Just Fucking Do It, and Be Nice About It

I think just fucking do it is self-explanatory. It's not always easy, but once I'm motivated, most things in life are pretty straightforward. It's getting to the point where I commit that's hard. In the future, I would like to just do the task at hand instead of working myself up a mountain in preparation for simply jumping off the cliff. What I mean is: once I've started the sentence, I have to complete it. Once I'm holding the cats' toothbrush, I'm going to grab someone's face and shove it in there. (Yep. The cats' toothbrush.) To reach the point where it's effortless, I've been trying to build momentum by bringing myself to the edge of the cliff repeatedly and immediately throwing myself into the abyss every time.

Maybe you didn't realize that asking questions of superiors was such an undertaking—that just means we're different kinds of people.

Last night, I was at the restaurant I work at for a short shift. I knew I'd have enough time to work out afterward, and this time, I even remembered to grab my shorts and sneakers when I left my apartment. I told multiple coworkers that this was my plan, and they held me to it. When I left work at 9:15, I headed west instead of east, and then I had no choice. I didn't go home; I exercised; it was good.

That one was actually pretty painless, but if I'm at home in my pajamas, going to the gym can sound like a huge chore. I need to work on framing it better, like Emma and I used to do. Sure, we complained and avoided it a lot, but we were also proud of the hours we put in at the gym and talked about our new lifestyle constantly. Working out is actually relaxing, and it's selfish time, time devoted to bettering oneself. I'm lucky to have the time and the means to spend an hour at the gym, and maybe to relax in the sauna afterward. Though it can be boring to exercise alone, it's not that boring, and afterward I always feel accomplished. So I should just fucking do it.

Be nice about it is about controlling one's life-narrative, and that was going to be in the title—perfect lifestyle/motivational blogger lingo—but then in my Gchat conversation with Emma I caught myself about to complain that I needed to pee, even though I'm across the hall from the bathroom, and I was like, just deal with it, dummy. (Which doesn't quite mesh with being nice about it, but sometimes the truth hurts.) Anyway, controlling the narrative. My favorite bloggers often mention the importance of writing your own story, staying "accountable to [your] own story." They blog to remember and frame the changes and accomplishments in their lives; in turn, the blog motivates them to do more things that are, you know, worth blogging about. Which isn't to say that this kind of blogging should be all positive. In the five years that this blog has existed, I've realized that glossing over or completely leaving out the things I don't think I want to share or remember doesn't necessarily make the whole "story" more fun or upbeat, and doesn't really make me feel better about them. For example: it's easy to dismiss two years of employment at a fast casual restaurant, because really, show me a college graduate who wants that job. On the other hand, that experience wasn't meaningless to me. That was two years of my life.

So by "being nice," I mean that I'm trying to conceptualize my life in a way that is fair. To stop pushing past elements that really matter to me in a big way. To stop needlessly justifying behaviors that get in the way of my happiness, and instead be more realistic in my day-to-day goals—and more imaginative and precise in the longer-term. The words I think and say make a difference in my life. When I catch up with friends, I say these sentences again and again, updating each person in turn. I spend most of every day working silently by myself, so I repeat these thoughts to myself, too. Words can be dangerous.

*  *  *

I took a pretty big risk in October. If it didn't pay off, life would go on; if it did pay off 100%, I could have ended up with a full-time job that paid at least 50% more than my current jobs. What happened was this: through a friend, I had the opportunity to interview for a temporary position at the university. The interviewer and I discussed how I was ready to move on to something new, and how I thought I could gain valuable experience at the new position. I was offered the job on the spot, and I accepted it, knowing that I could apply for a related permanent position. To accept this job, though, I had to stop working at the law firm, where I had been for two years and where they even had started to pay me on holidays. The new job is thirty hours a week, compared to the law firm's twenty. And it pays better! The plan made my boyfriend a little nervous. It made my mom very nervous, I think, but for my mom, I always put a good spin on things.

I did think it through. Even if I didn't get the job, I would have more experience working at the university, which would help me secure a better university job in the future. I could reasonably bargain for higher pay at future positions, though I might not get it. In the meantime, I would keep working at my other university job (only nine hours a week) and at the restaurant, so I wouldn't be totally unemployed if the new job didn't work out. I also decided to save that extra 50% per hour, the pay bump that won me over on the whole thing, in case I didn't get enough hours come December or January. (I would much rather being spending those dollars on fun things!)

From the vantage point of the interview, it wasn't a horrible plan. I kept telling people, oh, if it doesn't work out, at least I have these other two jobs and this money saved! I said that so many times, though, that I started to think that it was this new job, or nothing. If they didn't hire me on permanently, I was doomed to being a restaurant host thirty hours a week for the rest of my life, and blow through my meager savings.

False. I get like fifty new job notifications every week. I'll find something, and I don't have to settle immediately. This is an opportunity to change my day-to-day life. And it will be okay.

But for a while there, I was getting truly panicky because I had presented my future as a binary where I was either offered a permanent position that I increasingly didn't think I wanted, or I was (much more likely) only going to be making $900 a month, working all the weekends, unable to do anything fun. I guess I can't really explain how my positive spin on the situation turned around and freaked me out so thoroughly, but it did. Maybe I secretly thought it was a terrible plan—once I started freaking out about it, that's what I was saying to my boyfriend every night—and the panic just had to break through.

In any case, I really don't want to spend the money I'm saving now on rent next year. I really want to find a better job that is somewhat appealing to me. So that is what I am going to do (if I don't run away to the woods first).