i was chatting with a pen pal of sorts earlier today and she was telling me about her challenges of being successful yet coming home to an empty home. i told her i know the feeling all too well, now and in my early thirties as well. still, the loneliness now is less suffocating than before. i wouldn’t say it sucks, it’s there and it bites me once or twice a month but for the most part i go on my daily life feeling pretty content. more or less having a more meaningful purpose being a father and thinking about how i can serve others through the vehicle that is the business. at this point in my success, i feel like i reach my plateau in terms of comfort. more success at this point is going to just be indulgent if i don’t start diverting that to karmic success to others. even now as i think back in my own materialism in the past year, i am slightly disgusted by my spending habits and it would get worse if i don’t shift my perspective. yes, one of my goals this year is to spend\/buy less things in general but i still have to reign in my experiential materialism – ie, don’t get caught in achievement of the bucket list. anyway, i digress from why i think this round of loneliness is quite different than the previous round. since i have sort of fakingly given up on the whole online dating thing (once or twice i month i like to distract myself with shot in the dark with random people), i am getting steady more comfortable with being alone for the rest of my life. given that i tried to fill my last round of loneliness with marriage and an instant family, i am obviously weary of falling into the same situation. at this point, i am rationalizing to myself that this next one has to be the ONE, or i rather just be myself. why compromise any more when you’ve found contentment more or less. i get it that we experience more emotional highs and lows when we’re in a relationship but at what cost to our well being. i read a recent blog post recently about expanding the field of love beyond the self and i intellectually agreed with it but i knew that i wasn’t experientially wasn’t ready for it. still, i am very much open to the idea that expanding my circle of love beyond myself my eogish need seems like the right path. i understand it spiritually as an expression of compassion but adopting that expansive perspective on the more primal level requires more digestion of sorts. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
i was chatting with a pen pal of sorts earlier today and she was telling me about her challenges of being successful yet coming home to an empty home. i told her i know the feeling all too well, now and in my early thirties as well. still, the loneliness now is less suffocating than before. i wouldn’t say it sucks, it’s there and it bites me once or twice a month but for the most part i go on my daily life feeling pretty content. more or less having a more meaningful purpose being a father […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thoughts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb4m0Z-1vD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jack.orangephotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jack.orangephotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jack.orangephotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jack.orangephotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jack.orangephotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jack.orangephotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5806,"href":"https:\/\/jack.orangephotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5805\/revisions\/5806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jack.orangephotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jack.orangephotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jack.orangephotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}