prove anything, so even if I had stolen anything, nothing could be proven that you had done it”. I was red with anger by this time with the implication that people thought I was stealing but kept my mouth shut as I’ve learned when I was in Army never open your mouth to a senior rank when angry (3 days cleaning a parade square with a butter knife for that life lesson but that’s another story). ABB then says that I’ve passed my initial trial period and have moved on to being an employee. This shocked me even more; I thought I was going to be fired there and then. ABB then said he believed that I did not take anything but had to investigate any accusation made by another member of staff and that it could be a input problem with the machines we use for stock and the till system we use for payment but he needed to ask all staff that worked these days. ABB being a full on dude just under toned what happened. Matt just told management that I was stealing.

Ok Matt, the game is on.

The calm before the storm

Matt was later asked to leave the company as his constant bashing of our customers and their kids one day led to head office getting to many complaints from customers about Matt. AAB then came to the shop to fill in for a full timer until someone was employed. Me and AAB get on really well and worked well together, I filled AAB on the finer details on working with Matt to which apparently he knew what was going on but could not move on anything until I complained about it to which I never did thinking this was a normal way of working life to AAB surprise but could also understand coming from my sort of background. Matt had made it very clear to AAB that he did not want anyone else working in the same store as him before I got hired but as the store was growing he needed help and so my position was made and the rest is history. AAB told me that Matt had tried to get me fired for months saying that I turned up to work late, drank beer before starting a shift and that I am possibly on drugs. The worst was that he suggested that I was to “close to the kids” that come into the store. AAB backed me 100% to the company directors and said these are false accusations (This is why he’s Awesome Area Boss).

Into the breach my friends

Years later I see Matt working as an estate agent for a local firm. Matt is wearing a full on suit, shit and shoes driving a company car looking pro. I was in my final year of my course but had left the model store I worked at as it was closed down. I got a part time job working at an internet café which funny enough was right next to Matt’s new estate agent firm. He even came into the café telling me “this is all you must be good for” and that he “earns more money than my education is worth”. So, it seems like hes out for me still for some unknown reason. Maybe he’s not happy with himself? Or very insecure? I could of completely shut him down physically again but it would only ever end up me being in jail and not him so there was no point to it. I just verbal told him if he carries on that a smack in the mouth would be the least of his worries. He leaves the internet café.

A woman comes over to me who was using one of our computers and asks what that was all about. I said that he and I go way back and he holds some hostility towards me. She then introduces herself as one of his customers and is in the final process of buying a house of him not only this but she has recommended him to all of her friends who are looking to sell their houses.

"CONTACT FUCKING FRONT" All I say is that she should be very careful as I know him to be very dishonest so much so that when we worked together he was let go because of some very shady actions but did not give her full details. She then divulges all this information how her husband did not like him but she thought he was ok to buy a house from which Matt stands to make some good commission % on (Before housing bubble economy in Europe) which would have been in the thousands. I said that to be honest I would not be surprised if something under handed was going on if he was their estate agent I would not trust him with a coffee order let alone a house. The women then asks me some more in-depth questions about the situation to which I did explain to her I feel uncomfortable about but I do want revenge on this scum bag. Turns out her husband is also ex services and can now understand why her husband did not like him either. I tell her everything that went on. Few days went past and I see Matt walking down the street past my café I think nothing of it but then noticed though out the day he did not come back to his office. Oh well he must be on holiday or something.

Turns out this lady complained about him to the firm and he quit before he would have been fired, I later heard that he made next to nothing as it was a commission based job and that the women had told all of her friends not to use this guy or the company anymore. The company was told nothing about my situation with Matt but about how Matt represented the company in such a bad way with how he talks to people that the company had to let him go or the women would take her business elsewhere. Justice is served!

tl;dr Ex-military joining the civilian life in a new job, coworker belittles me in front of customers, accused me of stealing and other criminal activity in a previous job. Years later find him working for an estate agent and manage to get him to quit his job before being fired and stop him from making a huge amount of money from sales commission by talking to his client.

(source) (story by Vonclausehitz)

I appreciate Draymond Green speaking out.

He did so knowing he is certainly going to be fined. But also he has more privileged than many other (even superstar) players because his team isn’t going to retaliate against him for speaking out.

Sure you can believe that these people are so lucky to be able to play a game for a living and earn millions of dollars doing so.* You can be like, you don’t have to live this life if you don’t want to, you can quit.

But the thing is, no other job, even super good, comfy, high-paying jobs, are people not allowed to improve their situation. People who have easy, high-paying jobs sometimes have terrible coworkers, and because they can they might choose to quit to get away from them. But no one holds it against them if they keep their job until they find a new one. And they aren’t barred from finding a new one, that is equally easy and high-paying.

If players quit, they can’t earn the same high-paying job, and yes, often they have won the genetic lottery allowing them to play at this level, but even the most genetically lucky person still had to put in a lot of hard work and make a lot of sacrifices to play at this level, and it’s what they chose to do, so why shouldn’t they be allowed to try to improve their station in life while still doing the job that they love and worked their entire lives to do at the highest level.

*Nevermind that it’s a short-lived career for most. There are people who may make one or two million dollars for a year or two, but then never get picked up again and now have to figure out what to do to keep earning money for the rest of their lives, because nowadays in many places, that money isn’t going to last a lifetime.

I don’t know this to be true (because honestly I don’t know anyone in real life who disagrees) but I have a feeling that the people who get annoyed by the players who complain about the situation are just jealous because they feel like they work harder for less pay. And it’s true that they may have less rewards, and there are definitely jobs that are harder work, but I doubt those people are the people complaining. I feel like the people who complain can’t work as hard as is required to perform at such a top level as a professional athlete.

(I could be wrong though, maybe there are olympic level athletes who are in less glamorous sports who are complaining because they are also at peak level and have to make way more sacrifices, like working a real job to pay for their olympic caliber training. For some reason I doubt it, because people who train at an elite level or do those truly backbreaking jobs tend to not be complainers about other people’s situations.

It’s like people who complain that the pay gap doesn’t exist, and then talk about low wage jobs that are mostly held by women don’t deserve to be paid as much as jobs held by men because men do hard work and gross work and dangerous work that women refuse to do. But often the people complaining about this don’t actually work those blue collar jobs, so why are they complaining? And also, there is so much to talk about on this topic, and it’s a completely different topic, and this post is already way too long that if I decide to talk about it, it will definitely not be in this post.)

ETA: I’ve been reading replies to the repost on the SportsCenter tweet, and there is one thing I want to address. It is true that it has become common in entry level retail type jobs where hours are uncertain and schedules vary. And this makes it very difficult for people who are in these jobs who are also perhaps going to school or trying to work a second job to make ends meet. IT didn’t use to be the case. Before people could have a fairly regularly scheduled part time shift and employers would work around school schedules. But then there was the recession and people were so desperate to have any job that employers could mistreat employees and do whatever they wanted.

But that doesn’t make it okay for professional sports teams or your average retail or entry level employer. You should be entitled to a regular schedule. And yes, sometimes people can’t come in and others will have to cover that shift. But if you have a class to attend, you shouldn’t have to go to your job or get fired for going to your class instead.

In fact, one of the things that happened as a result of the recession is that employers can’t hire people or keep people because Obama improved the economy and people got jobs and aren’t desperate anymore (well, until the pandemic, but let’s just look at just before the pandemic). So employers were spoiled about hos they could mistreat their employees and how low they could pay them, but then they couldn’t hire people anymore because in general you have to pay people more than the jobs they already have to get them to leave, and employers were used to paying people minimum wage for skilled work. Or people could leave terrible employers for employers that wouldn’t mistreat them. The point being again, that keeping a player on a certain team when they want to leave or punishing them for wanting to leave is mistreatment too.

honestly this situation with my boss trying to pressure me into a promotion is the icing on the cake of a really shitty mental low tbh. this has been really rattling me for a while so under the cut is a literal VERY VERY long word vomit of what’s been going around in my head. it’s raw and its honest and i don’t expect anyone to read it. it’s probably oversharing too much. i feel guilty and manipulative by posting it here as if i’m treating people like my own personal therapist but.. i don’t know. i just need to get it out of my head. i just need to not exist for a long time i think

i keep saying i’ve been worse before and that this can’t be me hitting bottom because i’m arguably in a better place than i was during uni. i have money and i’ve been self harm free for years but...... i’m beginning to think i might have slipped enough to hit rock bottom again because i just feel so hopeless and stressed and like i just want to give up in a way i haven’t for years because christ, what is the point anymore and i just...... can’t see a way out of this PIT i have slipped into. 

i hate my job, i want nothing more to leave, but i feel stuck there. i’ve wanted to leave for years because it’s been so bad for my mental wellbeing but there are no options for me to get another job because the vacancies in my local area are so slim/unsuitable and i can’t look further afield because i don’t drive. i’m beyond anxious about learning to drive and i don’t know why. i feel like i’m just going to be stuck in this horrible place with a horrible boss for years, or just bounce from shitty retail job to shitty retail job and never earn enough to actually live. my family always tell me i’m better than working here forever or make comments about when i “work fulltime again” or “get a proper job” and the PRESSURE kills me. i don’t know what i want to do with my career. 

i don’t know what to do with my LIFE. i’ve considered going back to uni in the hopes it might narrow down a field for me (since i basically wasted my time the first time and got a shitty 2:2 because i was severely depressed at uni and don’t want to use it to teach) but that just feels like delaying the inevitable. like putting off making a decision by going back to study. what would i even study? i keep coming back to publishing but that’s so competitive and i have no confidence to fight my way into the field. i have no confidence in anything i do these days.

i don’t earn enough to be able to afford to move out and GOD do i feel guilty about that. i’m turning 26 on friday and i just keep thinking how much of a failure i feel because i’m still at home, still living with my dad and stepmum and showing no signs of moving into my own place. living at home is killing me too. i love them, but i need my own space. i need my own place. i just sit in my room all day when i’m off and all night after work. it just feels like i’m never going to be able to afford to move out and then there are ppl i went to uni with who are homeowners and working decent jobs and it kills me because i can’t help but compare. 

