Reflections on a new year
I ran across this posting for a tennis coaching job in a state I’ve never had any desire to live in. Well, I actually did live in that state for 3 months during my Air Force training 24 years ago, but the point is, it makes no sense to really consider it. It’s a part-time role working for a D2 school. Coaching is a hobby for me — I don’t do it for the money — and I think that like any hobby, if you’re not super immersed in it outside of the time you’re doing it, it can be kind of weird when you do dive back in.
I never think much of how my side quests seem dissonant to people who don’t have such endeavours in their lives. But in the past, people have always found it strange that I’m able to context switch from one career to the next, at the same time really. I like what coaching does for me, especially having to show up to a place everyday and seeing the evolving growth of players over a season. I’ve coached long enough now that I can look back at key moments in the lives of players, and it’s always fun to see people grow after you’ve worked with them even if you only had a sliver of contribution to what they did with themselves.
Anyway, back to this move. I was literally going to apply, because while I don’t even know if I’d get an interview, the idea sounded interesting. I can’t decide if the pandemic has diminished my appetite for day-to-day life as it is right now — things are a little stale when you live alone and social activities are harder to craft — but I’ve made lots of inexplicable moves like this over the years where I’ll uproot my life to pursue something that feels like a unique opportunity, without thinking too hard about all of the stuff in-between what I’m trying to do and what I want to do.
This led to me some reflection on past scenarios where I’ve made moves — often cross-country — without any real safety net for when or if it didn’t work out. Moreover, I didn’t always invest a lot of labor mentally in the mechanics of my life outside of the hobby or work. Soemtimes, I can convince myself that a change of scenery can be like a cold water shower when you’re sleepy in the morning — that the shock to the system is good. Except, the cost of making a big move is often only borne by me and the people on the other end aren’t as concerned about the difficulities involved in such an investment.
So what’s the point? I think I’m starting to get to a place where I realize you can’t do everything. That sometimes, you have to make sure that stuff lines up with your life where it is and ensure that you’ve got safety nets built into what you’re doing, so that you’re happy and successful where you are doing whatever it is you’re doing. This goes beyond this specific opportunity — there will be other things in other places at other times — and relates more to my past reflection of situations that in retrospect were not the most well-thought out choices. Part of this is being willing to accede to good advice and making sure you’re willing to consider all the possibilities. Risk-taking is fine, I would not be here without walking what amounts to several tight ropes at different times, even when people disagreed with my approach or couldn’t see my vision for what was possible. I’m grateful for the fortitude it took to make those kinds of moves, and glad I trusted myself.
While I relish living with what seems like freedom to do what I want, I’ve reached a point where I’m trying to prioritize what matters more and find joy in the routine of consistency. It’s not an easy thing, and the pandemic has blown up so much of what used to be easier to manage. I kept thinking we’d emerge from this, but now that we’re in the 3rd year of this…it’s getting harder to image this as anything other than real life. I’m sure there will be more change, figuring out how to make it integrate into something that works for me beyond the immediate will be the biggest challenge moving forward.
Boom! This constant thinking of a future real life has been embedded into us since a long time ago and has proved detrimental.
Even when we were in school we were always taught, in the real world in the real world! but the truth was even us being in school was a real world. Maybe not the adult working, bill paying world that the adults were hammering in as 'real world' but it was still its own real world.
So what’s the point? I think I’m starting to get to a place where I realize you can’t do everything.
Strange to me that you are saying that you are having this realization now. I swore I thought you were living as though this was the case for a while now. But after reading that sentence and thinking back at all your hobbies/endevaours i guess I do see a person who believes that everything is do-able.
Although you've been more successful than me at pulling off the do-everything mindset so you have things to show for it, I used to think that way too. I used to think that all one needed was to put more energy in and you would be able to accomplish things. I never thought about energy being finite, and at the end of the day, this little thing of ours that we called our lives being finite.
Risk-taking is fine, I would not be here without walking what amounts to several tight ropes at different times, even when people disagreed with my approach or couldn’t see my vision for what was possible.
This is the kind of thing in life that makes it real tough to make big decisions. Because it's true that the past tight rope walking led somewhere great. But it's also true that time and chances is running out. Tough is all i can say lol