Welcome back to another year in review. In this blog, I look back on my year and share with you the trials and tribulations over the past 12 months. Change is again the key theme of this blog, as has been the constant in my life over the past 5 years. This is the fourth year of this series and each year it becomes more important that I do it. It has become such a powerful tool for reflecting and unlocking parts of my brain I may have closed off throughout the year. So, let’s get into it.
Mental
Mentally, this year has been a good one. If I think back to the last time I had a year like this, I would have to go back to my college days. Living relatively free in my head, not putting too much pressure on the bigger picture, focusing on the things that bring me joy and trying to do them as much as possible. Of course, this doesn’t mean that I was walking around with a large grin on my face every day. There were ups and downs fairly frequently, but the ups won out. If I think of a few reasons as to why, the following comes to mind:
I knew change was on the horizon. Change brings me a weird sense of comfort. It tells me that I’m moving forward, that I’m stepping out of my comfort zone and into something new, and that there are outcomes that I can’t control as I don’t know they exist yet. Having gone through a lot of change and it always generally working out, I now have the perspective that it’s typically a good thing.
I didn’t set goals. Since senior year in college, I’ve been a goal monster. From the books I read it seemed that setting goals was the key to all success. Now, I still think that goal setting is a good thing and that I could use some better goal setting in the future to help me. But, for myself I realized that it just became very task orientated without ever properly accounting for the bigger picture of things. I’m naturally a disciplined person, so the process of going through tasks to check them off and gain momentum didn’t bring me much satisfaction. Instead, not having goals freed me up to work on tuning into my internal compass. If I was beginning to fail at something, I was able to pivot and find another way without the restriction of that singular goal. For me, this was freeing.
I’m with Alana permanently. No more long distant relationships, no more living with other people, no more visa waiting. Just us, together. It’s hard to describe the comfort that brings but having gone through the whole pandemic fiasco and the never-ending wait for visas, to know that now we’ll go to bed and wake up every morning together. It’s nice. #Immigrantproblems
This year I enjoyed writing this section. Feels like I got a bit of myself back and learned a little better how to deal with the challenges. I’m learning mental health is a never-ending battle. There will never be a finish line, just ups and downs along the way that you’ll learn to deal with better as time goes by.
Relationship
Alana and I have been married for just over two years now, but this year we finally got to celebrate with our friends and family and have a proper wedding. It felt momentous. I think we were most proud of the fact that we were able to have a real wedding and make it feel as special as if we were getting married for the first time that day. With the pandemic and more so the visa situation, it is so easy to fall into the role of practicality, getting what you need to get done, making promises about circling back round in the future, but inevitably getting caught up in life and putting it on the back burner till it never happens. We both sit here today and can say that we did it right. We kept it special and important, both the engagement and the wedding, and that’s something to be proud of. What we didn’t do right is push our honeymoon to next year. Friends, if you’re getting married take your honeymoon immediately after. DO NOT RETURN TO WORK. Possibly the worst mood I was in all year. Weddings are far too crazy not to top it off with some chill time alone.
In other news, we moved to Colorado this July. Moving away from North Carolina is something that has always been in our rough plan, and like all our other rough plans, they always seem to work out. This is something that we both find concerning, as if the day is going to come that something just doesn’t work out the way we want it, but until then, we push on. It was between Colorado and California and because Denver seemed like a playground for all the things I like doing, we landed here.
The move was 100% for me. Alana, being the complete opposite to me is not a fan of change. She is a home body. She loves nothing more than hanging out with our dogs, putting on an episode of New Girl, going to eat at our favorite food spots and being close to family. So, the whole finishing vet school, moving across country, starting her first job as a doctor, has been a lot to handle. Not to mention the passing of our big dog, Carl, while this was all going on. So, this year has been a bit of a role-reversal in terms of our support for each other given our comfort levels with the change.
However, Alana has always been onboard with the plan of moving away for a while and I think it has been the right thing for us. While we’ve been together for over 7 years, this year was the first that we’ve lived together on our own. So, to go and do that in a new state, both starting new jobs and relying completely on one another has been important. And the rough plan is that we’ll move back to North Carolina eventually.
Work
I’ve failed. I’m still calling this section work. Last year I had stated that this year would be a make-or-break year for me in terms of my career. Well, it wasn’t, but it was different because I was able to take a pause, re-assess where I’m at, where I want to go and how I’m going to get there.
At the start of the year, I found out that my employment at the agency at the time would be coming to an end in April. This was because I had been working remote for a UK company for almost year after moving back to America permanently, all be it unexpectedly. To be honest, the company was fantastic in accommodating my needs, allowing me to still work remote when others had to return, and keeping me on as long as legally possible without being in the UK.
Initially, I was expecting a couple months of forced unemployment as I was waiting for my US work visa to come through. But as luck would have it, one day after finishing my job I get notice that my work authorization has been approved and I can go straight back to work. While it was awesome that I could finally live like a normal human in the US, it was also slightly annoying as I was looking forward to this time to reflect.
However, instead of rushing back to work I decided to take a few months off anyway. I wanted to separate myself from the 9-5 grind and open myself up to new possibilities. In short, it was fantastic. 3 months of living like I was retired, playing golf, reading books, exploring new places -- the time flew by. During this time however, I was doing daily searches for new career paths, exploring new opportunities in my current industry, and thinking about what I could start on my own.