i have literally one in person friend. that’s not an exaggeration. i have one friend. i have a handful of ppl i speak to online and i treasure the conversations with have but my brain will always tell me that they’re not the same because i don’t get to like, see them and touch them and half the time i feel like the reason i lost all my old friends is my fault. sure, there was reasons for the arguments that ended those friendships but am i just blocking out my own blame in those happening? i feel so distant from everyone and i feel like so, so often i put in more effort than any of the friends i had or have. which is...... a horrible thing to say but it just always feels like if i just stopped reaching out with a text here or a message there, no one would bother to reach out to me. which is wrong!!! i know it is!!!! because ppl have reached out and at least two people who i could meet with IRL offered to meet up and i just panicked and said YEA MAYBE like an ASSHOLE!!! so really why is it so surprising that people stop bothering!!!!  i dont even get to see my one friend in person often. maybe once every couple months and because of covid i havent even seen her since the start of the year. 

i am so, so unbearably, painfully lonely. like, it genuinely hurts. i joke about being touch starved but honestly, i am desperate for it. i feel like i’m just going to be alone forever with only my nan and my one friend who want to spend time with me. there are times i have to stop watching or reading something that has such sweet romance scenes or friendship scenes because it makes me cry because i want something like that so bad. because i’m so desperate for company. i feel like i worry a lot about never finding a romantic partner when really all i want is friends. just............ friends............ but how am i meant to meet anyone when i’m cripplingly depressed, socially anxious and have no self esteem whatsoever? when all i do is go to work and come home and sit and play video games. i see ppl all chatting with friends online or posting photos together like i miss u!!! and i ache with how much i miss having people i care for like that

i feel like i need to talk to a therapist about this. about a lot of stuff. i was a witness to domestic abuse growing up, am the child of a former alcoholic (they’ve been clean and sober for 10 years nearly and its great, we’re all so proud) and my mum died when i wasn’t even 2 so i never knew her, but i wonder more and more how the things i saw and had to deal with growing up impacted me now. is that the reason why i feel like i’m still not an adult mentally? why i have no idea who i am? why i deal with crippling anxiety? but i’ve been thru the NHS talking therapies twice and i just feel like they’re not long enough to really help me. but i have no idea how to go about finding a private therapist, nor am i sure i could even justify paying £50-60+ a time for it. i feel like i just need someone to sit down and map out a plan for me to follow to get my life in order, to fix everything, because i don’t know how.

i literally hate my appearance. i’m overweight, i know this, but i can’t seem to fix that with everything else going on. i have no self esteem, no self confidence, i doubt everything i do. i don’t believe in my creative ability anymore, i worry constantly about what people think of me. 

i feel like this isn’t even all of it. i feel like i have issues beyond this that i’m forgetting. i feel utterly wrecked. i feel guilty for feeling like this when people are in such worse places than me. i don’t want to die, i REALLY DONT, i WANT to love life, i want to enjoy my life. i just......... kind of don’t know how to exist right now and i wake up sometimes and wonder for a second why i even bothered to do that when nothing is changing and things just seem to be getting worse 

2017

It’s currently 9:46 PM and I’m sitting in my room writing this because I honestly just have a lot on my mind to spill and let out before this year ends because 2017 has probably been the definition of roller coaster for me in all aspects of my life. This year I experienced a handful of things. From new friends, to heartbreaks, graduating from college and saying goodbye to my life in Irvine, from being sexually assaulted and staying silent about it, to reaching a new emotional low I’ve never been at in my life, at times barely having money to pay my many countless bills to working 65 hours a week 7 days a week at two jobs that I had no time to myself, getting a new car but not having enough money to even pay for it, and now my student loans start next month yet I’m jobless once again. 2017 was definitely something, and I kind of wanted to share all the triumphs and tribulations with anyone who’s willing to read and reflect with me.

If I had to summarize 2017 in 3 words, I would probably describe it with: Depressing, tired, regret. 

Depressing:

If you asked me a couple of years ago how 2017 was going to be for me, I would have described it with flying colors and that everything was going to be amazing. Little did I know that it was almost the complete opposite of what I wanted it to be. 2017 was an important year to me because I knew it was the year I was graduating from UCI. Neither of my parents had money to go to university so getting the opportunity to go through college was a reward in itself and a goal that I wanted to achieve for my parents. Overall it was a bittersweet feeling because as much as I was done with school, I was going to miss being around that college experience as I knew I had to move back to LA no matter what. What I didn’t know was that I was going to be bombarded with problems the second I came back. For a good 2 weeks I didn’t have a place to live and had to sleep on my mom’s room floor because while I was away our landlord rented out my room. For those who didn’t know, my living situation is that my mom and I rent out a place by room from a landlord and we pay for each room each month. For a year or so, my room was just a storage space for the things I couldn’t bring to Irvine and my space when I came to visit every so often, but eventually the landlord said she was losing money and eventually told my mom to clear my room for someone new to rent it out. We don’t have a home to ourselves so if I were to move back, there was no home for me to come back to after Irvine. I thought to myself, it shouldn’t be that bad, my Mom and I had a pretty close relationship so sharing a space was going to be easy. During this period of time, I’ve never experienced my mom yell and bash at me as much as she did. Being back home almost felt like hell because it honestly made me depressed that even my own mom didn’t want me around anymore. In spite of all of these events, coming back home was my first time experiencing the continuing feud between my divorced parents. During my 2nd year of college, my parents went through a divorce, but since I went to school, I was rarely ever around any of the problems going on at home on a daily basis. But being around such a toxic environment nearly everyday from the second I got home, it made me realize that life right now kind of sucked. I begged my mom to let me live alone separately because sleeping in the same room on the ground didn’t feel like a practical way of coming back and starting my adult life. The impracticality was one of the main reasons, but definitely because I was starting to get legitimately depressed, listening to my mom lecture me in a dark room until 1-2 AM, telling me about how I didn’t do enough and that I’m not going to be successful, always crying myself to sleep every night... Yeah, not how I expected graduating from college to be right? Right. Eventually I caused enough problems at home for my mom to agree to let me live apart and right there was when I felt like I was going to be able to start over. Little did I know that finding jobs and just adulting in general was going to be such a difficult thing. I went through at least 9 professional career interviews only to hear back from 2 from which both were just letting me know that I wasn’t good enough. The depression deepened, I started to isolate myself, completely removed myself from all my social media and eventually, everything and everyone from the outside world. I found myself laying in bed at times until 3-4 PM looking out of the window just hoping for it to be night time already so I can just go back to sleep. I stayed away from social media because it made me more depressed seeing my friends having fun while all I was able to do was sulk and feel sorry for myself. But ultimately, I stayed away because I didn’t want people to ask about me.. I didn’t want people to ask me things like “oh so what are you up to now?” “how have you been?” “how’s the post grad life?”. I didn’t want people to worry about me, and also, I didn’t want people to know that I was living my life like this.. It’s weird because looking back to the high school and college Mark, you’d be surprised at how introverted and socially awkward I’ve become these past few months. I pretty much said goodbye to social media for around 1-2 months to try and figure out life by myself, because comparing my lives to everyone around me made me sad and feel sorry for myself. I eventually slowly started to use social media and started talking to people little by little again, but definitely I don’t use it nearly as much as I used to. I hit such a low point in my life that it was honestly difficult even trying to convince myself that tomorrow was going to be a better day because my mind was too fixated on the idea that it would just suck as much as today did. Although I do feel much better now than I did a couple of months back, just thinking back to all the problems I faced and all the problems going on right now makes me depressed once in a while. 

Tired:

Tiring quite frankly is an understatement of how much I’ve exerted myself both physically and mentally these past 6 months. When I think of the word tired the first thing that comes up is that I’m tired of worrying. There isn’t a day where I wake up and the first thing I think about was how much of a financial shithole my life has come to. As sad as it sounds, my family (aka my Mom and I) are not in a good financial state right now. My mom didn’t get approved for a pay increase this past year and my father has fully stopped all communication and financial help with us. Life was okay back then because my Dad had a stable job for a company that he’s been working at for nearly 25+ years. His pay is great and is definitely enough to sustain our middle class lives. But with my Dad fully leaving us, cutting contacts and all ties with my Mom and I, changing his number and moving to who knows where, being able to eat even 2 meals a day became a luxury. With my Mom and I living apart meant we had two different places we needed to pay rent for, our constant medical bills because my mom is diabetic and my surprise ER trip this year in May, bills bills bills, living, breathing, life has become such an expense that we can’t even afford. My mom works as an accountant for a pretty small company, but in retrospect makes 1/3 of what my Dad makes. To sustain not only herself but me on top of that, money has become a big problem these past few months. And with my difficulties trying to find a career focused job, I resorted to working random jobs honestly just so I can help out as much as I can. In the end of October I picked up a retail job at Target as a full-time sales floor and near mid-November I got hired as a desk assistant in a chiropractic clinic in k-town as a part time attendant. My sulking and being depressed eventually turned into working nearly 60 hours a week, 7 days a week just so I can help my mom out with the bills and payments. On average I got about 5-6 hours of sleep every night and had little time to go out and enjoy myself for even a couple of hours. My idea of fun eventually became being able to play a couple or two games of League before going to sleep. I was tired. Although I had two jobs while I was at UCI as well, I never experienced working full-time jobs the way I did these past couple of months. I had the thought in my head, “is this what adulting feels like, because it’s not fun.” But then I later realized, it ultimately sucks because of the situation my life specifically is in. I feel good that I’ve been able to help out my mom financially, but my mind and body has definitely taken a blow in return. I’ve been so busy trying to help that I haven’t been taking care of myself nearly at all. I found myself eating once a day, snacking on small bags of chips every so often to save money, making more instant noodles, cheap pasta dishes and shin ramen in the past 3 months than I ever did during my 4 years of college. To add onto that, I’ve been getting bloody noses nearly everyday, gotten lightheaded at work about 2-3 times, gotten the flu about twice and have been experiencing some colorectal symptoms again that lowkey worries me. (Side tldr: In late 2013 I had an ER trip where I learned I could be pre-cancerous because I had a huge stomach flu episode where they found inflammation in my lower secum. They thought I just had appendicitis at first, but I got my appendix removed back in 2009, so they weren’t entirely sure. I was later genetic tested in January 2014 where they found I carried a gene mutation common in colorectal cancer patients much like my 4 uncles on my mom’s side of the family, 2 of which died in 2010 and 2011 from colorectal cancer. Ever since then I had to always be cautious of things I eat and especially if I started to show symptoms again. Symptoms were things like nose bleeding excessively, coughing blood or rectally bleeding, etc. Which almost all of which, I started to experience again recently) Whenever I got home I felt tired, spent time relaxing by watching a couple of Youtube videos before I slept. Although it was hard I felt good that I was able to financially help my Mom. But even though it’s gotten better recently, I still don’t go days without worrying about my financial stability. My time at the chiropractor didn’t last long because I wasn’t what he was looking for the job and I feel like my time at Target is soon coming to a close because I actually only got hired as seasonal. Looking back at 2017, I’ve never pushed myself this much before and although it’s honestly hard, I need to keep telling myself that I need to keep living like this for the sake of me and for the sake of my Mom being able to financially sustain ourselves in these hard times.

