“Let’s give it to Mikey. He won’t like it, he hates everything.”
Like Mikey, in my younger days I was never satisfied. There I finally said it. Dissatisfied with life has over the years led to my current state of discontent. Thank god I write. Rather than letting these kinds of feelings fester I get to deal with it by writing about it and either accepting it or letting it go.
Just because I am discontent doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the life I have created. I really do. It is amazing. I would go so far as to say that it is because of this inherent discontentment that I would not be living be the life that I am living right now.
This is life, a blessing and a curse because I cannot stay in one place for too long. Just when I get to a place of contentment I put my ear on the tracks and hear the train of change-a-comin. Now that I am middle age and having experienced this countless times, I have come to accept that this is part of my character.
In my younger days I was always searching. Friends and family members often asked, “Why are you never satisfied?” I didn’t have an answer. I thought there was something wrong with me. Nobody else thought the way I did. They were following a conventional path summed up by one of my favorite songs by The Godfathers, titled “Birth, School, Work, Death.”
Back then I was a searcher looking for a suitable path. The journey of experience led me to the realization of this inherent discontentment. By trying out new things, whether a career, relationship, different cities, pretty much anything in life I began to sort out what fit.
Taking big risks such as written in a previous post about moving and working in NYC was part of the realization. It’s a thru-line of my life.
I could go into details about how I got to where I am in this moment sitting at my favorite coffee shop on the outskirts of central Tokyo, but I won’t.
If you wait a year or so the book I am publishing is all about this journey that has gotten me to this place. If you cannot wait I suggest going through my blog posts to glean the details and piece together how I have gotten here.
It’s a pretty interesting story if I do say so myself.
I am a Minnesotan living in Tokyo, Japan for more than a decade. I occasionally love to share my day-to-day experience through this blog.
