This is All Temporary Anyways
How to Deal During FUNemployment, NBA Playoff Predictions (already?) and NFL Week 7 + 8.
“You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis. You are all singing, all dancing crap of the world.”
There. Right, at the top. The very first one. Tyler Durden’s speech that starts out with the declaration that “you are not your job” and ends with reminding us that “we are the all-organic decaying matter” of the world.
Chuck Palahniuk’s brilliant writing and themes still ring true to this day despite the movie aging rather poorly as this was the perfect type of movie (dare I say, corny?) to revel in for the late 90’s/early 2000’s era, back when young people like me thought this was the deepest shit ever put on film…I’ll stop and move on before I wade into “I liked the movie but it wasn’t as good as the book” territory. Nobody wants that.
To get to my point, that line always stuck with me and has been brought to the surface recently. For those of you who have never gone through a firing/layoff/career change/period of unemployment, it can make you feel like you’ve been stripped of an identity, your purpose or place in society, making you question where you stand in the hierarchy of everything. I’m here to remind you (and myself) those feelings are stupid.
As I wrote about before, I just went through my very first layoff of my career and aside from the reminder above, another few things that have helped…
I didn’t get fired or do anything wrong to get myself here and don’t have to explain myself or justify to my next employer how I’ve taken this time to ponder all my mistakes…it was just a function of capitalism baby!
I underestimated the freedom that comes with an exit package & open schedule
I loved the people I worked with, but I was sleepwalking through my day-to-day and starting working towards an exit plan…
I never tied my identity to my job!
I believe there are few jobs on earth cool enough to tie your identity to and chances are if you are here reading this, you probably don’t have one of them! Your desk job isn’t cool! You don’t really love it! Stop lying to yourself!
I know every occupation has its’ downsides but a short list of jobs I can assume are widely loved by their occupants are...safari guide, rockstar, travel writer, food TV personality and professional golfer. Interestingly enough, the only people I can remember telling me they love their job, both coincidentally work with their hands in electricity. Maybe I should get off LinkedIn and pick up a drill instead?
Anyways, I speak from a little experience here…joblessness is not quite something I strive to find myself become an expert in, however each little temporary period of unemployment has come with a lesson. My first go-around in 2015, jobless me would easily get pissed off and discouraged after doing the same job searches every morning before calling it a day and deciding to polish off a 6-pack on a Wednesday afternoon.
Worst of all, I had a lot of bad thoughts lingering. It was easy to feel embarrassed while watching others succeed, I sort of felt like a loser and instead of enjoying my down time, I retreated and holed up in my apartment convinced I didn’t deserve much of a social life, ignoring friends and family.
4 years later, finding myself on another little break from the whole full-time labor thing, I’ve found that with a much better mentality and outlets, (freelance work; this ridiculous newsletter) I’ve enjoyed the hell out of it - traveling, kicking it with my dog, reading by the pool and planning my next moves at my own relaxed pace.
The biggest thing I can say I learned and the best part that comes with any up & downs, existential crises or uncertainties one faces during these times, it all goes away really damn fast when a new opportunity presents itself.
When you are back to work, sitting in your third hour-long meeting of the day, then you truly start to regret not taking advantage of all the freedoms you once possessed.
I know all of this might not be terribly profound or anything but it’s relevant to my life and unless you are an executive or upper management hot shot (which I know you can be one day if that’s what you really want!) you could find that this could be relevant one day to you too. You too, are likely just a number that can be disposed of without any thought.
And to those out there who are toiling away at jobs they hate, save up some cash and bounce. This isn’t as scary as it seems, the water is just fine, I promise.
NBA…it’s back folks!
It’s been a long offseason so here is a list of things I forgot… Danny Green in a Laker. Al Horford is a Sixer. LeBron story-lines and coverage is still insufferable. You can review plays now? There’s a shot clock in the middle of the fucking floor?
Without doing any research and from watching some games around the league the last two nights, I’ll take my hand at predicting some playoff seeds by conference.
West
Rockets
Clippers
Jazz
Nuggets
Lakers
Blazers
Warriors
Spurs
East
Sixers
Bucks
Celtics
Raptors
Pacers
Heat
Nets
Bulls
NFL Mishmash
The NFL still is king of horrific calls…starting with the Deshaun call from Sunday
Let’s not forget terrible and now anointed Derek Carr rule™
We are going to keep having giant games and playoff implications ruined by inconsistent rules…it’s not going away so let’s just bitch in the meantime. One team who won’t likely worry about playoff implications is my Chicago Bears who managed to get fucking trounced at home to a depleted Saints roster at home during America’s game of the week.
One team who I still buy into is the Eagles, who I still won’t fully count out since it still isn’t clear if the Cowboys are *really* even good and anything I say bad about Philly comes back to result in the Eagles managing to curb stomp the Bears...wow looks like I’m making this about the Bears, I’m pretty miserable!
The Packers, despite having a bit of up-and-down but improved defense, are 100% offensively with Aaron Rodgers delivering the QB performance of the year...Kirk Cousins looked pretty good (in consecutive weeks at that!) and I used to think Matt Stafford was one of the biggest bum pieces of shit quarterback and you know what... that’s wrong. Once again, the Bears are in the quarterback cellar in the NFC North and even looking to be that way in head coaching too..suddenly Matt Patricia doesn’t look like such a dumb slob anymore.
Trubisky was awful but somehow wasn’t even the worse QB on the day, which went to one Andy Dalton...these might be some of the worst INT’s you’ll see.
How about Sam Darnold? Throwing for 4 picks and totaling 6 turnovers.
So in my Ass-Quarterback rating of Week 7, it goes…
1. Sam Darnold
2. Andy Dalton
3. Mitch Trubisky
Week 8 - not your finest NFL! Throw all the noon games out, go do something better with your time…the afternoon brings us Browns - Patriots, Raiders - Texans and if the Chiefs are stupid enough to rush back Patrick Mahomes, then Packers-Chiefs at 7:20 is must-see TV. I love Mahomes and want to see him healthy but I also don’t want to spend a second watching Matt Moore throw a football.
Food Viewing
I’ll end and keep this brief so I can go workout and thus make room to eat more bad-foods, I don’t have anything notable I cooked recently or anything to pass along but where I have gotten a lot of inspiration to get in the kitchen and try out some new stuff has stemmed from a lot of great food viewing including the new Dave Chang show on Netflix - Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.
Some other notables…
Alex Eats it All (YouTube)
Munches (Youtube)
Ugly Delicious (Netflix)
The Chef Show (Netflix)
Chef’s Night Out (YouTube)
Just a Dash w Matty Matheson (Youtube)
Fuck That’s Delicious (Hulu, Viceland)