Regret: 

My first regret of 2017 would definitely be spending time sulking for the first half of the year over something that in the end turned out to be a waste of my time. I was depressed and sad nearly everyday for almost 5 months over someone that got over me in less than 3 days. I was honestly afraid of letting myself get vulnerable with someone again because I was afraid of getting hurt, but when I felt like it was safe and the feeling was right, it only lead to disappointment in the end anyways. Always being in the vicinity of each other because we had so many common friends was the worst feeling ever because you always wanted to play it off that you were fine when honestly you were not. It was hard to genuinely feel happy about a day because just the slightest thought of them kind of sucked you into your own depressing thoughts for the whole day. I’m actually happy to say that months later because I’m not around the UCI area anymore and because I’ve been so busy to even think about it, I’ve gotten so much better mentally from this experience, but it’s still a regret that I wasted my last 6 months of college feeling sorry for myself rather than just genuinely having fun. With graduation actually also brought in a whole wave of regrets that I started to think about. I regret not fixing ties with some friends I lost over stupid reasons over the past couple of years. I regret not doing better in college because I know I’m fully capable of being a good student, I honestly just never tried hard enough until it mattered. I regret being so wasteful of money during college and not being grateful of the financial support my Mom gave me during this time, and now that I’m back experiencing having to help out it’s made me realize how wasteful I am as a person. I regret for acting the way I did when it came to my personal life with people, leaving unresolved conflicts, and friendships that just will never be the same or are now nonexistent. And lastly I regret not being a better friend in general. I’ve grown to realize how self centered I lived the past 4 years of my life because if it didn’t benefit me in the end, it didn’t matter to me. My year of reflection ended up becoming a whole list of regrets of things that I can’t fix now and can only move on from and learn from it. I’ve lost touch with so many important people in my life because of how I’ve acted and it’s honestly disheartening to think back to it all. I mean I have friends still here, but it doesn’t undermine the people who were always there for me and I was too blind to realize it. All I did was hurt and break hearts that now that you regret what you did, there’s nothing to fix anymore because it’s already ruined. And for that I want to apologize for everything, to everyone I’ve hurt, to everyone I’ve ignored, to everyone I’ve taken advantage of, and to everyone who I wasn’t there for. I feel like these past 6 months of hardship has honestly changed my perspective of not only the world but myself as well. Lastly my biggest regret is a personal regret. I regret not pursuing my dreams and doing something I actually genuinely enjoy. I regret trying to please my family and not listening to mind for what I genuinely wanted to do. This past year I graduated with a BS in Pharmaceutical Sciences and sadly only 20% of me gets excited being able to say that. Don’t get me wrong, it’s always been a dream of mine since I was young to be in this field. I was that kid in first grade in Christian school that said he wanted to be a doctor while everyone else wanted to be princesses and actors. I always sought myself out to become a medical practitioner, but growing up and all my experiences that helped make me who I am today, I’m sad that my once dream I wish just stayed as a dream. Being able to graduate with this science degree doesn’t excite me as much as I thought it would that even to this day I still haven’t picked up my degree because it kind of doesn’t mean anything to me. (which lowkey I think I should get on that... rip) I regret not listening to my instincts beforehand and pursuing something that genuinely made me happy. If you didn’t know before, I actually have great interest in graphic design and communications and creative fields that encompass these skills. I did the stereotypical thing and listened to what my parents wanted me to pursue rather than doing myself a favor and speaking up for myself and letting me follow my own dream. I consider this as a 2017 regret because now I have a degree in something that I honestly don’t know what to do with. I regret putting myself through all that school for something that doesn’t interest me, and most importantly, I regret making my parents put me through all that school for me just to now shrug it off. I don’t know.... I’m honestly just a bundle of confused still when it comes to my career paths but I’m really hoping I can figure it out within the next few years. But for now, regret regret x100 regret.

Thankful:

If you’ve stuck through reading this for this long, I want to say thanks for sticking and listening to what’s on my mind. This post was a tad meant to be shared, but I mostly just wanted to spray out everything on my mind. So far I feel like I’ve only given room to speak about everything bad that’s happened in my life this year, but I do have to say that there were for sure good things that happened this year as well. Firstly I am thankful for my two mentees that I met this year, Cody and Toan. I first got acquainted with them early in January and seeing the development of our relationships this past year, I can’t be more thankful of two people who took care of me so much during my hard times. During my last two quarters at UCI, my life was a mess of everything, and I’m glad they were always there for me and stuck it through no matter what happened. And even moving back home home, they always check up on me and have even visited me just to see how I’m doing. They may be my mentees but I honestly feel like the mentee in this relationship. I want to thank speficially Raffy and Jon for giving me to opportunity to be on PACN board this year because being able to do PACN this year honestly helped me so much forget about the other stressors I had during my life at the time and put on a good show for everyone to enjoy. Even though PACN in general was stressful, it was probably the biggest highlight of my senior year at UCI. I’m thankful for the board I was able to work with, my suite members, my co-hoes, and thankful for the overall experience. I’m thankful for a girl named Theresa because out of all my littles, I feel like she was there for me during all my lows to always pump some motivation to keep moving forward with my life. It’s honestly really hard for me to communicate my problems with people because I have such a hard time talking about these sensitive types of topics, but for some reason everything feels so natural just being able to talk to her about it. Thanks for always being there through all my annoying messages and listening to all the stupid stories you probably didn’t care about. But thanks for making it seem like you did, it really helps lmao. Quick shoutout to Kevin (Hoang) too. Thank you for always being there for me, and being so persistent and trying your best to make me laugh. You’re honestly a genuine friend and I hope that I can repay you back for all you’ve done for me in the future. Back in October my long time car, ye ole 1995 Toyota T-100 finally reached its limit and broke down to the point where it was too expensive to fix it. I was nearly car-less for 2 weeks. It made it much harder to look for jobs and just get around in general. I was actually considering buying a tap-card because Metro fares were starting to stack up, until one day my Mom came home and surprised me with a new car. When she told me that she got a work bonus that week from her boss for completing a very hard project, she automatically wanted to put a down payment to give me the opportunity to drive a new car. She calls it my “late Graduation present” lmao. All my life, I’ve been driving around a car that was even older than me, so I’m thankful for my Mom for getting me a car that I can actually call mine. Even though I have to pay for the car payments myself (lmao, mom pls), I am still thankful that I have a way to get around now and this is probably one of my biggest highlights of the year. I also wanted to do a quick shout out to my best friends Kevin, Bea and Dia (and Alex too I guess). Kevin and I have been friends since high school but I feel like coming back home this year I’ve honestly gotten to appreciate Kevin so much more because he was there during all my low times and to hear all my annoying rants. Thank you for being there for me unconditionally, even though lowkey its always just because you need rides, lmao. But hey, I’m willing to take that trade for always being there for me. And also to Bea and Dia for always being there to help me realize that we’re still the stupid little shits we are even though we’re “adulting” now. Whenever we all hang out suddenly all my worries I forget them for even just a while which honestly is a comforting feeling. If either of you are reading this right now, then lmao yeah I kinda hide all my feelings when we hang out, but not on purpose though, but because I actually genuinely enjoy the times we do go out, so thank you for making my days more brighter even for just a couple of hours. Lastly, thank you Alex for always being a little shit, because even though we annoy each other all the time, being able to hang out or discord with you when we play league is always a fun time. You’re so bad at League that it actually brings me joy, which is nice. But it’s okay, I suck too, oh well. Thanks for always being down, and thanks for always replying to fast to everything. You’re probably one of my friends that replies the fastest and I appreciate that. Lastly I want to thank the friends I’ve made at Target these past couple of months. It’s kind of reminded me that even after college, it’s still possible to make friends with new people. I was so shy coming in but I’m glad I was able to open up to more people and that I can actually call most of you friends opposed to as just co-workers. Dr. Park at the chiro office was kind of harder to talk to, plus he got rid of me fast lmao, so thanks for always being the true homies and making shifts so much more fun. Shout out to my work best friend Kimberly for always being down to listen to my stories and for feeling comfortable to share your problems with me too. It’s comforting to know that there are people around you that even though they’re going through a lot of problems as well, they’re always willing to be there for you just as much as you are willing to be there for them. I’m definitely thankful for more people, but I just wanted to quickly mention the people who really changed this year for me and made me realize maybe life isn’t actually so bad. Things may be hard, life in general is depressing, but there’s always rays of light shining where you least expect it.

Oh hey well look at that, it’s 11:55PM now. With about 5 minutes left in 2017, I hope this is a fresh start for me. Here’s to a hopefully better year coming up, 2018. Thank you for all the lessons this year 2017. Happy New Year. 

Wow that was tiring, to type lmao. 

Some of you may remember that I made a post a few days ago about an e-mail I received from GameStop saying that I had $61 in trade credit waiting for me thanks to trade-ins that I did at a store in my hometown ages ago that I honestly forgot about. You may also remember how GameStop’s website insisted that my e-mail address didn’t match what they had on file, despite how little that made sense.

Well, it’s time I brought you up to speed on that ongoing saga, because there have been updates.

I didn’t have time to call GameStop during the week because I work a full time job and kept forgetting about needing to call GameStop Power-Up Rewards Support during my working hours. (They are open for a couple hours after I get off work, but honest to god, I just kept forgetting.) It’s the weekend now, though, and was at 1am last night / this morning as well, so I decided to go ahead and give it another shot. Both to get the support number and just to see if it would work, I tried entering my information on the website again last night and---voila. It worked. I don’t know why they suddely recognized my e-mail address now, but it worked, and their site said that they would send me a code with my digital card information within four hours.

