Most of my days from April of this year have started in the early morning hours around 4:ooAM and ended sometime around 6:ooPM. This has been my working schedule, consuming time from anything creative taking place, and consuming energy beyond the point of having any left over.

This is what many on the outside, looking in on this work, would call a "good job" - this would equate to success. The six-figure salary, the perks that come with being able to save from making a decent income.

This is the idea of work.

This to me, however, is not the idea of life.

Perhaps the idea of life for some people is in fact work. Working so much, occupying so much time, that the last thing they ever have to truly contemplate is life.

Lately, life is all I think about. These past few weeks have made me dread every minute between 4:00AM and 6:00PM, and every minute outside of them - I've been asleep.

Something inside me, something spawned from being raised by a single-mother who worked multiple jobs and had little ability to afford anything, has tethered me to this idea of work. That reaching this point, and this salary, that this is ultimately worthwhile. Meanwhile my creative aspirations and output seem to suffer overwhelmingly.

Look at this site for example - for the month of August it has sat as a barren wasteland. That's because my focus and energy has not been on writing here, or for the book, or creating - it's all been dedicated to the success of work...someone else's work. Someone else's idea of what the focus of life should look like.

Now, before it seems like I have no gratitude or respect for hard-working individuals, I understand the great fortune I've been given to be in this position. I also understand that I'm human, and perhaps the way we work and how we percieve this idea of working hard is not good for humans. In fact, we know it isn't.

I'm currently feeling at a cross-roads. How can I make this more manageable and allow myself time to live. I see others able to acomplish this with what seems like ease. Why then is it so hard for me to live - to feel alive, to be a part of something where my true passions exist. It has happened in short spurts of my life, but never during these lasting periods of this idea of work.

Maybe this short writing isn't for you, but more for me. This is something I've needed to at least get out of my system. To speak some semblance of truth to how all of my time living has been traded for time working instead.

I had planned on just updating you all that the book will inevitably (due to the past several months of my work schedule), be delayed until the end of the year.* I've always been my own editor, and for now I don't see that changing. I simply need more time to make AGNFM as good as I know it can be.

It seems with all this contemplation, the solution for now is just to work harder.

*I did want to use the single day free I had this week (today), to sit down and write and re-connect. I believe I can work here and put more focus and energy on writing.

1. The new release date for the book should be around mid-December (not a huge delay, but I would have loved to have seen it finished by October).
2. This post was written quickly, so apologies if it seems scattered or incomplete - tomorrow I'll be up again at 3:30/4:00am.
3. I love sharing thoughts and creative work here. I love connecting with people. Thanks for the continued patience and support.