I feel like if I were to dedicate myself, I could do anything.

I’ve been watching basketball analysis for a long time.

Studying people who are great at basketball offers a whole new light to what can be done in life.

It motivates me.

How these people think about the game they play.

How seriously they take this.

How dedicated they all are to what they do.

The amount of practice they put in.

The dedication and the love of the game.

It motivates people.

Fans go nuts

People go fucking wild

Kobe Bryant says casually he’s in the gym 10 hours per day.

I’m not in my gym 10 hours per day.

I’m in my gym like, much less than that.

I’m writting content much less than that.

What if I turned up the heat

What if I loved turning up the heat

What if I loved what I did

What if I loved making content

What if making content felt like drinking water to me?

What if making content was second nature to me

What if I was addicted to making content

What if I lived, breathed, and slept content

And it was fun

And it was so invigorating.

I could create content all the time.

I could create products all the time.

I feel like my motivation would Peter out or something would happen to it

I feel like somewhere along the way I’d stop

Somewhere I’d get lost.

I don’t think finding success has to feel like climbing a mountain.

I don’t think pushing yourself is the only way to get it.

I think freeing yourself is another way to get it.

The process might be able to feel easy or effortless.

When I’m no longer the person exerting the effort and the effort flows through me.

But I can only channel this energy at certain times of day and I don’t yet understand why.

It’s during the early morning and late at night when I can channel this energy.

When no one else is around and when I’m by myself.

When I’m procrastinating on going to sleep because something else is more interesting to me.

If nothing else, I’m glad I’m writing this for myself.

For me to look back on 40 years from now and read what I was thinking now in my early 20s

Trying to understand the world and figure out how I can let the world flow through me instead of being depressed all the time.

I’m beyond grateful that I made the decision to go to therapy.

It was the easiest decision I’ve ever made.

Like when my aunt Jill brought it up in the car back in 2020?

Not sure if it was 2020, but I think that sounds right.

I jumped on the opportunity.

She said she and Bryan had been going to therapy for a minute and they found a therapist who was working with them with a great deal that was affordable for them.

I was all over it like, “is he taking on new clients”

Then she gave me his number and the rest is history

He helped me understand what emotions I was feeling, 

(Mad/Sad/Glad/Scared/Hurt)

What emotions others were feeling, 

What miscommunications existed in the space between people.

And how to understand the world from a logical emotional perspective.

He suggested I try living in Brainerd or a city and eventually that’s what helped me develop enough angst to move to Atlanta and move in with Hilton (the stripper I fell in love with and was my first kiss).

That shit was stressful as hell

I had and still have super high anxiety

So going to a new place was scary

But my dad was there, so I always had that as a fallback and I had a bunch of money saved like $30k at the time, so that was enough for me to spend $15k on a car and have enough to keep rolling.

(In 2023 my rent price was about $1900 split 2 ways each month)

Especially with a high-paying salary job working at a software company, I was doing well.

I felt happy

I felt like I was moving to a good place.

And that felt good.

Entering the dating game, 5 breakups, and a bunch of emotions later, I feel like an older person.

Maybe not a better person, but a more experienced person

Or a person who’s experienced some shit.

I wonder how I’ll feel like 20 more years down the line.

I wonder if the feeling of experience compounds

I hope it does.

It’s a strangely surreal feeling.

To feel like you’ve seen the world in a more ‘whole’ way.

I think if I’d stayed in high school, gone onto college, etc.

The trips I would have taken and experiences I would have had would be more reflective of me being a ‘foreigner’ or a ‘tourist’

2 weeks here, 2 weeks there, but never really leaving home.

I’ve been fortunate enough with my ‘education’ to spend 2 months in Europe, as much time as I’d like traveling the US and even the opportunity to get my own place in Europe or Asia wherever I wanted to.

I just didn’t want to settle there.

I didn’t love it there.

That environment pushed me to be a different person

To see the world from a new perspective and learn how to survive without my mom, dad, or Chris within 5000 miles of me.

For the first time, I had to figure my own shit out.

I had to book my own flights

I had to plan how I was going to get to the airport

I had to plan where I was going to sleep, make the money to sleep there, and book the Airbnb

I stayed in Airbnbs because Chris showed me how that works.

I saw someone I looked up to do it and so I did exactly that.

My mom taught me how to succeed in difficult circumstances

My dad taught me how to see the color in the world

My mentor taught me how to leave the bubble.

I learned so much valuable shit

I’m so far from where I came.

These last 3 years have been so life changing. Perspective changing.

(and more than that if I date back to when I dropped out of high school at age 15)

Having no money

Turning nothing into something

Having no vision

Seeing that there’s something out there

Having no clarity

Realizing that I don’t know everything

I can’t know everything

If I try to know everything I’ll go crazy.

If I could dedicate myself to choosing something and doing it.

Doing it in order to have so much fun I never want to stop.

Maybe that could be the addiction I base my life on.

Creating content and having experiences and shit.

I don’t feel like I’m creating anything.

I feel like I’m just ranting.

I feel like I’m just vomiting on the ‘paper’ (keyboard)

I used to worry about creating content that’s high quality.

But maybe I just need to create the content I feel like creating.

Living the life I feel like living.

And being the person I feel like I want to be.

Instead of comparing myself to other people, trying to get what others have, and trying to find some kind of safety.

I can live a life I’ll remember.

I can meet the people who cross my path

I can try to avoid controlling other people’s paths

Briar is gone.

Briar is somewhere else.

I’m gone.

I’m somewhere else.