Cool! I don’t know why it would take four hours, but cool.

Anyway, so the first attempt at this was actually at 9pm last night. I waited four hours, and never received an e-mail. I checked in my spam folders, and nope. Nothing. The e-mail was just not there. So I went to the site and tried again (it was 1am by this point), and then waited another four hours, and still, nothing.

So today, when I woke up, I once again checked my spam folders and the like. No e-mail. That being the case, I called GameStop Power-Up Rewards support at last, and after waiting on hold for about twenty minutes, I finally spoke with a person who was able to help me. (There were plenty of moments waiting on hold once I explained the situation as well, but whatever, no big deal, I got the help I needed.) She ended up giving me a digital card number and PIN that I could use to use my $61 in trade credit. Awesome.

Now, by this point it has come to my attention that not only is Pokémon Ultra Sun coming out on the 17th, but Sonic Forces is also coming out on the 7th---and yes, I do want to play that game, don’t judge me. $61 is not enough to afford both of these games, and I can’t afford to pay money out of pocket for games right now. Those are a luxury, and every cent I have needs to go to necessities. However . . .

Way back when Sonic Mania released, I traded in my Wii U and Wii U games in order to afford it. Well, that, and I had no use for my Wii U anymore since Splatoon 2 came out on Switch, so I figured I might as well. Anyway, that trade-in earned me more money than I needed for Sonic Mania, but I had to download Sonic Mania off the eShop since no stores in the area had it. For this reason, I put all the trade-in money on an eShop card, and then loaded that eShop money into my Switch’s eShop account (which is apparently not shared between the Switch and 3DS despite both using Nintendo Network, and yes, I’ve checked). After purchasing Sonic Mania, I still had $30 left over in my Switch’s eShop account (yes, I’ve checked). This means that I technically have $90 to spend on games right now, albeit $30 of which is locked into the Switch’s eShop at present.

With that in mind . . .

Although I prefer to have physical copies of games because I like to see the game cases lined up on my shelf (and to that end I need to get a couple cases for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Sonic Mania), desperate times call for desperate measures. The plan I concocted was as such: Using GameStop’s website, I would purchase one $10 eShop card, and then put the remaining $50 on another eShop card. The $10 eShop card would be added to my Switch funds so that I would have the $40 to purchase Sonic Forces (since it’s $39.99---might have a little more to pay due to taxes and such, but a couple cents never hurt anyone). The $50 eShop card would then go to the 3DS to buy Ultra Sun (probably I should have just saved the $50 to buy the game physically, but whatever, I don’t care if I have to download it onto the 3DS, it’s not like I’ll use the 3DS after this, and besides, I can use the remaining funds for PokéBank, or merge them with the Switch later---or alternatively, maybe I can even return the $50, anything is possible). I completed these purchases, and GameStop’s website said they would e-mail me the download codes.

I’m sure you see where I’m going with this.

So far, I have received an order confirmation for the cards. However, I have not received the download codes. They’re not in my spam folder, either. I have a strong feeling that GameStop is bamboozling me again, which means guess who is going to get to have another fun time on the phone with GameStop support?

Honestly, GameStop, you practically have a monopoly on the video game retail industry. There’s really no excuse for this. Please just send people e-mails when they need them and stop trying to cheat them out of money, thanks.

Anyway, wish me luck. Hopefully this saga will be resolved peacefully.

(please don’t reblog this, thanks)

What has been one of the most challenging things you have experienced or are currently experiencing?

“Currently experience? That I have experienced? Or currently experienced? Honestly, it is probably just now trying to—I feel like I am really successful in a lot of certain things in my life. It’s now focusing in on those couple of areas of feeling successful, job, and actually love. Because I am trying to figure that out right now too. Pretty much it is really just focusing on trying to be happy in what I am doing and not having to really worry about money. Other than that, that has really been my biggest struggle, so. I can say.”

Is this a recent struggle, or this is something you have been sort of battling with for years?

“Battling since probably right out of college. I graduated in May 2003, and ever since then I knew going into a field I had wanted was not what I really wanted to do. I didn’t feel as passionate about it, so it has always been in the back of my mind; so I should really try to figure out what it is I am passionate about and just go for it. Hence, the struggle. It’s been 13 years maybe. I have been off and on trying to forget about it and trying to distract myself with things. But it always comes down to wanting to feel like I have achieved something. Because friends, family I see are getting married, they have kids, have a house, they have their own businesses, and I feel like I am still that kid in his original life. Even though I am 37, I feel like I am a teenager living in his parents’ house, still trying to figure out what I am going to be when I grow up. So I am still just trying to figure that out.”

What has that journey been like for you since college? Do you want to describe a little bit of that?

“I have always have been around good groups of people. I have a ton of friends. Tons of friends, family just all amazing; they have been very supportive. No matter what I do, everybody has been really good about that. So, I really feel like I am my own worst enemy, when it comes to that. There will be times where I just sit back and I think, ‘Well really, let me look at what is positive in my life. Okay! There is a lot of very positive in it.’ But you know when there is something negative, you tend to focus on that more, while you tend to easily forget all the positives. So, umm, I am sorry; I lost track. What was that original question?”

The journey, like getting out of college to where you are now. What were some of the stops along the way for you?

“When I got my first—scared as hell. Once I got out of school, I got really nervous getting my first job. Luckily, I was fortunate to be somebody who got a job right out of school. Even before I graduated, I got a job secured for me. Because one, it was an internship, but it was a paid internship and that ended up turning into a job but I was just like let me do it. A lot of people that are leaving school right now don’t even get jobs. They just go back to doing either retail or waiting, things like that. I told myself, ‘Let’s just do it. It’s a lot more money than I ever had in my life before. Let’s just do it, continue it.’

“The first day I puked, as soon before I got in the car to drive. My mom was right there. She was looked at me like, what the hell is wrong with you? I literally just puked right outside. It was like, I had this knot in my stomach. This is not what I want to do, but I have to do it because I was trying to do it for my parents, because they helped support me through college. I mean, obviously, I am paying my student loan, but they are doing the parent loan, so I have to at least try. Especially for them, since what was the point of going to school for? If I don’t at least try what I went to school for.

“So I did that. Got there, I was nervous, but then I started fitting right in. I got to see the whole corporate world. Like what people do outside of college. And I realized they are basically just college students—just they have more money. So, going on trips and seeing what they do, I’m like okay, this is not bad. This is pretty awesome! But then after about like two or three years—I noticed this with jobs. I get to that point where what am I doing? Do I continue to advance in this place, or do I just go somewhere else? But then I don’t do anything about it, and then I struggle, and I stay there, and then I get more bitter about it. Which I did. I started hating the job. I started getting into more arguments with people there. Hated commuting back and forth. At the time I didn’t have any bills, so I would try to make myself feel better by spending money. I went to New York a couple times, to buy clothes or eat. Just shut myself away, play video games. At the time I didn’t work out, so I was just doing it with hardly any sleep. Traveling back and forth, hating what I am doing. Trying to distract myself with things. Then I actually ended up putting myself in the hospital one night. It was either out of just being tired or just—I don’t know what it was. I just remember being at the hospital, lying there that night. I was like, what the hell. How did I put myself in the hospital? I think it was fatigue, but something just wasn’t right. Stayed in the hospital overnight. They gave me some meds, this and that. I was like, this is it, I got to be healthier. I got to be. I just have to get my ass to the gym.

“I always thought about doing the gym. Started doing that, I used that as my distraction. So, it’s not so bad. I got a job, like a lot of people are losing their jobs. This is awesome. Okay, but now I am also working out, so I put all my energy into that. And then, after things started going good—it always happens, when I start feeling good, and everything seeming to be falling in place, bam, I got laid off. I started feeling horrible about myself again. What the hell is wrong with me? Using things to distract myself, and shut myself away for a year practically. Not doing anything, not really talking to anybody. Even my mom was worried for me for a while. I went to talk to somebody—which I never was against but I was always afraid—Well, I had a bad experience the first time. I wanted to talk to a therapist. I always think it’s good to go talk to them, but they put me right away on. Something like Paxil, like DRUGS! It wasn’t even a therapist. I guess a psychologist. I said, ‘Can’t we just talk first?’ So they instantly put me on that, and I tried that for two or three months, but I felt even more depressed. It was horrible. I couldn’t even get an erection. It was horrible. I went cold turkey on it. I thought, ‘That’s it, I am done seeing people. I’m done seeing and talking to people. I am just going to figure this out myself.’ And then I got another job and got laid off. Then I got another job after that, and now I am in the same job. Same thing: it wasn’t as bad as first year or two, but now after the second or third year I got into the same pattern of, what am I doing? I should be doing something I like. I should just get out of here, just continue going, and I haven’t. And seven years later I am still in it, and I’m still fighting back and forth, distracting myself with things. So, that’s just my never-ending battle with feeling success. While I look at and see all the friends, family all moving up going their separate ways, getting really successful, getting kinds and having houses, I still feel like I am back to square one again. Just leaving college.”

Is that stuff that your friends are achieving stuff that you want?

“I look at it more like they have achieved stuff and they are successful with it. Not necessarily like I don’t want to, I wonder if they are spending money on their cars, things like that. It’s like materialistic stuff now I look at it like what they have achieved in being successful. I want that feeling of, okay, looking back and feeling like I have done something I can be happy about. You know? Then again, I look at—there is a lot of stuff I have done; I’ve been really focused with obviously fitness and being a good person. I can say that I’m like a really good person. That’s it.”

Is it possible that the people you are comparing yourself to may be in the same rut that you are? Like traveling down that rabbit hole of doing what pays the bills, you know, looks like success on the outside; but maybe they are afraid they are not fulfilling their passions as well.

“Definitely! Definitely! I have a couple friends who have the house, family, kids, and some of them even said, ‘I kind of wish I was in your position,’ because it allows—and their idea is they could still go do things like travel if they want to. They have no tie-me-downs, you know, you can just leave and I know that, I just—I’m just trying to figure out what it is. That is probably a big thing preventing me from actually getting involved with anybody, any sort of relationship. It’s because I don’t want to—it’s not considered a tie-me-down, but I think it is a tie-me-down. Because then it will have me start thinking, ‘Now I can’t really go.’ What if I want to leave tomorrow and move to a different side of the country? I don’t want to have to drag somebody down with me because of that. So I just never got involved with that, or even thought about that. It’s all been, I guess, pretty selfish. Thinking just about myself.”

