IMPORTANT UPDATE

Hi there! Remember when I said this blog would be up forever and ever? Yeah, I take that back. I'm gonna delete it.

HOWEVER, fret not. The posts aren't going anywhere. Well, they are, actually. They're going to two different places: Medium, and my SHINY NEW WEBSITE.

You can find said shiny new website here. The Adobe round-up is there waiting for you. My Medium account is here. There's nothing on it yet but I intend to move the non-software-related posts there.

So, that's it for me on Blogger! This site will remain up until Monday, May 6th, the "official" launch of my new blog, Ghost on the Web.

Thanks for joining me on this little experiment. I hope you'll follow me to my new platforms and continue being awesome.

So, Here's the Deal

I've been doing some thinking and I've decided I'm going to take a brief hiatus, effective immediately, for the rest of April. In addition to a recent slew of unexplained medical problems, I've been feeling a little creatively stunted when it comes to keeping up with posts.

Also, Blogger is ugly and horrible, and I fully regret ever starting here.

With the time off, I'm going to reinvent this blog and, most likely, move to a different platform (Wordpress.org is swiftly becoming inevitable). I have no idea what that will mean for this blog but I fully intend to do whatever I can to keep these posts here. Don't worry. Even if I have to physically copy and paste it onto the new blog, that Adobe round-up isn't going anywhere. I wouldn't do that to you. I put too much damn work into that round-up to just let it disappear.

But I'm also going to use this time to take what I've learned blogging wildly these first few months and turning those lessons into a viable product that I'm proud to maintain. I think I'm going to focus exclusively on software and app reviews/round-ups. Not only do I really enjoy making them, they "sell well." And I love to share information!

I think this break will be good for both of us, Reader. I'm gonna come back smarter and fresher and we'll both be the better for it. Take care of yourself. Be good. Make art.

Sorry. Again.

Spent the whole afternoon in the ER. I'm pooped. Let's try again next week, shall we?

Let's Make a Deal: Giving Yourself Permission to Cut Corners

So, as you may have noticed, my most recent blog posts have either been seriously delayed or outright non-existent. In fact, I even had to change my post date to Sundays. I take responsibility for my lack of professionalism but, at the same time, I'm still not famous enough to care too much about it, and I suspect none of you really do, either. And I figure I'm already a disappointment to most people who meet me; what's another 20 or so blog readers to the already mounting pile of evidence that I consistently fail to meet the expectations of the world I live in?

Yikes, that got dark. Quick, bring out the puppies!

There we go.

Suffice it to say that most of why I haven't been around is because of some serious burn-out following the third shitty month of what's quickly becoming a shitty year. I won't bore you with the details but let's just say everything is on fire and awful but I'm hanging in there.

While I was putting off writing things last week, I got to spend some time thinking about my better methods of dealing with burnout. The problem with burnout is that, if you want to cure it entirely, you need time and freedom from obligations, and most of us have neither of those things, let alone both at the same time. I've literally been too tired and frustrated to handle my most basic needs. I didn't go grocery shopping once in March. Not even once. My diet exclusively consisted of fast food and whatever leftovers I could steal from my parents without them noticing.

This, of course, only added to my growing sense of exhaustion and despair, because fast food is really fucking bad for you. I knew I had to go grocery shopping. But then I'd have to cook food. I don't mind cooking but I do find the things that must take place around cooking--like cleaning up whatever mess my parents left in the kitchen beforehand, cleaning up my own messes as I make them, and chopping fucking vegetables--utterly exhausting. I would honestly rather slit my own throat with a box cutter than dice a single onion.

But I'm also poor as fuck (I think that's the technical term) and doing things like buying pre-cut vegetables, getting groceries delivered to you, or--offended gasp--subscribing to an online meal kit are all ridiculously expensive. So, what's a broke, depressed loser to do? Eat ennui for breakfast?

No. I'm a practical person. I needed a practical solution. I needed... to make a list.

The Three Currencies

Money may make the world go round, but there are actually three currencies: Money, time, and energy. There's a lot of overlap between them regarding spending but, generally, if you don't spend one, you're likely spending at least one of the other.

Of the three, I probably have the least amount of energy. Call it laziness, burnout, lack of ambition, or whatever else you want, but I'm a very low-energy person. I'm hard to excite, I sleep a lot, and I have no stamina when it comes to doing things. Any things.

I don't watch this show but my mom does and I sure do relate to this guy.

I also don't have much time these days. My job is only part-time but I also live with four family members, two of whom are primarily my responsibility right now, especially regarding their transportation. I've driven 883 miles so far this year and I'd wager more than half of that has been driving other people to places. That may not sound like much, but when you consider I never really venture beyond a 10-mile radius of my house, and that I literally work from home, those miles add up to hours of time wasted doing easily one of my least favorite activities, which is also a massive drain on my energy stores.

