A Fork in the Road taken.

Written by Christopher Pentecost on February 14, 2024

Have you ever stood on a high diving board, walked to the edge, gingerly looked down, and almost thrown up because you’re really, really high up? Yeah, that’s pretty much how my life has felt over a bunch of my life, really. It’s like knowing that you have the ability to do something, to take a leap of faith, and then nothing is going to happen to you except an experience. And being so afraid of that experience, even though you know what the outcome is, makes it really hard to do it. This was me, relatively, on almost a monthly basis between that depression, ADHD, and imposter syndrome. I really do not know how it is that I’ve gotten as far or to where I am now. That doesn’t mean I’m an idiot. It also doesn’t mean that I’m lost. It’s just mainly the fact that I’ve taken sort of a weird, roundabout way to get where I am. Not the easiest, not the gentlest, and definitely not the bumpiest, but I’ve gotten here, so let’s talk about it.

Good news! After almost a year of being unemployed, I am now employed! Yay! I have taken a position with a company that I spent 17 years with, but not doing anything in the tech field; more of a customer service-focused role, which is fine. It’s a paycheck and it helps me and my family meet obligations, and it sort of keeps me busy. It’s also technically why this isn’t a music or art post, because I’ve been busy in training, so I haven’t had a great amount of thoughts about the artistic side, but it’s nice being back in the company that I spent a fair amount of time with, reconnecting with certain people who are still there, which makes me happy. Them asking me how it’s been for me not being there and getting back into the swing of things, actually having a place to go and be so that I’m productive. So, generally, great news!

Now, yes, it’s not doing the quality assurance techie things that I had pushed myself to learn, so a lot of people may see this as a step back. I don’t, and I think that’s the best part about perception. I’m not looking at this as a step back. I am, however, taking a more Robert Frost viewpoint with this. I am, of course, referring to his poem “Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood”. The focus of that poem was that the person took The Road Less Traveled and that he was better for it. I like to think that I took The Road Less Traveled, and in some sort of way, like Hansel and Gretel, I ended up continuing to drop breadcrumbs, and for some odd reason, I ended up back at that same fork in the road, and I can see my breadcrumbs, so I haven’t taken a step back. I’ve just circled back to something, what I don’t know, but sometimes it’s good to reboot and reset.

When I left my second to last job, I did have the thought “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”, the idea that sometimes you have to risk things and put yourself out there. And that’s something I have tried to do, and sometimes it just feels like self-sabotage that I didn’t do it earlier. But I did it. I got a whole bunch of new equipment out of it, so thumbs up on that one, I didn’t have to pay for any of it, so yay! But in this economy, I was downsized, and let go, which could have led me to depression and could have put me in a bad spot, and I know that because I dealt with that before. But this time, I didn’t fall back into old habits. I looked at it with a fresher perspective. It wasn’t my thing, wasn’t a good time, but what do we do with this? How do we deal with this negative situation? And I decided to try and turn it into a positive.

To do that was difficult, but what isn’t when trying not to rely on old habits and create a new way forward for yourself? So, I wasn’t going to let this beat me down, and so I focused on a few things.

1. **Taking Time for Myself and Meditation: I started to take some time for myself and meditate, trying to refocus my energy into something more positive, something that would help me progress instead of regress.

2. **Researching Different Ways of Living: I landed on sort of an East Asian minimalist style, more from the Japanese sort of realm, and started to declutter my physical space and also my emotional space. Freeing up that space allows me to deal with things better in my life emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

3. **Focusing on Financial Stability: Without extra money, we focused on decluttering all of our bills, and I was able to get our financial situation down to where we could live comfortably through frugality on just my wife’s income. We weren’t comfortable by any means and to the detriment of my health and the derision of my doctor. Yeah, I need to get back to eating better, but when you’re trying to save money, you tend to cut corners.

4. **Diving into Education and Personal Development: I threw myself into education and development, which is how I ended up with a blog page. But I also put a lot of care into what do I really want to do. And at this moment, I’m still not sure of that, but I know I am more focused on trying to find what the Japanese call “ikigai”. It’s a Japanese belief in a purpose in life for an individual, and that purpose should be what you strive to do with your life. So, as I go through this sort of transformation, I’m still trying to figure out what it is that I’m passionate about and what it is that I can make my purpose so that I can be the best me for me.

That’s not to say that I’m anywhere close to where I want to be, but again, circling back, standing at the same crossroads and trying to figure out do I go back down The Road Less Traveled or do I take the road well-traveled? There’s a little more stability that way, a lot less leaves on the ground, quite possibly the Romans have actually worn the road down, and with the stability comes the ability to be able to take in your surroundings. There are a lot of times where people have always said they went down The Road Less Traveled and they became better for it. Every time I’ve gone down The Road Less Traveled, I’ve needed a machete to cut through brush, and sometimes that becomes a hell of a lot more tiring than anyone wants to be. And we’re always told that you do not get anything without putting in work, and that these successful people, I think of like Jeff Bezos or Steve Jobs, they started in their garages and basements, they built things, and they put in the work to become bigger than they were. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but it’s not for everyone. Sometimes looking at your limitations and working within those limitations allows you to get a better perspective. If I’m cutting through brush with the machete, I’m not seeing the beauty of the nature around me, I’m not taking in a situation where I can enjoy where I am. And so with that thought, it’s sort of made it easier to take the new job and still be able to focus on my ikigai or at least to find my ikigai. Sort of like my work with this blog or things that I might do later in a more creative sense, especially thinking that my working hours are going to be from like late afternoon to midnight, so that leaves me a ton of time during the day to be able to still do the things that I want to do in the sunshine. I know a portion of me will always want to be creative, and having the time to be able to focus on that creativity I think will benefit me both in my job and my life outside that.

So I’ve sort of come around full circle. Seems to be a theme with this, just a circular notion. And am I sad about it? No. Am I excited about doing what I’m doing? Yeah. Does it give me more ideas of what I want to do with this platform that I’m sort of building? Absolutely. I’m more at ease knowing that we will be able as a family to do the things that give us joy, and I will be very happy as an individual to do the things that bring me joy, like these posts and some other things that I started having in my mind. We had friends by, and it’s the first time that I’ve had someone tell me that they had been reading my posts and were excited to see where this goes and that this creative outlet seems to be helping me. And it does. It’s actually giving me the motivation to continue going. Quite literally, I was sitting on the couch thinking maybe I don’t need to do a post, I’m tired, working the 9:00 to 5:00 training takes a lot out of you, but I still made it down, still stood here talking to myself and watching my words print out on the screen. Even though it’s been a long day and I’m tired, I still get a sense of happiness from being able to do this without thinking about how am I going to shop for groceries if I don’t have any money. It’s a good feeling, and I know it’s going to be good for me to have a schedule. It’s going to take a couple of weeks of training, but at some point, I’ll get on the correct schedule, and I don’t want to jinx it, but I do believe things are sort of looking up. Now, does that mean my posts are going to change? No. I’m still going to focus on the coming of age with an undiagnosed mental illness, and I’m still going to add a few more posts about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. But I’m going to do it with a little bit less stress, so hopefully these posts will sound maybe a bit more happy, well as happy as you can get when one of your favorite bands talks about unrequited love a lot, but even then, I’m looking forward to that. So, two roads diverged in a yellow wood, standing there and I’m looking at the fork in the road…hmmm… so what do you do when you see a fork in the road? Take it, and enjoy the journey. It’s worked for me so far.

Photo by trail on Unsplash