Come undone

I am generally considered arrogant; that I often have difficulties walking the line between confidence and arrogance. Those who know me well pass it off as dry humor at times and usually correctly adopt ridicule as a countermeasure. Those who don’t know me well assume the worst and walk away. It has made me wonder why at times I am so outspoken.

Is it because that I am so truly convinced that I know better? Or is my source of arrogance deep rooted in insecurity? In insecurity of a sinister kind! It is that oh so familiar fear of normalcy and the persistent realization of being irrelevant. It drives my ambition but on most days it drives me to the ground.

To be fairly honest, Insecurity can’t be a bad thing. I have been struggling with happiness in Germany because in some fashion it is directly mitigating this fear lurking in the shadows. There have been days here when I have generally considered being happy with very little. Not because it was easy but because I genuinely am having a tickle each day. All signs point to contentment and that makes me restless at times. It feels like I am executing a self-help book chapter by chapter but it isn’t helping.

Deep within me I have always wanted to be not normal. Not average. Not predictable. Not standard. And yet, no matter how many hours I spend at work, I find myself constantly shifting towards attributes I can’t stand. The reason is also brutally simple. I am not hungry enough. I am not courageous enough. I am not capable of shedding this clamp of financial stability and moral sensibilities. I do not want it bad enough. Warm summer days in Bier gardens, beautiful long runs through vineyards, sufficient liquid assets to buy holidays on a whim, theoretically consider a Ducati and occasional success at work has me sufficiently pegged, enjoying few days in a week and skipping through months without much ado. As years pile on and German free-time culture weaves in tighter, it has made me want it even less.

Every cliché that you have heard about wanting to be great is true. It is incredibly hard to get what you want. You sometimes don’t know exactly what you want but regardless of that it takes massive amounts of sacrifice to get anywhere significant. You have to live through moments of absolute despair. There is a slice of luck involved but the only bottle-neck that truly stops you is you. Everything else is an excuse. Perhaps out of fear or perhaps because on gorgeous Austrian hikes you just aren’t hungry enough to stop and invest that time wandering through the unknowns of you true desire.

I find myself also using the phrase ‘I don’t know’ far too often. Not because I don’t have an opinion but in all honesty there are many things that I just don’t know about. I have since long given up on short term five year plans but the bigger picture has also been fading like an unprotected painting. I am sprint planning in my life, in my agile methods I am reacting and achieving very little in snapshots of time. The sum of these parts can only equate whole that is incomplete.

Shall this too pass? Will I again spend the next few night questioning the futility of the chase and make peace with inevitability? Or at some point will I finally stop fooling myself and begin on a journey that holds no promise, offers a lot to lose and is lined with emotions of failure on top of standard despair.

We are our own demons. I am confident enough to state that insecurity isn’t bad since it makes you look in the eye of your demons. I am arrogant enough to state that insecurity offers you a way out whereas contentment leads to blindness and sense of accomplishment when you aren’t actually finished.