Plus, when you share a kitchen with four people, two of whom are prolific cooks and bakers, my access to the kitchen is rare. I may have the time, energy, and ingredients to make a meal, but there's not much I can do if my stepdad is ass-deep in flour while preparing for yet another bake sale at the high school and won't be out of the kitchen for another four hours. Who knows what body blows I'll have received from this bitch called life in that time?

In other words, despite being broke as a joke, the resource I actually have the most of right now is money. Not enough to even remotely solve the problems that have put me in this dumpster fire of a living situation in the first place, but at least enough to help me not eat quantum garbage every day. This was an important revelation. 

Let's Make a Deal

Armed with this knowledge, I returned to my original problem. How was I going to acquire some decent food while also being realistic enough to know what I absolutely will not do, no matter how much I might want to or think I should?

As it turned out, the answer was in the question: Figure out what you want to do, subtract all the things you won't do, then go do what's left. 

I wanted to eat more vegetables and cook my own meals. I like doing those things! But if I bought whole ingredients, even if they were cheaper, I knew damn well they'd simply rot before I could get a chance to prep them, if for no other reason than I really, really hate prepping. Something had to give. 

So, I reached deep into my subconsciousness and extracted a game my mom used to play with me when I was a kid and she needed me to do something: Let's Make a Deal. In other words, let's find a compromise between what must be done and what you're able/willing to do.

The Compromise Chart

When it comes to figuring things out, I'm at my best when I either talk out loud to myself or write things down. So, naturally, when it came time to figure out my food problem, I busted open a Google Keep note and started free-writing some quick and easy meals I could throw together in big batches and munch on throughout the week. With that, I included the ingredients I'd need. Every step of the way, I was looking for compromises. I may not be able to budge on the pre-diced onions debate, but I don't really mind chopping a few potatoes here and there. The meat department might make me squeamish, but even I can deal with handling strips of steak or a raw chicken breast or two. Maybe I can't use the oven because my parents are holding it hostage, but you can make just about anything in a slow cooker with enough patience and imagination.

From this, a grocery list was born. A realistic and practical grocery list that, yes, ended up being pricey relative to the amount of food I got, but what I lost in money I more than made up in time and effort. Besides, what's the greater waste of money: Buying pre-cut onions and actually using them or buying whole onions and letting them sit until they have to be thrown out?

Know Thyself (or Suffer Agonizing Constipation)

I'd wager that being a helpless and lazy asshole about food for one month wreaked more havoc on my health than four years of smoking cigarettes ever did. I gained weight in spite of concentrated efforts to keep my calorie intake low, I became even more tired and depressed, and I stopped shitting. I literally took zero shits for over a week. I was so constipated it physically hurt and required medical attention.

I'm positive that the vengeful resurgence of my physiological and psychological problems stems at least partly from my irresponsibility with my own body because I'm here now, on the other side of the struggle, with a fridge full of food I made myself and a belly full of homemade chicken salad and carrot sticks. I'm making better choices because I gave myself the permission and ability to do so, even if it meant cutting corners in places. I stopped feeling sorry for the fact that I couldn't manage to do things the normal, responsible people way. I stopped worrying about what the people of the internet would do/think/say if I didn't buy the cheapest things at the market, or used disposable containers. And I stopped deluding myself into thinking there was no solution to what turned out to be a very simple problem.

So, I bought the damn pre-cut meat and vegetables. I pre-portioned meals and snacks into tiny Tupperware containers and Ziploc bags. I brought the metaphorical hairdryer to work. And you know what I got out of it? Some bomb-ass curry and stir-fry and all the carrot sticks I can handle. And I'm ecstatic about it. 

And I'm pooping fabulously. Thank you, fiber!

You're Allowed to Take Shortcuts

The point of my spiel today is that you, too, have the power to make good choices too. Your story is likely very different from mine. As such, your problems and their solutions will also be vastly different. That's why I went ahead and made a worksheet to help you find your own compromises:

In the wise words of the Letterkenny crew: "Figure it out."

You can also find the pdf here. It's free! But I'm always accepting tips.

One final thing to keep in mind is that nothing in life is set in stone. What works for you right now may not be relevant next week or even tomorrow. But by observing yourself, you'll learn to better understand your needs versus your abilities and you'll get better at finding ways to compensate for your shortcomings. That's not shameful; it's practical.

With (objective) self-awareness comes self-confidence. It's okay to suck at some things, even if you suck at them forever. It's equally okay to not want to get better at those things because you have more important shit going on in your life right now. We are not defined by our struggling, but by our ability to overcome those struggles. Even if it means taking the lazier way out of a problem so you can free up your mental and physical energy for shit you actually care about.

That's all for me. See you next week. Be good. Make art.