I have nothing but time...

I often hear people complain about not having enough time to do the things they want to do. I have the opposite problem. I have more time on my hands than I can handle, and not enough things to do with it. I'll say that I have at least 40 hours of unscheduled time a week. What do I do with that time? Usually I come home from work, see what's on TV, and before I know it I've watched two hours of King of Queens and it's 8:00 p.m. Sometimes I'll throw an episode of Two and a Half Men just to mix things up. So I'm pretty much pathetic.

I've also been feeling that lately (and by lately I mean possibly always), my life lacks any sort of meaning. I go to a job every day that is fine. It pays the bills, but I'm not passionate about it. I'm really not that passionate about King of Queens either, so where does that leave me?

I've been thinking about what makes a life meaningful. The answer is probably different for everyone, but for me I think it comes down to two things:

A. Quality relationships with other people, and
B. Doing something that makes a difference in other people's lives.

I need some serious work in both of these areas. I've always been kind of a loner, but I can't say that it's been good for me. How do I change this? And when it comes to doing something that makes a difference, it's hard to know where to get started.

So once again, I am full of questions but no answers. Questions are my specialty. Maybe that's okay. I once read that you have to know the right questions before you can get the right answers. That made me feel a little bit better, but I do hope I figure out the answers (at least some of them) relatively quickly. Like I said in my last post, I'm no longer a 'youth', and it's time to figure things out.

I'm no longer a "youth"

The other day I read a headline that said something like, "Youth vote picks Obama to win." My first thought was that of course people my age would pick Obama to win. It makes sense that he would get the 18-35 year old demographic. Then I read the article and realized that it meant youth as in too young to vote. Oh. That hasn't been me for awhile.

A month or so ago I had a conversation with my 21-year old brother about music. It went something like this:
Me: "Have you heard the new Gavin Rossdale song?"
Him: "Who's Gavin Rossdale?"
Me: "He was in Bush!"
Him: "What's Bush?"
Me (somewhat exasperated) "He's married to Gwen Stefani."
Him: "Oh, I know who she is."
He probably doesn't realize that Gwen Stefani started out in a band called No Doubt. Why would he? That was ten years ago and he was 11.

Watching sports, it kind of hit me hard that EVERY college athlete is younger than me. I know it's obvious, but I remember just like it was yesterday that those players were adults so much futher into their lives than I was. I'm to the point where many professional athletes are also younger than me. The ones who aren't are starting to think about retirement.

So, I've started to realize I am no longer a youth. And I must admit it came as somewhat of a shock. I feel exactly the same as I did when I was 18. I have no more of a clue what I'm doing with my life. The difference is that I'm expected to have my stuff together now. Has anyone else dealt with this? What do you do when you suddenly realize you're a grown-up, and it's nothing like you imagined it would be?

There's no such thing as runner's high

I'm sure you've heard of runner's high. Supposedly when you run, you're supposed to experience some sort of euphoria that some people compare to getting high (I guess). I'm seriously doubting the existence of this phenomenon. Those of you who know me know that I HATE running. I'm not exaggerating here. Even in the short period of my life where I was serious about running (serious is probably too strong a word), I dreaded my nightly run all day, every day. I admit, sometimes after I ran I would feel somewhat invigorated, but mostly what I felt was elation that I wouldn't have to do it again for at least 24 hours.

My brother runs. A lot. He's been asking me for years to run a 5k with him. He was recently on a mission, so I got a few years off. But he's back now, and wants to run a 5k on Thanksgiving, which is a mere 6.5 weeks away. I foolishly told him I would. I need some sort of goal to get me back into working out, and I figured this would take care of the motivation factor. Who wants to run a 5k in 45 minutes? Not me!

But then what? I've tried keeping my mp3 player stocked with new music. I've tried different types of workouts. Nothing seems to stick. What do you do to stay motivated? I'll take all of the suggestions I can get!

Top 7 reasons why I hate politics

7. My vote - lets be honest, it really doesn't count.
6. The fact that your vote doesn't really count could actually be a good thing if you're one of the many who vote for the political candidate that their favorite celebrity supports. (Me, I do pretty much whatever Oprah tells me to, so...).
5. Debate moderators encouraging candidates to jump down the other's throat. It may make for good entertainment, but I have no desire to watch the future president of the United States act like a teenage girl competing for head cheerleader. I want to know what you're going to do in office, not how stupid you think the other guy is. Ok, I'm kind of going to go off on a tangent here, but last year I went to a presentation of a former U.S. Senator. He expressed his disgust at the way politicians have turned to personal attacks. In his day (1950's to 1980's) you disagreed with someone's politics, but you still had respect for that person. Why can't we go back to that? I'm so tired of having to feel defensive of my opinion. I'm an intelligent human being who makes informed choices. If you are the same and happen to make a choice opposite from mine, I respect that. So please do the same for me.
4. This whole two party system just doesn't work for me. Let's get some more options in there.
3. Name dropping. It just happened in the debate I'm watching. I don't care that Henry Kissenger is on your speed dial. What is YOUR opinion. And on a slightly different note, I highly doubt that Biden was filling up with gas the other day and had a conversation with an average Joe about how much it cost to fill up his tank. Commence with the eye-roll.
2. Candidates who keep repeating untruths about the other side's campaign long after it has been proven to be false. This is rampant on both sides.
1. A quick browse of factcheck.org tells me that I can't believe a single thing either side says in their commercials, speeches, or debates. So what's the point?