Tearing Up My Hometown Bar And All The Other Ways I Deterred Myself From Being Successful This Week

======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ==== ======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ====

I won’t lie to you; I’m hungover as fuck right now. I tied one on too tight last night. What was I celebrating? The fact that I finally got a chance to hang out and lounge by myself. Want to know how long it’s been since I’ve had a chance to do that? A month. Literally, one month. I popped the cork on a bottle of bourbon and went to town on some Walking Dead because fuck it, I had the time and resources.

You know, we went into Q2 about a week ago, and to be frank, I do feel significantly more confident in myself than I did going into Q1. I feel like I can hold my own in a conversation at work, I’ve been reading a lot more, and I’m knocking down goals on my personal to-do list left and right.

When I first decided that I was going to shoot to succeed, I had a lot to catch up on in my professional life. If there’s anything that I’ve learned after the first quarter, it’s that life is about balance. Balance between filling out spreadsheets during the day and tossing back shots at night. Between getting fired up about bagels and getting fired up about the happy hour specials. Between refilling the Keurig and being politely asked to leave the bar.

At this point, I think what’s holding me back is actually in my personal life. For example…

I pushed my friends to fuck up our hometown bar.

After eight hours of travel from Phoenix to Chicago (including layovers), I was on edge. I needed cheap booze and loose morals. Luckily, I was staying with my parents back in the suburbs over the weekend so I got to hang out with my hometown crew. We don’t need to get into the proportions, but just know that before going out, one of my best friends decided to mix whiskey and cold brew.

Fast forward to an hour and a half later. We’re in a new bar in our suburb and have broken no less than 3 pint glasses. There’s some kind of party going on at the bar, whether it’s a birthday or retirement, I’m not sure. All I know is that there was a cake. Either way, all I remember is holding three dollars in front of my friend and daring him to dive into said cake with his bare hands. He did, and proceeded to feed it to me wedding-style.

I woke up the next morning to a lower-than-normal bank account and disappointed looks from my parents. Fair enough.

I drank a bottle of wine every night, four nights in a row.

Sure, the fourth night was the whiskey equivalent of a full bottle of wine, but why split hairs? I’m back to regular hours, so I finally have time to lounge around and fully plan on taking advantage of it. I’m talking wine. I’m talking pizza rolls. I’m talking delivery sushi that costs way more than its worth. Some people may say, “That’s dangerous and you should go grocery shopping,” but to that, I say, “Meh.”

The fact is, I haven’t had a chance to just hang out and be relax for a whole month. My free time is important to me, and if that means having a little bit of a headache at work the next day, I’ll take that risk as long as it doesn’t affect my work.

That being said…

I’m not sure what I’ve gotten done this week.

There has to be a name for this, but I honestly can’t come up with it. I’ve been busting my ass at work this week, but I feel like I don’t have anything to show for it. It’s that feeling of copying and pasting back and forth into a Google Sheets spreadsheet only to realize that someone else has been working on that same report and is doing it better than you are. Except nobody is working on that report and you just suck at your job sometimes, but that’s okay. Just come back next week and knock it out of the park.

Truth be told, that’s all I have for this week. If it seems tame, that’s because it was. Hopefully next week the scales will balance out. Until then, cheers..

Image via Shutterstock

17

Respond

Email this to a friend

Hey, I saw this on Post Grad Problems. Check it out.

Charlie

Using sarcasm as a defense mechanism since 1993. At any given moment I'm either tired, drunk, or stressed out. Get at me at charliepgp@gmail.com or whatever.

• @therescharlie
• @herescharlie
• herescharlie