Yes, the blog LIVES
Yeah, it's been a long time. A very long time. I've been overly busy, and just have (to be honest) forgotten I even had a blog. But I've put enough time into it in the past, and it contains memories, as well as being cathartic when I put entries into it, somehow.

I've been thinking a lot lately about life in general. My birthday's coming up, I'm not getting any younger, and I'm thinking more and more about what I should do with my life. Both what I want to do, and what I should do. In the past, I approached various endeavors with commitment, to make sure I learned the things I wanted to. Looking at myself today, I can see the results of these.

In review:

• I've completed two degrees in computer science, stemming from my childhood interest in programming (started at 8 years of age).


• I've learned how to play guitar. How good I am is debatable, but I am a fan of my 12-string Seagull, as well as playing on my electric guitars (nothing quite like the fun of ripping through a song on an American Strat).


• I've learned kung fu. I'm now a black belt and one of the senior students at my school, and I've heard from many people they very much like my teaching style, which is rewarding to hear. That, and it's fun, plus it keeps me in shape, which allows me to keep my horrid vice of pizza and Pepsi.


• I've achieved a few of my life goals in the past few years (actually, past year or so), including buying the car of my dreams new and driving it off the showroom floor, as well as purchasing a decent house.

I'm still very goal-oriented, and at the moment my latest interests have been in other occupations. Mainly that of internet marketing and real estate investing. I've established a decent income with internet marketing (helped buy my car), and I definitely have the knowledge necessary to move forward with it. I've learned a lot with real estate and am in the process of pursuing some property acquisitions to learn first-hand more about it. I know enough now to get started fully, and expect it to happen soon. That, and I've recently been peeking into the wide world of poker, which I'm moderately decent at (consistently in the top three of 8-10 player tables in my weekly game with the guys). There are people who make six figures a year from it, so it might be a fun hobby to bring some income in on an occasional basis.

The bad things about all of this is that it keeps me very occupied, moreso than most people I know (or even have heard of). My girlfriend is not a fan of that detail, which is understandable. I'm coming up on my birthday, and while I'm still young, the age that I'm reaching is large enough that it's making me start to think about what I should be doing in life. I want to have an impact on the world in a good way, and working in IT for the rest of my life is not going to do it. So I need to figure out what I want to do that combines nicely with what I SHOULD do. It's been on my mind a lot lately, and I'm still wandering a bit through possibilities.

Anyway, perhaps a stream-of-consciousness style of discussion with you here may help me delineate my potential life paths enough to make a confident decision. Or maybe it will help me discover new ideas. For now, I'm doing more things than really should being doing, and at ONCE, so I should start looking on what I should focus more fully on, then drop the attention so much on everything equally, in my multi-faceted lifestyle.

A very introspective blog entry for you today. How about you? Have you considered your own life? Where it's going? What you'll be doing with it? These are things for you to think about. I won't know about yours, but mine are here. I know some might consider concern over publicly discussing one's life so openly, but the reality is that in our fully connected world today, any of these details that anyone wanted to know they could find fairly easily, if they looked. So... eh. It's okay.

And yes, I haven't forgotten a random link. I'll actually post a link to another blog that I found in my revamped poker interest (I started playing originally when I was under 10 years old). He waxes philosophical about many of the same things I've talked about here today, and it's inspired me to continue my own blog, as well as think more deeply on my life's direction. You can look for yourself if you're curious (from the first month of entries, oldest posts at the bottom, newest on top).
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 12:42 PM | 2 comments