Or not. You are thinking about the strain it would put on the other person if you were to pick up and leave on a whim.

“I mean—I just—I don’t know. Yeah!”

So what do you think keeps you sort of stuck in this purgatory, if you will?

“Me! I’m my own worst enemy; not taking risks. I should just go and take risks. I am confident on certain things, but a lot of times I am not confident on certain things. Like right now, like me just even applying to another job; I’m not as confident with a job interview. I’m like, ‘Okay, what do I say? I just need a job?’ That’s really it. How do you say like—I know some of them are going to ask you, ‘Well, what brings you to this company?’ This is it. I am pretty real; I’m not going to throw some bullshit at somebody. I’m just going to be like, ‘I need a job. I like food. I like a roof over my head. I like my car. I have to make payments.’ So a lot of the times it has been the interview process that has been making me nervous, but part of it too is why am I going to go into something I just know I am going to hate anyway? It’s just going to be rinse, repeat, rinse repeat. Then I’m going to be at the point where I am 50 or 60 and like ‘oh, what the fuck! What did I do with myself?’ You know? Now I am alone. I still hate my job like it’s just—I don’t know.”

What do you want to do? What is your passion?

“That is what I am still trying to figure out, to be honest. The main hobbies I always do is like I love fitness, I love video games. I love TV, I love film. I would love to be, I love fantasy and stuff like that. Even when I was a kid, I used to pretend like any kid. When you are a kid you watch your cartoons and pretend you are there. Like, ‘what if I was in this situation?’ Watching the Goonies, I’m like, that is what made me think lie I love acting. I would love to try it out, to be on set pretending, because you can always be something different. So I could at least live out my fantasies that way, by pretending, but at least I am getting paid for it. When I was a kid I had very low self-esteem, super-low self-esteem, actually, so I had to always look into like when you see TV, you see magazines, you see people who are—obviously everyone is photoshopped. Everyone looks perfect, so I thought in order for me to be successful or to be happy about myself, that is how I have to be, have to look.

“So then I got obsessed with looking at models and everything. I figured maybe I could try modeling, but never thought I was good enough. No matter what I did I never thought I was good enough. And then it got to the point where maybe if I was good enough, now I am not young enough. I always kept somehow just bringing myself not to, not to just do it. I made an excuse. And I am still making excuses for it instead of just—I guess it’s like confidence. I just need to build up and just do it and not—I’ve worked really hard in not trying to worry about what other people say about me, but a big part of it has been worrying about what people think and say about me. I know I shouldn’t care, but I always cared. I don’t know why. That was just a big thing for me growing up. As I said, I had great friends. I had great family around me. I wasn’t this secluded child, you know, but I’m still trying to figure myself out really.”

Were you picked on in school?

“Oh, yeah. Big time! I mean not so much in grade school. I was the nerd; I had the same glasses from kindergarten all the way up to 8th grade. I remember leaving 8th grade, I told my mom, “I need contacts. Kids are going to beat me up. I really need to change the style of glasses.’ They were like the big wooden frames. I’m the typical dork. So grade school wasn’t so bad, I was just considered the nerd kid; but when I got to high school—I hated high school for the first two years, because I didn’t click really that well with anybody except for a few people. I was hanging out with like mainly the girls. The girls were all my friends. I became friends, I had so many friends who were girls, which was awesome, but it was I tried to connect with guys at the time but nobody. You have your cliques. You have the metal kids, you have the grungy kids, you have athletes, and I never really cliqued really with any of them. But I cliqued with the girls who were in my classes. I don’t know if they liked me or what, but it was just cool. I was just friends with them. I became close to one of my friends, who is still close to me to this day. She is amazing, and she became my first true friend there. But other people I couldn’t like clique with, I couldn’t—especially like the guys. I would get picked on because a lot of them would see me hanging with the girls. A lot of people obviously called me queer, fag, or things like that. And then you have your other like people that just—I don’t know, I didn’t clique really with anybody. Even though how nice I would try to be.

“Because I had a deep voice, a lot of people started calling me ‘slow.’ When a teacher would ask me what my name was, I’d say, ‘L J.’ And they would say, ‘What?’ And I would repeat, ‘L J,’ as if I were spelling it out. And so, for about two years, freshman year and sophomore year, people would call me ‘L J’ (said very slowly in a mocking way). Walking by me doing stuff like that, and it bothered me. I wondered, ‘Are they saying I’m slow or special needs or something?’ That made me feel bad. There is nothing wrong with that—for someone to be that way—but still I thought, ‘What the fuck is wrong with me? I have been nice to people. I don’t know what is going on.’ But after that something changed, I don’t know what, maybe everyone just matured up. In junior/senior year, I became friends with people. I actually started to become friends with more guys. Everybody wanted to be my friend at that point, from junior and senior year. I don’t know what it was. So that got better, but it was a pretty dark place, freshman and sophomore year. I remember crying in my room. I wore black, talking about death a lot. I did the typical like Goth emo kid. Even though I never—well, everyone thinks about suicide—but I knew I would never do something like that. It was very depressing at the time. I knew my way of thinking—that is where I was—why I was thinking that was because I was depressed, but it was nothing I would ever do. But still, the first two years there depressed me, and then I started having more and more friends.

“And then college was just amazing; everybody just cliqued in college. College was the greatest thing. I was so depressed leaving college, because you meet so many people, so many people from different backgrounds. I guess I always cliqued better with people who are considered underdogs. Which I didn’t think we were, I was just like I don’t know. I befriended everyone, no matter what, even the weird creepy people, the super creep kids. I was nice, we were cool. I don’t know, they were my friends. I never really, what’s the word, discriminated against anyone. Really, like just to be friends with. I don’t care if they are considered the creep of the dorm. I became everybody’s friend. Even to this day, and I’m 37, I still have tons of friends. Everyone is amazing. But then you get those people who hate other friends, and those people hate those friends, so you are at the point where, ‘Who do I have to invite?’ because these people don’t get along. So I struggle with trying to fit in at that point. It’s cool but now it’s like, I don’t want to say I am the popular kid or anything, but now I have great people around me. When I get down and think about it, all the different groups of friends I have, it is awesome. It’s like, ‘Well, why ain’t I happy?’

“Then I have great parents; my parents are awesome. They never wanted to kick me out of the house or anything like that. They were always very supportive of me. I mean, it’s really me who is my own enemy. It really is and I know that, and I get. I know that, so probably I should now start talking to someone about it. Maybe having an outside person who doesn’t actually know me. Maybe giving me just, I don’t know, make me think differently. Give me enough—I don’t know what it is that I am looking for. Just an outlet, so, that is really it.”

What makes you feel good? When do you feel like you are most “yourself”?

“What makes me feel good, um, like in what? Just anything?”

Uh huh.

“Makes me feel like myself? I know I did—like when I go to those conventions, even at the time when I would dress up for them. I just felt awesome. Dressing in character, just walking around having a good time. Just being a fucking nerd, it was awesome. I love doing that. When I went to—this past summer, me and a couple of my friends decided to go to this place we always used to go down in Baltimore. There was a Japanese anime convention in Baltimore before it moved to DC. For old times’ sake, I was like, ‘We got to go!’ So we went down there. Even though we hardly stayed and I didn’t dress up this year, it was still fun. I guess just being with a group of your friends and just having a good time. That is when I have the most fun. I don’t know if it makes me feel the best about myself, but it is where I would say I am having the most fun. Normally, I feel good when I am confident about how I look, how in general I feel really. I don’t know, I really don’t know to be honest what it is that makes me 100% feel good. Maybe when I know I am achieving something?

“I know when I do design for somebody and I am feeling, really feeling it. I’m like, ‘This looks awesome.’ I want them to see it and actually like it. I’m like, ‘Yes!’ That makes me feel good. And I am like ‘Okay, maybe I do have some talent.’ I guess that makes me really feel good. Then obviously, there is the downside of it. Like when someone asks me to do something, I sometimes say, ‘I don’t know if I can do that. I don’t know if I could produce that.’ Then when I do something I am not happy about, what are they going to think about it? How do I tell them? Hence, the struggle I have with design is like how do I tell somebody I spent five hours just playing around with colors? How do I bill somebody for that? Things like that, I overthink things. I feel like I am just blurting random things, out so hopefully this will be easy to dissect when you go back and listen to this.

“I am feeling good about myself. Maybe people accepting me for things? Who doesn’t feel good when you post something on Instagram or you post something online? A lot of people either like it or just give feedback. I want to say it is like getting a pat on the back or like maybe acknowledgment. That makes me feel good. It’s not conceit or anything, but maybe knowing that somebody—If I did something knowing somebody looked it at because it is—like I know some people are saying, ‘You are an inspiration for fitness.’ Because some people who knew me before and see me now say, ‘I definitely want to get there,’ and motivating. And that makes me feel good. Just knowing that maybe something I am doing is an inspiration to somebody. So that is pretty much—that obviously . . . Who wouldn’t feel good if somebody actually looked up to you on something. How seeing my little niece telling me, ‘You are the greatest uncle ever!’ Even though I think I am her only uncle—no, she has another uncle—but hearing her even say ‘You are the greatest uncle!’ and her being so excited to come and see me. That makes me feel happy. I’m like, ‘Well, good. I am impacting somebody in their life.’

“That’s why another thing, I looked into doing film and TV. If I can go on air and be an actor people will look at that—a lot of people look at things like that. I always wanted to be in an X-Men movie or something. Everyone likes superheroes, that’s why I like doing the actual cosplay, going there. You have these kids look up to you and thinking you are that character, which is awesome. That made me feel good. At that point I feel like I am my most confident and happy because . . . I don’t know, it feels like I am doing something good. If other people are appreciating it like that, I know doing things. I know it sounds corny but like maybe in 2000, I went to that anime convention and I actually created a music video for it. There is a contest to do a music video. I created it, I shut myself in my room and it took me like a month or two to do it. I actually wanted to refine it so I re-did it and shut myself in my room for a week and did it. I was very happy about it; proud of it. Sent it out and got into the contest. To me, that was the greatest thing, because I got there and about 10,000 people all weekend saw something all weekend I did on the screen. And they were so fucking excited—I would hear someone in front of me say that was awesome, this and that. I would get so excited. Never once did that again, because I didn’t think I could do it again.

