Not sure if this is quoted by someone, but I guess I will quote it myself. But it is truly only with the counting down of days and with life experience, that you develop maturity and character and the life you wanted. I never imagined I would be this version of myself years ago, let alone 6 months ago. It’s been a rollercoaster of a year, but I have matured heaps as a man and as a hustler, and in every aspect of life. I think one of the perks of growing up introverted, is the spark that unleashes when you finally begin to break out of your shell in an environment that gradually brings out the best in you.

It is a cold world, and for me personally, I feel like my passion for people and things sometimes can make me hit a wall. I love too hard too quickly and am always spiralling into rabbit holes and forgetting the bigger picture. I preach being a jack of all trades, multi-dimensional, compartmentalizing your life and yet I always seem to tunnel vision and deprioritise myself and put others before me every single time. I have finally learnt the hard way this year that I need to slot people and things into my life while keeping all the other gears rotating without hyper focusing on one thing. It is definitely a skill that only comes with experience, and I am a late bloomer hence the delay in me developing such a skillset in the social circle.

Loneliness is a difficult predicament; it can make you do things out of character especially if you struggle to maintain people in your life or have a damaged past that has brought about unhealthy trust issues and anxious behaviour. I think it is important to have a retrospective every couple months of your life and really exit the bubble of yourself and see the perspective for what it is from the outside looking in. Just you vs you, no external opinions or noise or thoughts. You and the man in the mirror, talk and hash it out, where are we now? Where are we going? Does this feel right? What do I want? These are important questions I only recently began asking myself, and it explains my severe social withdrawal and loss of circles I probably didn’t think I would dissociate from any time soon. But that’s the beauty of growth, it is not relative to age or status, it is truly personal and relies on your experiences and motivations.

Sometimes I may feel uncomfortable in certain situations, or underappreciated, or unwanted or overwhelmed. I’ve learnt the hard way to stop taking things personally. I had a chat with my boss recently about how difficult it has been to deal with lazy builders and contractors, he said something that to him was probably so normal, but it stuck with me. He told me “Mate don’t think of it so black and white; they have other priorities, and they balance these with their motivations on top of everything else they got going on”. And that’s so true honestly, all I can do is be myself and try my best. At the end of the day, I am experiencing good, and I am experiencing bad. I have been through hell the last few years, but others have had it worse. I think I have emotionally matured heaps more than I would’ve imagined recently, it is a tough gig living in my own head, but it is refreshing that I know I have kind of been through it all, and worse.

Work this year had its good days and bad days, the current rotation has been extremely rough, but I think I have only got 3-4 months of it to go. This job has opened so many doors for me and I am eternally grateful. I just need to finish 2023 strong and dig a little deeper and find the old me a little bit. The 5am wake up guy, the writer, the reader, the creative one. I need to restructure my life a little bit and reset because I owe to myself. And I owe it to the guy who spent Ramadan on his knees, trying to heal from whoever he was before that. Life is messy, it isn’t linear, I have said that so many times. But I am still young, I feel young, I need to start writing my goals again, curb my anxiety and fit everyone into my life where they belong and go from there. I guess the key takeaway is what is meant to be will be, and all I can do is try my best and take it day by day.

I have neglected this blog too much the last 2 months, but I love writing and am now finding the time to finally focus on it again.

All the best

H