When did I become such a pussy?

Does anyone feel like they’ve gotten more eccentric in their old age? I’m trying to figure out how this happens. Granted some people are just fucking head cases to begin with, but I can’t really say that I’ve ever really thought of myself as one. Sure I have my moments, but I’ve always operated under the assumption that with age comes experience and with experience comes some form of wisdom. You get older...you get exposed to things...you gain a more balanced perspective through the highs and lows of what you go through…blah blah blah. But in some ways I feel like we also become more reticent with age…and I wonder if that reticence forces us in some way to further indulge in our eccentricities as a means of compensating for something that we’ve lost. If you think about it, our experiences constitute somewhat of a double edge sword. On the one hand they allow you to become a bit more pragmatic and grounded, but on the other they make you more acutely aware of the potential ramifications of your actions...both good and bad. In other words when you’re stupid enough to not know any better, very little fazes you. It’s the reason why an 8-year old is a million times more capable in a half-pipe than I am. While I’m conscious of breaking every bone in my body, they’re thinking about how cool is will be to have everyone at school sign their cast.

At some point you develop a sense of fear on certain things. And that fear triggers protective mechanisms which in turn, when we recognize them, introduce an element of self-doubt. There are some aspects of my life...dating for example…where I look back and realize that even 28 year old me would have been ten times more fit to handle some of this shit than 31 year old me. And its not just dating...I see it in other aspects of my life as well, where I am so much more keyed up, stressed out, impatient and anal about things than I used to be. I find that I have very hard time taking things in stride thee days…being patient…letting things just come about on their own terms. I worry about things I used to never worry about. I stress about shit that is completely out of my control. And I don’t like that. I don’t know at what point I crossed over from being what I always thought of as me...to this other person who I probably would have told to lighten the fuck up of not that long ago

If I look back at my early years one of the most common adjectives that I’ve consistently heard used to describe me...and consequently one of the ways in which I’ve always viewed myself…is mellow...laid back. For the most part I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty level-headed person. In fact I could even venture to say that one of my biggest problems earlier in life was that I was in fact TOO laid back…not putting a great enough sense of urgency on certain things. Used to drive my parents (type-AAA’s) crazy. Even just a few years ago...I remember feeling particularly rationale and composed about most things. Sure I had my little pet peeves...such as traffic, dumb-asses in the line at Starbucks, my douche bag boss…but in terms of the big ticket items, I feel I maintained a pretty balanced perspective for the most part. Most of my exes would probably strongly disagree with that last statement!

Be that as it may, I’m starting to arrive at the realization that I am not composed at all...pretty far from it actually. Nicole described it perfectly the other day as being a “leaky faucet of emotion”, which sounds so forthright coming from her. But when I think of myself in those terms, I'm like, I've become a pussy! I find myself overanalyzing things entirely too much. I sometimes feel like my life is an on-going episode of Curb your Enthusiasm and I’m Larry David. That certainly implies a certain level of eccentricity on my part. Often I get an idea in my head and no matter how hard I try, or despite strong evidence to the contrary, I cannot for the life of me get rid of it...or at a minimum just let it go. What’s more...or at least what is more alarming...is the degree to which I find myself acting out and indulging in these little battles that in many cases I’ve probably just created on my own. I was talking to a guy yesterday who told me about a psychological study where the researchers found that 90% of the conversations that people have on a given day are with themselves. That totally makes sense to me. But of that 90%...75% of the subject matter is negative in nature. If true, that says a lot about the ethos of our orientation. As human beings we are almost always unconsciously preparing for the worst, and I don’t know if that is a good way to go about seeking satisfaction from life.

I know it’s not necessarily just a function of age because I know plenty of people in their 20s who are anal as shit. In my case I can’t say that’s it’s a function of stress stemming from increased responsibility because, quite frankly, my practical circumstances haven’t changed all that much in the past 8 years. It could be partly a function of change. I’ve had a fair amount of upheaval over the past 6 months and I guess the cumulative effect from some of these things is easy for me to overlook. Since May I’ve graduated from B-school, moved to a new city, broke up with my girlfriend, started a new job, bought a house, met and started hanging out with a completely new group of people, dating...I could go on and on. And this is by no means meant to be a cry me a river song..and yes I recognize these things…but I don’t entirely recognize my response to them. It’s also interesting to me that in all the times where we truly need that larger sense of perspective…where we need a degree of level-headedness...where we need our composure the most…it seems to be nowhere to be found.

Anyway…I don’t know where I’m going with all this...I think I'm just in a shitty mood this week.

BD