“But something like that, having all those people see something that I did. That was a high for me. I’m like, that is why I’m into graphic design. I did a few billboards. Actually driving by and seeing them was cool, but it didn’t have the excitement I had when I was there, and I want to go get back to that type of excitement. So I think if I did see myself on a commercial or something I would feel like, shit! I did it. Feel like I did something, you know. That is where I am at, too. I guess that is where my happy is.”

Are you doing things in your present life to align yourself with those things that? To give you those feelings?

“Recently? No.”

Why?

“Just because I have been focusing on—money has been depressing me a lot. This is the lowest I have ever been with money. I know you can’t equate money with success and happiness. Everyone says, ‘Money doesn’t buy happiness.’ Right now, it has been depressing me because I’ve never been this low and I live at home. I feel like because I am 37 and I live at home—I don’t have kids . . . If I went out on a date, I feel like I don’t have anything of my own that I can be proud of, living at home. That’s something I’ve been struggling with, just like the bills—I am trying to get rid of those. That’s all I have been focusing on, so it’s been a lot of negative. The positive has been I’ve been in the best shape I’ve ever been. I feel like there are ups and downs. I’ll go like, yeah awesome, but then I’m like well . . . I think purposely I feel like well because I am feeling this good, what can I do to bring myself down? I don’t know why.

“Maybe it is just not being confident. I know a lot of it comes from getting picked on, not having the confidence when I was younger. I know where everything originates, like when I was younger and my parents were overprotective of me.  When I was a kid, I looked at it like I want to go and do gymnastics. Because I see that and I want to be a freakin’ ninja. They were like, no, you will break your neck. It was things like that that I made me think I was too sheltered. I didn’t get enough push—which I know right now. I can’t dwell on that, but it is just like—I feel like a lot of things I do still stem from when I was a kid, either getting picked on or being too sheltered and not being told, go take a risk, go do it. Getting pushed to fucking make yourself happy. You know?

“Nowadays, it’s like that when I talk with my mom and dad. She is just like, ‘I just want you to be happy.’ Something, just do it. She is at the point right now like ‘just be happy and do whatever you want!’ Which is cool, but I am trying to figure out what it is I want to do. Do I pursue acting? I tried it at that place that I went to—got too much drama and that put a bad taste in my mouth for it. I know you are going to get that everywhere. I tried doing the modeling, which so far is okay, but with anything in modeling you’ll get your good and bad people. I’ve met some bad people already with it. And you meet really good people with it. So I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

Sounds like what you experienced as a child, you are still doing to yourself. You are sort of protecting yourself from taking risks because of fear of some sort. I don’t know if it is fear of something unfamiliar or something new or fear of success or fear of rejection or failing—which are all real—but it sounds like you are sort of stuck, like you are idling right now.

“I keep telling everybody that I just feel like I am in limbo right now. I felt this way since getting out of college. I mean, come on, it’s 13 years now. Let’s go, let’s do something else like—that’s why, I don’t know. I feel like I started doing more drastic things, like cutting the hair. I felt that was good. It was a good, different. And focusing on a gym, that is good. Picking a show and not actually doing it, just forcing myself to do. Just do it, just do it. So I have been doing that. Now it is just a matter of doing the whole job thing. I have just been struggling with that, because I keep getting to the point where I feel like a loser. I don’t want to feel like a loser. Even though I know I am not, I just feel just like a loser right now. I am almost 40 and I feel like time is ticking. I don’t know why. Time is running out, do something!”

Is there any way you can change that inner dialogue to something more productive? Have you ever tried thinking about the things you have attempted and the things that you have accomplished? And maybe start building yourself up instead of beating yourself up?

“Not recently, to be honest. I feel like it is all just beating myself up. And then I get to the point where, oh God, stop being so fucking pitiful. Just stop! And then I’ll just forget about it. Everything is great for a month or two, but then it goes right back to feeling the same.”

What are you afraid of?

“Being alone and failing are two major things. I normally don’t think I am really scared of anything, but I am definitely scared of being a failure. And ending up eventually at the end, with no friends, no family, no one. Even though, a lot of times, I’m like yeah; I feel very independent. I can handle myself alone in situations, but it is just like not that I have to depend but I just don’t want to be alone. That is my biggest thing. I don’t want to be alone and I just want to feel not like a loser. Like I said, just not like a failure—at anything, you know? Granted I mean, I know you are going to fail at things, but you just pick yourself back up and continue going. I just don’t want to feel like a failure. I don’t have to be first, I just don’t want to feel like a failure. That is where I have been struggling right now, which has discouraged me from doing anything else. I don’t want to focus on anything else.”

What do you think would help you?

“Just taking risks, regardless of what the outcome would be. You never know unless you try. I keep telling myself that; it is just a matter of me doing it. Granted there are things I have done. That’s the thing: I’m just always up and down. There are days where I am super confident; I have no problem acting and getting out on things in front of a stage or trying singing in front of people, which I know would terrify some people. But then it’s now, I have no fear of stage or anything like that, but why am I not focusing on this fitness? Picking a day and going; I think it is the whole feeling like a failure. If I don’t either place or get a win—even though I said it doesn’t really matter if feeling like you are first, but I just feel like I could always be better. What did I do that was wrong? And I would beat myself up. Then I make excuses not to do things. Which I shouldn’t, you know.”

These are all very human characteristics. I think a lot of us struggle with just sort of being willing to surrender to things we can’t control and having the courage to put ourselves in new situations, to take risks and hopefully not to attach the winner/loser labels to them. There is something to gain from every experience, whether it is what you anticipated or not. I mean you still grow and you still learn something from it. I think, in the position that you are describing that you are in now, if you really—the two things you are most afraid of are being alone and not being successful, right? You are sort of creating that reality for yourself now, it seems, by holding onto your fears—which is self-sabotage.

“It so is, and everyone has said that too. My mom and everyone is just like ‘you are your own worst enemy.’ I know this. I know I am my own worst enemy. There is nothing—it’s like that inner monologue; I just want to shut it up so I use whiskey, not all the time, but I just kill it. You know, just stop over-analyzing things and telling myself I am not going to be able to do it. I need to with everything, not just some things. I’m trying to get there right now.”

What has helped you during some of those points where you were sort of climbing the mountain, where you were doing new things and you were having productive self-doubt?

“I just did it. Without even thinking, I just did it. Not even put too much thought into it; I put too much thought into things. Or I try to jump ahead and be like, ‘well, if this doesn’t work out then this will happen.’ You don’t know. No one knows what the future will be, but if I didn’t do it and then I look back and realize what the outcome would have been, then I am shooting myself in the foot. I’m like, fuck, I could have been much more—things could have changed. Because I look back on certain things like that and I . . . Even though I was younger, I was like—you know—I should have—even as stupid as going into grade school where we did the Wizard of Oz play. The director wanted me to try out and sing, but I was so terrified of speaking and singing in front of people that I was like, ‘No, I’ll do stage, I’ll just do stagecraft.” I’ll just build the sets in the back and let the people do the thing. Now, I am looking back—I should have just fucking done it, because that would have probably been—then I would have gone to school for drama. Who knows where I would be now? I know I can’t think like that because everyone wishes they could go back in time and change things. So, is that a music place over there?”

Yeah, it’s the School of Music.

“That’s awesome.”

What have you learned over these years, since coming out of school and pursuing a career that you didn’t want to really be a part of, and feeling like you are still not doing what you would love to do?

“I don’t know if I’ve learned but I’ve always known—I’ve always appreciated youth, my youth. I knew when I was a teenager that it wasn’t going to get better than this. Granted now, you are basically as old as you feel. I still feel young. Like no mater, I could be 30 or in my 40s but I’ll still feel like I am a teenager. Which is awesome, I think. I think everyone should . . . I don’t think it is the end of the world when you have to start paying your own bills and things like that. That is what I learned: life goes on no matter what shit that has happened or however you feel. There is always tomorrow. The sun is going to rise the next day. I mean, things can’t get any—I can’t say that. What I have learned from everything is to keep good people around you. Really positive, because there was a time where I had negative people around me and I tried to get rid of them. Even negative things that have been happening in the last week with Facebook. I’m just like, you know what? I’ll just unfollow people. Your views are your views, cool; but I am just going to see things that I want to see right now. Funny things, all the things that come up are funny things, like memes. It’s good to keep positive, because when you have positive energy around you, good things will happen. If you are too negative about things—I have been a lot better because I haven’t . . . At one point, I was that negative friend. I purposely didn’t want to hang out with people, because I didn’t want to be that negative presence in the room. But now, I have been much better with it. More open to things than I used to be. Just like keep positive people around, family and positive people. I mean, you can’t obviously depend on people, but it is good to have good people around you. Really, that is the main thing. The more I talk about it, the more I realize I should just do risks. Do more risks. It’s really what I have learned.”

Would you talk to your friends the way you talk to yourself internally?

“Yeah, I am very open with my friends.”

No. I mean like when you are beating yourself up, calling yourself a loser kind of self-talk. Would you ever imagine talking to any of your friends like that?

“Oh, like telling them they are? No, I wouldn’t say that ever to them. No way.”

So why then would you say it to yourself?

“I don’t know. I get that question asked by my mom a lot too. I am really close with my mom and she asks me, ‘Do you even like yourself?’ I do like myself. So why do I beat myself up so much? I don’t know. That makes so much sense; I shouldn’t.”

You do like yourself; do you love yourself?

“Yeah, I mean to an extent, yeah. Yes! That I do, but I’m always—you can always do this better or you can always be better at this.”

Can you love yourself as you are in the present moment unconditionally?

“How I am as a person?”

Yes.

“Yes. One hundred percent. Whatever is going or whether I feel successful in things like a job but yes, who I am as a person? One hundred percent. Some people used to think I was very judgmental but I don’t want to come across as that. Even in school, I was always friending people that I guess would be considered—I don’t even want to say that because it sounds like ignorant of me saying like ‘oh, the outcast type people.’ No, I feel I don’t really discriminate when it comes to shit like that. I’ve been learning there are certain things with friends, when I get too close I would be a little too critical of, and I tried to back off on it, because it that person’s life. Everyone is their own person. They may have reasons for doing things like that, so I tried to back off on that. But in general, I am proud of where I am at now. I’m not burning my parents’ house down, I’m not causing their life to be miserable. I have great friends. I love my family. I am an awesome uncle. I just get that about me; that is what I do like about me. And then recently I have been not caring as much what people think of me. About anything in my life, why am I going to hide anything? I have been pretty much an open book, a lot. That is one thing I like about me; maybe I am too open on things, but it is like I have nothing to hide. I really don’t. Why would I hide anything? I don’t. So that is another thing I like about myself.”

