I’ve had a lot of mixed feelings over the past couple of months – glad that I’m in the work position I want to be in, but feeling like I’m on auto-pilot a lot.

I wear many hats at SVM: Sports reporter, occasional news reporter, magazine writer, Prairie Advocate sports coordinator, handling Letters to the Editor, and Community section blurb writer. Got all that?

I never used a planner until I started working full-time, not even during my school days when they tried to drill it in your heads and make it mandatory. I now use one, and it has all of my To-Do things on it, as well as various appointments and phone calls.

Last week, I started losing track of my planner. Not because it became useless, but because I had been so busy with our Election corespondance. So many Letters to the Editor threw my other job responsibilities out of whack.

All I could think about was work. Work, work, work, work, work. It seemed like, in all other aspects of life, I was MIA. Also, because of this mindset, the home life goes off-kilter. My auto-piloting way of life creates such a messy house.

While I am where I want to be professionally, and making good money at that, it’s everything else that I’m having difficulty controlling right now.

Making sure my house is clean
Paying certain bills (those 2 or 3 that bug me)
Eating right
Being there for my family
Being there for my friends
Having fun outside of work

I look at FUN in 3 perspectives: 1) Knowledge, 2) Entertainment, and 3) Activity.

I fall under the Knowledge part. What is fun to me is getting to know and learn many different things, traveling to different places, understanding culture, and finding interesting things. I like libraries, museums, flea markets, and I brake for brown Historical Marker signs.

The Entertainment aspect involves a lot of music, television, movies, anime/comics, and fantasy. That’s not really me, especially with the more current stuff.

The Activity aspect involves sports, movement, racing, fitness, hard-working stuff, fishing/hunting, etc. I’m not in real good shape to perform these things, but obviously I enjoy my sports.

I’ve always found it difficult to find like-minded people. Because of that, I’ve had many more older friends than perhaps this around my age.

Even more difficult is finding a girlfriend under these circumstances. Not many I know are like-minded with me, but I would feel somewhat confused and lost if I ever were with someone opposite from me, or different from me. If we find it hard to understand each other, we’re just wasting each other’s times, don’t you think?

I hope to get better in the next few weeks.