My goal is and always has been to get to a position where I will be working for myself and be fully in control of my life. But as I sat down and assessed where I currently am, the changes on the horizon in moving to Colorado, the interviews I had across industries, I eventually landed back where I started. Accepting a new position at the same company, albeit the US entity, doing essentially the same job with a step up.
Why?? You’ve stated before this industry is not something you see yourself in forever and that you want to work for yourself so why not step out and make it happen Ryan!? Good question. There were 3 reasons that made my decision:
A new industry requires me to start at an entry level position. While this would be ok if I was viewing it as a long-term career switch, I wasn’t. My goal is to work for myself, so re-starting at the bottom in an industry I’m not particularly passionate about didn’t seem to make sense.
I haven’t figured out what it is I want to do for myself yet. I’ve mentioned this before, but the whole figuring out your life’s purpose is something that weighs heavily on me. Without knowing a direct path, I couldn’t justify not bringing in money while waiting for something to happen. It’s something that is going to happen while I work another job.
I seem to be pretty ok at the job I’m doing and (for full transparency) the money made the decision. Yes, contradictory to last year’s blog, I am a money warrior. For now, anyways. Having been in this industry coming up on 4 years now, I know how it works. I know the opportunities it presents and the challenges to be faced. It was also re-affirming that in the 5 interviews I had across the industry, I got every job. Now, maybe they just hire anyone. Maybe my experience is becoming niche to these positions. Maybe I’m young, black, and speak well so I tick them quotas. Regardless, it felt right for now.
So, I’m back to working 9-5 or actually 7-3. I am working remote, which by the way, I don’t think I could ever not do. The option to live anywhere you want, avoid commutes and wasted time, and still make the same money from home. No brainer. My work-life balance is pretty damn good, but of course I will always have the internal conflict and strive to eventually move away from this world of work.
Physical
Much like my mental year, physically this has been a good one too. A correlation? I think so. Yes, I didn’t win any championships, compete in any events, or break records, but what I did do is play sport and be active consistently all year long. For me that is a major win and what makes me most happy.
It’s taken me years to understand, but this year I think I got to a point where I understood that the doing is more important than the winning. Which is funny considering how much I love competition. But when the event is over and you’re lying in bed, realizing that I can go out and do it all again tomorrow is more important than the one effort that puts me out of action for weeks on end.
I think this slow maturation is coming from the years further away from football I’m getting. Football still is the ultimate sport. It provides the ultimate highs and lows, and when you’re in it there really isn’t anything that matters more than winning. Now, 4 years removed from playing competitively and the inability to play more than twice a week without being in old man pain, I don’t need to chase that feeling anymore. Instead, I’ve come full circle back to my high-school days where I played every single sport under the sun as much as possible. That’s pretty much what I do now. I make sure I play some kind of sport or do some physical activity every single day, and when I start to get aches and pains in one area, I just switch sport so I can keep going.
The other realization I had is that no one cares what you’re doing. After college I fell hard into the running, endurance-based sports and started chasing them, partly for my own satisfaction but also for external validation. The consideration of what others may think of my performance is what most likely pushed me to make bad training decisions and landed me in the string of injuries I’ve dealt with for years.
Now, I train because it brings me joy every single day. I play football because I can’t not play. I ride bikes because I love being outside. I swim because I can’t run. I golf because it’s the perfect self-competition and I love being outside. I go to the gym because you just must go the gym. I play pickleball because it’s competitive and dynamic. I hike because I love being outside. I ski because I want to be better than anyone who grew up skiing (damnit, I mean I ski because I love being outside).
EAZYLIVING
EAZYLIVING is an ever-evolving entity which this year has seen itself turn another chapter. This year, I tried to narrow its focus back to its core principles. Creative people and creating community. I started the EAZY Spotlight podcast which I loved doing and hosted the second EAZY Open golf tournament where we raised money for a local charity. Both things I am super proud of but being honest with myself I have struggled to keep going.
I love bringing people together, championing and learning from friends, and putting out content. What I don’t love is the filming and editing of content. For many years this has been the sticking point for me in keeping content being produced consistently. This is firmly a me problem, I definitely could be more disciplined in pushing through that side of creativity or spend time to just out-source these things that I don’t like.
However, the more dangerous side has come in the recent months in which my life has got considerably more comfortable. I’ve found that my need/desire to create new content is not burning as it once was. This is a major red flag as this kind of comfort level in life is something I know will bring me major angst in the future going back to that whole life purpose thing.
While EAZYLIVING will continue to evolve in the future, one thing it has become is my guiding philosophy that I think about every day. The idea that you don’t wait for happiness, you just make it happen today in whatever way you can.
End
So, there we have it. Another year in review. As I come to the end of this blog, I’ve realized a few things. Writing a more positive blog feels weird. I think I’m becoming more relaxed or maybe I’m just understanding myself a little better. This next chapter of life scares me a little.
With our move to Colorado, my newly acquired green card, Alana now in the working world, things feel set. When I look forward to the future, I can see clear paths in front of us that could grant us a very comfortable and traditional life. Right now, I’m very much enjoying my comfortable and traditional life. But in the bigger picture of things, it worries me because I know that’s not core to who I am. We’ve got over a lot of hurdles to get to this point and as you’ve read within this blog, change is my more comfortable state. Life works in funny ways and ultimately it will all be ok in the end.
Thanks for reading my thoughts. As always, this is more of a self-reflection exercise than anything else but if anything I mentioned resonates with you, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Keep it EAZY.
Ryan