You mention love being a challenge for you. Why? Why is that a challenge for you?

“You remember when you were younger and growing up in school, there were those kids who ‘like each other.’ They date; the popular kids dated those girls. I always thought I was the geeky guy and I wouldn’t get anybody. So I was in my own little world, with Hemans and Thunder Cats. Video games were my biggest ally. I think maybe I have been just too distracted all my life with video games, because that was just my like—I don’t know. I was more entertained by that. I think commitment is a big issue for me. I guess it was one of the biggest things that always stop me from trying to find anybody, because is the commitment. I feel like if I am not one hundred percent into it, I don’t want to pull someone who would be one hundred percent into it. So I just avoid it all together. I have tried things here and there just to see, and I still go back to that feeling of, I don’t want to say empty about it, but I don’t know. I know I am a very passionate person; I have been told that. I think a lot of other stuff is crowding my head. Like success; I want to feel that first, I want to be happy about that before committing. I don’t want to bring somebody else down with me with that. If I can’t get past that first. You know? I mean, I never dated, really ever. I only had maybe really one date, maybe for a week. And then we mutually realized we were better as friends. And that was it. I never actually dated. I never really went on a date; just hanging out. You know, things like that. Messing around, making out here and there, but nothing fully. I’ve never really fully fledged had sex with anyone, still to this day. It’s not like I can’t, it’s just . . . I don’t know. I just don’t. A lot of it when I was younger, I grew up first originally with the whole religion thing because my parents were super Catholic, super Catholic. And getting told ‘no sex before marriage.’ The priest coming in and saying you will burn in hell if you masturbate and things like that. I just avoided that whole contact with other people, because when you are young and you are hearing that shit it’s like—what do you do? But obviously when you get older you . . . but still, all through high school I considered myself dorky, not good-looking enough for someone else, so why bother? They are not going to like me. Even though I knew there were girls who liked me and I just didn’t do anything. I just shied away from it. I would put up a wall. I still do that to this day. I’ve been a little more lenient trying things out; hanging out here and there. I’ve tried some dating sites, this and that, I’ll go a day or maybe a week with it and then I don’t put the effort in. That is a thing for me; I feel terrible about it, because I don’t want to lead somebody on about that, so I just don’t want to . . . It’s not like I am this Adonis or anything, but I just don’t want to get somebody’s hopes up of maybe something. I don’t know if they may like me or something like that; I just avoid it altogether. It is too much for me. But then again, I get depressed and think maybe I should find somebody, because it would be nice to have somebody; a shoulder to lean on, who’s not a friend or family member. Then that’s where I know I am really passionate. I could just stare at somebody all day. Not in a creepy way, but like if I really care about somebody, I could definitely see myself just all day being with that person. It depends on if I click with them; I don’t know. But that was always one thing I just never thought a lot of until recently.

“The last like couple of years maybe; I went to New Orleans last year with my friend, and I did a tarot card reading with a lady—and I’m not like into whatever, I just think it is awesome—just like I love all that shit. I was just like, ‘Okay,’ and she did it. She did one thing that actually kind of made me cry where she was like, ‘Love has come and gone, and you know that’—and lie I do. I look back at missed opportunities, and I think about how they are now with their significant others and I think—I’ll see them or see their picture of them with their kids—and I’m just like ‘fuck’, if I was just like—maybe if I did do something, I could be in that position. I look back at them and all the missed opportunities, and I try to put myself into that person’s—like if their significant wasn’t there and it was me there. I think too much about it. How life could probably be differently, you know, or more opportunities. That recently has been bothering me, because I am seeing that a lot.

“I’m still struggling with that. I am pretty open, like I said; I don’t like labels on it. I’m just me! You know, whether it is a male or female or whoever, if I just click with them, good, and if I don’t, then it is obviously not meant to be. Maybe I’ll be a loner; who knows? Friends and family is good, but like I said, I don’t want to be alone. I look at people in my family who are similar—like my aunt. She is not living anywhere near us now, but I can look at her and she is kind of like a loner too. So maybe I just take after her in that way. She is not married, she doesn’t have kids, and that’s her thing. I mean probably, obviously she has had relationships. But then I look back and get all the depression thing and think, fuck, I am 37 and I’ve never been in a relationship. What do I tell someone when I do want to finally get into a relationship? Is that creepy? Are they going to think ‘what the fuck is wrong with this person?’ I don’t know. Then I look into that and I’m like uhhhhhh.”

Sounds like you have been working on a relationship with yourself for the last 37 years.

“Pretty much.”

That is something a lot of people don’t do. They rush into a relationship with someone else before they discover the importance of really cultivating a healthy relationship with themselves. Do you feel like there is still a possibility that you could have a relationship?

“Oh yeah, definitely. Like I said, if it’s just—maybe one day it is just going to fall into place. Or I’ll meet somebody and be like, okay! I think if that is all on your mind, or that person is all on your mind, when you wake up and go to bed, then maybe it is something to pursue. If you can’t stop thinking about the person. I have yet to feel that way. It has come close. A lot of it is my own shyness. I know when I was younger—younger meaning like a few years ago—having missed opportunities—part of me was still struggling with the other side of me, whether or not I am going down the road of strictly only liking women or strictly only liking guys. I’d ask myself, if I start liking this girl, I have to tell her—maybe when I get into it I say, ‘This is not what I want.’ Or the same thing with a guy, maybe if I get into it and say, ‘This is not what I want either.’ Like I said, I have dated or messed around here and there. Not ‘dated’ dated, but like hung out. I guess it is a one-night date. I guess a one-night stand. I’ve experimented, I’m still confused how like I don’t know. Maybe I am, how I am—because there is always a confusion struggling with that. But now I am even more like well, fuck, maybe I really am straight in the middle. I had doubts that maybe I am just saying this because maybe I am suppressing. But now I don’t even know.

“Then I look back and it is really just connecting with someone. You know? Once I get that connection, regardless of who the fuck they are, when I know I don’t give a shit about what anybody else thinks. I just haven’t got there yet. I don’t know if part of me is trying to allow myself to do it or not. I feel the whole love thing technically is secondary to just my patching up about how I feel about myself, successfully and financially. And then I feel like once that is set, I would be more open to the whole love aspect. Maybe it could be the opposite, maybe once I do find it then I’ll be like, yeah, I can do anything now. You know, risk it. I look at my friends and their relationships. I have friends who are in really fantastic relationships and other ones who are in horrible relationships, and so I see the ups and downs of it all. And you know, I just feel like I am the spectator. Yeah, not really trying it out for myself.”

Yeah, maybe it is possible to have those things simultaneously without waiting until you acquire a certain goal or achieve a certain goal to open yourself up for love or for connection.

“When my sisters didn’t have their kids yet and my sister was struggling to have her child, I was just like, fuck, I should really get on the ball of having kids, if they are not going to have kids. I know my parents want grandkids but I’m like—I have like no reason really not to start pursuing. But then once my sister finally, I don’t know what that procedure is, but she had something done and was able to have my beautiful niece who is amazing, I was so happy that she did. Then okay, now both my sisters have kids, so I’m told myself that now my parents have one niece and one nephew, so I’m safe. Now I don’t have to worry about it as much, you know, which is nice. But then the depression comes in when I see missed opportunities. My kids could be growing up with grandkids, with my niece and nephew now, you know. Then that makes me feel like time is ticking. When am I going to decide? I just feel like I’m in this endless loop, in limbo for 13 years. I am trying to make myself feel better, then I feel better and I go back—ups and downs. Then l was like maybe I’ll start seeing a therapist officially and make it clear that, no, I don’t want drugs. Don’t give me Paxil. I don’t need that, I don’t have social anxiety (which they thought I did). No, everyone is fucking nervous. People are nervous. Anyone is going to get nervous. Maybe in big crowds or anything and sometimes just walking into a room with groups of people. The therapist said I had social anxiety, but apparently I have no problem walking onto a stage and acting or singing in front of people. So there is no social anxiety there. Doing the fitness, just trying to get that maybe after doing the actual show that will open up my eyes to other things. I can do this, I can do that; just do it. No ‘what if.’ And I have done things where I look back like if I hadn’t done this, I wouldn’t have met this person, or I wouldn’t have done this, and that was positive. And that was a risk, like the acting. I met some really good friends from that, and if I never actually looked and google searched that one day to do that class, I would have never met these people, or these people wouldn’t be in my life. I can say that is a positive. You never know. It is always good to do things. I am trying to use my other friends and what they are doing as an example and live by that example because I see them take risks. I see them do things. So get up and move. When I see where that has led them, I tell myself I can do that. I’m just trying to use that, not like I am jealous or envious or anything, but using it like if they can do it, so can I.”

And you can always change your mind, you know, if you make a decision and you realize it is something that your heart is not in or you don’t feel good about it. You can always make a decision and do something else. Whether that is a relationship or a job or some goal, whatever it is. Not locked into anything.

“I know, I feel like I am, but I am not.”

Well, I mean sort of.

“Well, you have to pay your bills.”

Like figuratively too, you are locking yourself in sort of this hypothetical cage, but it is really not locked. The door is open and you know it doesn’t have to be there at all.

“Yeah, I know.”

What message would you as yourself today bring to your younger self before entering college?

“Don’t tell people that you can’t do it. Don’t listen to people who say you shouldn’t do that, you should do that, and just do it. Do what makes you happy. Whatever it is, don’t do it because it is financially awesome. I feel like that is what I did with graphic design. Honestly, if you like something, then just do it—obviously, without putting harm to yourself and people around you. Really, just listen to yourself. Don’t listen to other people around you.”

Trust yourself.

