Half-Life Journey

With roughly half of my life behind me, what am I looking for regarding the remaining half of my life journey? My thoughts center on living free and comfortably with the ability to come and go as I please. I imagine a life where money is available for the finer things, a life where everything is paid off and I have everything needed to live comfortably. As a means to this end, I’ve researched ways to side hustle my way to extra money. This would ideally fund major money moves if the hustle doesn’t blow up successfully, things like investing in stocks, metals, crypto, or real estate. Fueling these moves is a lifetime of experience that I believe makes me adaptable to many workplaces.

Yet quite often, I lose momentum, I lose interest and I lose faith in myself. There are many examples of this pattern of behavior. For instance, in my copious amounts of research regarding side hustles, I landed on digital products, specifically adult coloring books. I took the time to make one with the mindset of creating more products, but as time progressed, I quickly lost interest and let my publishing status on Amazon lapse. My websites, halflifejourney.com, akmhh.com and writingwhateverIwant were all going to be the stepping stones to something greater. akmhh was to be a mental health hub for Alaska, a grandiose vision to be sure. Halflifejourney.com went silent from February until now, while my original page has been largely dormant for years. Another example of losing interest.

I put faith in the many things I have done professionally as proof I could freelance, but I haven’t figured out what my work is worth, and haven’t felt good about trying to sell myself and my capabilities to clients. Doing so is contrary to how I was raised and how I matured as a young man, since I have always been a silent professional, lacking braggadocio and often focused on completion of the mission and the good of the team. Selling my services is close to bragging and boasting, which are qualities I detest in others. I prefer praise going to others, and my employees. I am not looking to steal the spotlight: I’d rather just have the attention of those powerful and capable enough to make change.

But truly underneath the lack of staying power in any one thing or another outside of work, imposter syndrome is skulking in the backdrops of my mind telling me I am not as capable as I think I am. The traumas I have experienced drive me to protect myself by withdrawing, by being unseen and by fortifying my heart against anything that might hurt me spontaneously. My life has taught me to survive this way. If it wasn’t for a truly headstrong and wonderful wife and partner, I would be as alone as my defenses want me to be. I have been looking for the doorway to financial independence and freedom. I have been looking for the path to the next level of my life for several years. Not finding these clear directions and gangways has been discouraging, which has contributed greatly to loss of momentum, interest, and faith.

Underneath my drive is the my trauma, my survival instincts. These adaptations were necessary for me to survive what I have seen and experienced in my lifetime in the first 30 to 35 years of my life. In the time since, the survival skills derived from my traumas became maladaptive in the face of a normal life. This is where I find myself now: mired in the mud of my past life. It’s always been mud, but where I once had a powerful alcohol and rage fueled engine supplying torque to tank treads pushing me through, perhaps I am now in a normal vehicle, trying to plow through the same muck. Like a two wheel drive sedan with poor horsepower desperately trying to gain traction in deep snow, the wheels are spinning but I’m not getting anywhere.

Change is required here, since the same survival skills are not needed for the life I have now. I’ve been looking for the door to the next stage, to the next level of my life, yet I’ve been trying the same old thing in the same old car. Of course I’m not getting very far: I most improve, and upgrade while continuing to sharpen my skills and seek the uncomfortable. Defensiveness needs to be replaced by curiosity. Stonewalling needs to give way to courageous openness. Anger is a mask for fear, which has to be identified before it can be worked on and replaced. It’s like the changing of the old bald tires and changing the fluids on your car. I have to dig deep, confront some truths and dug-in instincts and I have to do differently. Changing for the better is adapting and evolving again for the life that’s closer to normal that I’ve been living. Fix what’s within to affect my world around me. Only then will I be able to move above and beyond to the next levels of wealth and freedom I’m looking for.