Had a nice, small, relaxed dinner and bowling last night to pre-celebrate my birthday. Peter and Thunder got me an excellent-looking rum and armagnac. Krissa got me an excellent Jim Morrison biography which I first read part of in Yass, and which I’d been looking forward to reading the rest of. Also the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, which is great fun. (Tangentially, I predict that Baz Luhrman would love to do a movie whose soundtrack was the Grey Album.)
(Warning: extended personal life rambling follows. I need to switch to a blogging tool with categories so most people can ignore these, and my mom can subscribe only to these ;)
Despite my birthday (perhaps because of?), I am sort of depressed about my overall life direction at the moment- I know a lot of things and people, and have accomplished quite a bit, and am in position to better each of those if I choose. But I don’t feel like I’m a disciplined, organized adult yet, so I’m frustrated that I’m not taking the best advantage of my situation, and am having doubts that attaining more knowledge is the right next step for me. I feel like, given the incredible luck I’ve had in so many facets of life (education, opportunities, college next-door neighbors, etc.) I should be doing better- I should be more effective, more accomplished- and my lack of focus and discipline- lack of willpower- have hindered me. I am not quite sure where to go next with this- like I say, I’m pretty unconvinced that right now more knowledge is the right thing for me. I do definitely need more skills– better organization, better self-discipline- but they aren’t things you can really sign up for a course on. Lots of people have recommended Getting Things Done, and I’m actually finally sitting down and reading that today- it addresses at least some of the focus-management issues I have, but I’m pretty sure it will only be a partial solution for me. Hopefully, at least, it’ll help me clear things out and allow me to focus on the bigger picture- the ‘where am I going next, anyway, and how do I make it fit with the things I enjoy doing in life’ picture. We’ll see, I guess… :)