“Basically, I always trusted my instincts. That is one thing I can say about myself; maybe not instincts, but maybe intuition. I think I am very intuitive. I can tell how a person is by just meeting them, instantly. Sometimes you can tell if you like someone right away or you know you are not going to like that person. You can tell what kind of person they are. I feel like I am really good at that. I always trust in myself. I mean, if I am not feeling something, then I am just not feeling it. There is a reason why you are not feeling something; don’t do it. If you are not feeling it because you are just scared, I would tell myself to just be scared and do it. Yeah, that is really what I’d tell myself. Don’t fucking listen to what other people tell you. What makes you not able to do the same thing you see others doing? Because that is what I looked at when I looked at film. Even though I’m saying—Well part of me like, what the fuck? If they can do it, why can’t anybody do it? Hence the inner struggle.”

Do you have a favorite quote or a mantra, a bit of advice that somebody has given to you over the years that you would like to share?

“I am trying to remember what my grandmother said—something amazing. I don’t know exactly what the quote was, but I looked at her and told her, ‘That was just amazing, what you said.’ She said, it’s something about just being you and ignoring all the other assholes. She said something like ‘do what you want to do.’ I wrote it down somewhere; I remember it was an awesome thing, because it was from my grandmother—she is the only grandmother I have left now. And I wish I could see her more, but she—I remember her saying—she called them all assholes. Don’t listen to any of the assholes; just do what you want to do. It was something I didn’t expect that from her at all. It was out of the blue and I thought, ‘That is so true.’ I don’t know if there is a quote for it, I don’t know if it is a cliché quote for it, but ‘know yourself.’ Know who you are; nobody else is going to know. You just got to know yourself, who you are and go from there.”

I like that. Who else would know you better than you know yourself?

“You can’t lie to yourself; don’t lie to yourself. Just be yourself and don’t lie to yourself. I feel like if you lie to yourself, then you are not going to get anywhere because, why? Just be truthful with yourself.”

How has it felt to talk about these feelings and experiences with me today?

“Good. Yeah, it is definitely good to talk to somebody who actually doesn’t know anything about me. It is awesome, it is a good release, good venting. Good insight to hear other people’s opinions.”

Do you think it is possible that by sharing your experiences with me today, someone else reading this could potentially benefit?

“Yeah, definitely, at least know that they are not alone. I’d like to think that there are other people out there who feel this way, on a constant loop of self-doubt and ‘where I am going with myself, where I am going with my life?’ That they are not alone, because a lot of times I did feel alone with that. Especially when I see people around me who are successful and seem to be going on with their life, and I seem to be in this rut. So it would be good to know that there are other people out there other than me who are feeling that way. And the fact that you are not a loser, feeling this way at all, because we are all fucking human. No one is perfect, nobody is. Nobody wrote the book on what you have to do or what you should be doing or what you are going to do. I mean, it’s—”

Up to you.

“Pretty much.”

I was bored and did all the questions on one of those ask me things.

Get to know me a little bit after the break if your interested:

The meaning behind my url: No meaning at all just a user name that I mad up a while back when I needed one.

A picture of me: posted one last night.

How many tattoos i have and what they are: 6 Godzilla text in Japanese, Charisma.com logo, Sucy Manbavaran portrait, Doctor Who quote, Sailor Moon symbols, Ruby Rose (RWBY) picture.

Last time i cried and why: Last night thinking about someone.

Piercings i have: 4 (2 in each ear)

Favorite band: Babymetal followed very very closely by AC/DC

Biggest turn offs: Dishonestly is probably the biggest one, smoking, manipulation, uh some other stuff that is slipping my mind right now. Physically nothing though the mind is more important to me then looks.

Top 5 (insert subject): I’ll go movies 1)Sucker Punch (2011) 2) The Blues Brothers 3) Casablanca 4) Inglourious Basterds 5) Army of Darkness 

Tattoos i want: Too many but the next will probably be either a Sailor Saturn or the Straw Hat Pirates Logo.

Biggest turn ons: Honestly (obviously), Being nice. Physically Short Hair and Glasses fuck me right up.

Age: 27 (28 next month)

Ideas of a perfect date: Dinner, Mini golf, and a movie to cap the night off

Life goal: Just to live a happy life with a significant other.

Piercings i want: no more I’m done

Relationship status: Single (feels like it will be that way forever)

Favorite movie: Easy already did this one but Sucker Punch (2011) most would probably say it was because of the skimpily dressed girls or the action scenes but if you look past all of the there is a really deep and intricate story being told behind it all with multiple interpretations of what is actually going on.

A fact about my life: I shouldn’t really be here typing this today since I should have died when I was a baby.

Phobia:  Autophobia (more specifically a fear of dying alone)

Middle name: John

Height: 5′9″ or 5′10″ don’t know anymore

Are you a virgin? yeah

What’s your shoe size? depends on brand 11 in Converse up to 12.5 in Nike

What’s your sexual orientation? Straight

Do you smoke, drink, or take any drugs? None of the above

Someone you miss: Honestly I miss texting my crush.

What’s one thing you regret? I regret a lot of things biggest one probably being not giving the one girl that was willing to me a chance a chance myself.

First celebrity you think of when someone says attractive: Oh boy celebrity crush I’m going to have to say Mami Sasazaki from the Japanese band Scandal.

Favorite ice cream? Strawberry

One insecurity: My looks

What my last text message says: That wasn’t work or family related it was kind of a long one to that girl that I told I didn’t think I should ask her out. ( which I later found out she had a boyfriend already any way so there was no point to it to begin with).

Have you ever taken a picture naked? No

Have you ever painted your room? Yes

Have you ever kissed a member of the same sex? No

Have you ever slept naked? No

Have you ever danced in front of your mirror? No

Have you ever had a crush? Oh god yes I’m pretty sure everyone has. I still do.

Have you ever been dumped? You kind of have to be in a relationship for that to happen in the first place so no.

Have you ever stole money from a friend? Who the hell does that? No. Even if I borrow a couple bucks I always pay them back.

Have you ever gotten in a car with people you just met? No

Have you ever been in a fist fight? I’ve never thrown a punch because I will never hit a woman which leads me to the fact that my cousin was kind of an idiot and punched me a couple of times, and I also got punched in the face by some girl on the bus ride on the way home from school one day in Middle School because she said me and one of my other cousins were being too loud. (More literally a case of us talking about music I think it was, her and her friend sitting in the seat in front of us and her turning around and saying shut the fuck up and when I said no she punched me in the mouth.)

Have you ever snuck out of your house? No

Have you ever had feelings for someone who didn’t have them back? I mean I do right now.

Have you ever been arrested? No

Have you ever made out with a stranger? Np

Have you ever met up with a member of the opposite sex somewhere? Whats met up with? Gone somewhere with then yes.

Have you ever left your house without telling your parents? Of course

Have you ever had a crush on your neighbor? No

Have you ever ditched school to do something more fun? No

Have you ever slept in a bed with a member of the same sex? Assuming my dad doesn’t count (listen 6 people on vacation in a 2 bed hotel room is not ideal) then no.

Have you ever seen someone die? No

Have you ever been on a plane? Yeas

Have you ever kissed a picture? No

Have you ever slept in until 3? I can’t sleep that late. I can lay in bed all damn day though.

Have you ever love someone or miss someone right now? Love is a strong word. I don’t want to use it but I guess it is kind of what it is. 

Have you ever laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by? Yes

Have you ever made a snow angel? Yes

Have you ever played dress up? Yes

Have you ever cheated while playing a game? Yes

Have you ever been lonely? All the damn time

Have you ever fallen asleep at work/school? Yes

Have you ever been to a club? No

Have you ever felt an earthquake? No

Have you ever touched a snake? Yes

Have you ever ran a red light? Accidentally when I was first learning to drive.

Have you ever been suspended from school? No

Have you ever had detention? Yes 3 times all BS if you ask me. Me and my cousin got into a argument in like 5th grade that led to us both getting it. I think it was 7th grade computer class when a couple of us were fucking around and I hit a couple keys on a keyboard by accident and the piece of crap computer froze so I got hit with that one. And a lunch detention for a week because I accidentally spit mashed potatoes over a couple of people at lunch at while I admit it looked bad because I was trying to eat mashed potatoes with a straw the teachers way over reacted. 

Have you ever been in a car accident? A little bump on a rain slick road when every one slammed on their brakes. Unfortunately I was on the down slope of a hill and slid down it into the back of the car in front of me. No damage all was good.

Have you ever hated the way you look? Always

Have you ever witnessed a crime? Shoplifting I guess but that’s what happens when you work in retail.

Have you ever pole danced? No

Have you ever been lost? No

Have you ever been to the opposite side of the country? Yes

Have you ever felt like dying? Nah as much as I say I want to there is no point to it. Just live your life. You never know how important your life may be to someone else and how your absence in life may affect them.

Have you ever cried yourself to sleep? Yeah last night

Have you ever sang karaoke? Alone in my room and in my car I sing along to songs all the time but that doesn’t really count.

Have you ever done something you told yourself you wouldn’t? Tried drinking a few times. Taste of alcohol is horrible to me anymore though.

Have you ever laughed until something you were drinking came out your nose? Uhm the aforementioned mashed potato incident with is kind of why the mashed potatoes went everywhere

Have you ever slept with someone at least 5 years older or younger? I never slept with anyone

Have you ever kissed in the rain? Never kissed anyone

Have you ever sang in the shower? Yes

Have you ever made out in a park? Never kissed anyone

Have you ever dream that you married someone? Yes

Have you ever glued your hand to something? Yes model kits all the time

Have you ever got your tongue stuck to a flag pole? no

Have you ever ever gone to school partially naked? no

Have you ever been a cheerleader? no

Have you ever sat on a roof top? Yes but thats because I used to help my dad re-do roofs  all the time when I was younger.

Have you ever brush your teeth? I brush my teeth every day

Have you ever ever too scared to watch scary movies alone? I used to not be able to watch them before bed because I would get nighmares but it hasn’t happened for awhile

Have you ever played chicken? No

Have you ever been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on? Yes

Have you ever been told you’re hot by a complete stranger? No

Have you ever broken a bone? No (actually probably my toe at one point but I never went to the doctor for it.)

Have you ever been easily amused? I am very easily amused

Have you ever laughed so hard you cried? Yes 

Have you ever mooned/flashed someone? No

Have you ever cheated on a test? No

Have you ever forgotten someone’s name? It happens sometimes

Have you ever met someone who didn’t seem real? Yes

Have you ever give us one thing about you that no one knows. Not yet