When a Crossroads Approaches, Choose Aggressively

Aggression is not a toxic trait in every situation

A recent prompt from Mark Manson:

Fear doesn’t control us by dominating our emotions. It controls us by quietly convincing us that our comfort is more important than happiness.

The only real risk is taking no risks. The only real failure is having no failures. The only real pain is the avoidance of pain.

Interesting choice. Comfort and safety versus fulfillment and happiness.

I’ve always believed that happiness is not a goal but a result. You can’t achieve happiness but you can pursue it. The question becomes which direction do you go when confronted with that crossroads of choices and, more salient, how aggressively do you make the choice once you’ve chosen?

As of this writing, I have a choice to make that will determine what 2023 is going to look like.

In a nutshell, after four months of shock followed by three months of convalescence, it’s time to get up off of my ass and get on with things. I mean, people deal with the horrors of a divorce far less bizarre and sordid than my most recent one for years. I’m not that guy. I don’t have years to mope and swim in the self-pity pond. Frankly, I’m surprised it’s taken me this long to stand back up. But up I’m standing and now it’s time to formulate a plan to move shit forward.

I’m committed to staying in Wichita for a while. My pops is in ill health (in fact, he may now even be adding a tumor in his lungs to the list) but he’s still built like a leather boot. Which means I’m getting an apartment. Before that, I need a solid job that pays enough to financially facilitate that as well as allow me to pay back monies owed and start saving again (this time I’ll not be putting it in someone else’s account).

I tried substitute teaching and there are pros and cons to that. The pros include its relative ease, time to write while on the job, low but sustainable pay, and a never-ending need for my services. I can also pursue some live event stuff like a BUGHOUSE! run here in Kansas. The cons are that paychecks only come out once a month, there’s no work in the summer, and it feels like working at the zoo in the winter when the animals are lazily hibernating.

I just took a stab at working the graveyard shift in surveillance at the local casino. I’m in the system and in process of being trained. The pros are its relative ease, its terribly interesting, its consistent. The cons are that I’ll have to completely retrain my sleep patterns, it’s effectively a dead-end gig in that there is zero hope for advancement because no one in surveillance is allowed to shift departments, and I’ll never find time to any writing or live events.

This afternoon, I’m interviewing with the GM of a radio conglomerate for the position of Promotions and Events Director. The pros are the pay (like, actual pay rather than the bare minimum), benefits, it is my absolute wheelhouse given the job is almost identical in scope to what I did in Chicago for a decade, it would involve meeting lots of people (which I miss since spending the last couple years working remotely), and it would be endlessly fun. I’d also have time to write. The cons are… well, there are no cons to this one. I just don’t know if I’ve landed it.

If I’m offered the radio gig, problem solved. I’ll leap in with both feet and dominate the space. I’ll be able to then nail the apartment and keep the momentum up.

If I’m not offered the radio job, I have a choice to make and I have to make it full-on, no reservations, fuck you, let’s go. Substitute teaching full-time or surveillance.

Either way, I can’t half-ass it. Choose aggressively, commit to it 110%, and go, baby, go.

Along those lines, I realized recently that I’m simply not a commerce-driven writer. I like the control of self publishing and I simply hate sales and all that hustle to get someone to choose my books is just sales. I listen to Meghan Daum weekly and her drumbeat of “I can’t make a living like this” seeps in. I’d rather write than sell my writing. I’d rather full-ass my work than half-ass both the work and the self-promotion.

The lesson I’m looking at is that fear forces timidity. Timidity is the precursor to half-assing things. My comfort is not more important than the pursuit of satisfaction in who I become. Like happiness, fear is a result of inaction as well as its cause. Stand, look at the crossroads, decide which way to go, and defiantly march down that path and do not look back. All in.

UPDATE: I got the radio gig. No cons. Real money. I choose it aggressively as the solid direction in the crossroads. 2023 is already looking up.