The Hard Thoughts Driving Me

The first day on the job today was great. I'm still really wet behind the ears, but I seem to have maintained a proper understanding of hierarchy and freshman mentality. This keeps me off of other people's toes. It was exhausting though. Not necessarily the work I was doing, but just paying attention to every little detail. I'm trying to learn very quickly something that has taken these guys many laborious hours to master. But I'm excited about it. I hope to somehow make this a career move. I would really like it if I could get some sort of finalization either here or in Raleigh.

It's hard to think about what I want though, I mean as far as distant future is concerned. Certainly I have many friends here and it would be nice to stay, but I feel slated into this form with very little room for change. I don't think I'm anywhere close to my potential, I sell myself short all of the time. Sometimes I feel like a new beginning might inspire me to achieve new heights, but sometimes it is nice to have familiarity too. I don't know. I think deep down I'm just scared of sticking around more than I am of leaving. My desire has always been to have a family of my own, someone to care for and support. Work is how I achieve that. But I've been so distant from relationships for so long, I feel numb to it. I'm also not meeting new people because I just don't have the time or energy, and, more specifically, I feel separate from my generation. I was raised in the old way, in chivalry, virtue, decisive leadership, and romance. So, not only am I not living fully to those personal standards, but I haven't met a woman in this state who desires that in a man. Of course, the one standard I am living in fully is decisive leadership. I think a lot of people consider me to be a selfish snob due to that particular sect of my personality (which perhaps there is some truth to). Some I can just sense it through their passive-aggressive nature, others tend to lash out at me, making it clear that they are uneasy about any decisions or thoughts I might have. Expansion and contraction, much like a beating heart.

But it's a strange town, Nashville. It's the kind of place where people get out of college and don't move to that next step. My generation takes up jobs to get by and tries desperately to stay where it is comfortable. And as I see more and more people here pushing thirty with no hint of desire for marriage or a family, and more and more of my younger friends from North Carolina are getting married and starting families of their own, it scares me. I am not maturing here. I am comfortable. And with the last breath of my inner virtue, buried deep in selfish indulgence, I'm screaming out for change, for someone to fight for.

I don't mean to sound condemning. I don't blame any of my friends for these feelings I have. If anything, I think we all are coming into similar light as of late. I think we all have a passion for something deeper because we know it's there. I think we all can see how we've allowed ourselves to settle in one spot for a great length of time, making no strides for change. It feels good. It is predictable. Life has been hard and uncertain all through college, and it is always good to have something comfortable and predictable to fall back on in uncertain times.

But this is a new passage in life. It's not college anymore. My heart has always been guarded to that. I remember coming to college that I promised myself I would never consider, at any point here, that I had reached my full potential. At that moment, when a man makes such a declaration, he condemns himself to living the rest of his life in pursuit of the full glory he thought he once had. I don't want my most glorious years to be spent at age 23. I want there to be greater things in life for me, much farther down the road.

These are the thoughts driving my decisions as of late. I do not mean to be hurtful to the people I love, but I must remain ever watchful for the next opportunity to rise in life. Perhaps it might be a fallacy, or just a form of pride, but I've always felt a deep sense of drive towards something great that I was specifically designed to accomplish. So I'll take the risk and follow that road.

Peace and love.