Man, where do I even begin with this whole period from late 2022 into 2023? I remember feeling… well, a bit like I was just drifting, you know? Like the boat had no rudder and I was just letting the current take me wherever. Things weren’t bad, exactly, but they weren’t exactly great either. Just this bland, beige sort of existence that started to chafe at me. I’d wake up, do the same stuff, go to bed, repeat. Felt like I was sleepwalking through my own life, and that feeling started to weigh heavy.
I distinctly recall one particularly grey morning, probably in early 2023, just staring out the window with my coffee. It hit me like a ton of bricks: if I didn’t grab the wheel, this was just going to be my life. No direction, no real purpose, just… reacting. And that thought, man, it scared the crap out of me. It wasn’t a sudden crisis, more like a slow, creeping dread that eventually became undeniable. I knew I needed to do something, anything, to shake things up, to find some footing before I completely lost myself in the haze.
So, I started with the basics. I hauled out an old, forgotten notebook – the kind with a slightly sticky cover – and just began scribbling. No real plan, just getting thoughts out. What made me feel alive? What drained me? What was I secretly dreaming of but never really pursued? It was a messy, ugly process. Pages filled with half-formed ideas, complaints, random doodles. I journaled like a madman, just to clear the mental fog. For weeks, it felt like I was just emptying my brain onto paper, not really making sense of anything.
Then, slowly, patterns started to emerge. Things I kept coming back to. Ideas that wouldn’t let go. Feelings of frustration that pointed to specific areas of my life that needed a total overhaul. I realized I was spending too much time on stuff that didn’t matter and not nearly enough on the things that lit a fire in my belly. It was painful, honestly, to look at that truth square in the face. It meant letting go of some comfortable routines, some familiar faces, maybe even some long-held beliefs about myself.
My “plan,” as it awkwardly started to take shape, wasn’t some grand, complicated strategy. It was more about subtraction than addition, at first. I decided I was going to ruthlessly cut out the time-sinks and energy vampires. That meant scaling back on a few social commitments that felt more like obligations than genuine connection. It meant being brutal about my screen time, especially mindlessly scrolling through feeds that just left me feeling hollow. I wanted my days back, my attention back.
Once I cleared some of that clutter, I started to build in the good stuff. I began dedicating an hour every morning, no matter what, to something creative. For me, that meant getting back to my photography, just snapping pictures of mundane things, trying to see the beauty in the everyday. Didn’t matter if they were good or not, just the act of doing it. I also committed to moving my body every single day, even if it was just a long walk. Anything to feel grounded and present. This wasn’t about getting ripped or anything; it was about feeling connected to myself again.
Another big piece was getting real about my finances. I’d been pretty lax, just letting things happen. I sat down, opened all those dusty envelopes, and just stared at the numbers. It wasn’t pretty, but seeing it all laid out helped me draw a clear line in the sand. I started tracking every penny, setting small, achievable savings goals, and looking for ways to shore up my resources. No more pretending it would just magically sort itself out. It was about taking tangible, sometimes uncomfortable, steps to create a more stable foundation.
Now, as we push into 2026, I look back at that period and honestly, it transformed things. It wasn’t like all my problems vanished overnight, absolutely not. Life still throws curveballs, that’s just how it goes. But having that framework, that conscious intention, has made a world of difference. When things feel foggy or I start to drift, I have that solid ground to come back to. I actually feel like I’m steering the boat now, even if the waters get rough. It taught me that sometimes, the most profound changes start with just a messy notebook and an honest look in the mirror, followed by small, persistent actions. You gotta make your own current, you know?