I miss her

I think about her.

I’m sad that I’m not with her and I’m jealous of those who are.

I miss her.

Sometimes I hope one day I’ll meet her again.

But I don’t know if that day will come.

I don’t know what that day would be like.

I hope by then I’ve moved on.

I hope I can move on.

Sometimes I don’t think I can.

“You’re smitten with her”

My therapist has told me that shit like 10 times.

“smitten”

Fucking 1930s

I need to take a shower, but I don’t want to stop writing right now.

I want more thoughts to come out of my head.

I think it’s interesting that if you’re reading this, you’re looking directly into my brain right now.

You’re hearing exactly what I’m thinking.

You might have thoughts about me

Maybe that I’m arrogant, self-interested, obsessive, idk.

Could be anything.

I don’t want to be those things.

I don’t want to be the negative things others see in me.

But if I am the negative things others see in me, then I don’t think I can really avoid that.

Some people are like, “you can be a nice person”

But I don’t think I can be a person that I’m not wired to be.

If I’m wired to find a nice person in my path, then I will be that person

If I’m not, I’m not

I love people

I care about people

And I think about them.

I think about them everyday.

I miss people.

I feel alone a lot of the time.

It’s the times I don’t feel alone that I try and hold onto.

Like the time when Briar like searched my ass up on the internet like a creep.

That shit was awesome.

That was funny.

That was good

That was like the thing I wanted to preserve.

“I think you’re taking too much responsibility over this situation” – Will’s therapist

“Briar had a part in that too. Maybe this isn’t all your fucking up”

But how do I let that be?

How do I go to sleep at night feeling okay?

How do I not feel like shit all the time?

How do I not let that fuel my motivation to be famous or try to do something to grow a following to re-appear in her lens of life?

Being alone fucking sucks

Being alone and without her sucks even worse.

But like I want to move on.

If I could flip a switch (like getting a lobotomy)

And get over her just like that, I would.

I would LOVE to.

Then my mind would be free to do other shit like play with magic cards or do nothing.

But it’s running, it’s running all the time

It’s been running since before I met her

It’s been running since I met Hilton

And even before that

Since I met the waitress in Duluth I was convinced would be my wife because she was sooooo pretty and she was looking at me cute 🙂

That shit makes my heart warm

That makes me feel alive.

I’m sick of feeling like I want to die all the damn time.

In those moments, there’s nothing but bliss

Older people say shit like “there’s plenty of fish”

And other things like that

Things like, “life goes on”

But even with all the sentiment that they intend for me to feel better, I don’t.

I feel stuck

I feel sad

I feel empty.

It’s been 8 years I’ve felt that way

Stuck, sad, & empty

I don’t know what happened in my brain where I was like, “shit, life sucks and I need to struggle against it”

Like I’d been going along with the system for years until I got in trouble at school when I was 14 (about 8 years ago)

I hate the principle, I’ll go into that probably in some other post

But that dude sucks.

I hate that dude.

I don’t hate a lot of things, but I hate that dude.

Don’t get me started on that motherfucker.

But we also lost the house at the same time and had a stressful move.

My dad and step-mom were trying to get custody of me and convince me to move in with them.

I was under the stress of going into high school maintaining straight A+ grades, while getting Eagle Scout at age 14, and participating in multiple extracurricular activities every season.

I didn’t feel very restful.

I felt way too busy.

I felt way too stressed.

It’s turned me into an adult who can handle a good deal of stress, but I don’t really know who I am. I’m lost.

When other kids where spending time figuring themselves out, dating, and being hooligans, I was grinding to be ‘great’

Have a great resume, participate in everything at the highest level, and be a badass.

I walked away from it all with a large multi-dextrous set of skills and an ability to believe I can excel at everything, but not knowing who I am.

Not knowing what I want in life

Not knowing what I like

Feeling stuck and sad.

So I guess I don’t know if dedication would solve my problem.

Maybe it wouldn’t, but maybe it doesn’t need to

Maybe dedication is something I could do just for today

Maybe dedication is something I could do just for this little article here.

And I could be happy with that.

I could be happy that I now have a cool little time capsule into how I was thinking at the ripe age of 22.

I feel old. It’s the oldest I’ve ever been, but “ripe age of 22” sounds cute.

And I understand that when I’m 25, I’ll think that I was a baby at 22.

You know what, I have more to say.

More shit just came into my mind.

God just jizzed once again in my brain.

My eye doctor when I was 18 told me that my brain isn’t even fully formed.

And I was like, “what are you talking about motherfucker?”

I didn’t say that, but that’s what I was thinking.

I’m like, “if I’m thinking like this now, then I wonder what my 25 year old self will be like”

The way I was thinking at the time was about buying a house.

I’d saved up a bunch of money and had about $40k in my account which was enough for a down payment.

I thought I was a smart kid who was capable of making decisions others lacked the discipline or drive to do.

Others were distracted or maybe didn’t have the circumstance to take on that challenge that I had.

I would scrimp and save every penny I could and felt bad about spending money in any way.

For YEARS.

I also had no expenses because I was living with my mom and that afforded me free rent and free food.

So no expenses and working full time making part time money for 3 years saved me enough to down pay on a house.

Come to think of that, I need to refinance that house soon, so I need to save up more money to take a hit on refinancing.

AHHHHHHHH

I hate that shit.

I hate having to spend money on housing and stuff, but I get it.

I get how it works.

Saving money is hard.

Oh! But back to the point, the eye doctor was talking about that.

And so I’m very curious what 25 year old me thinks of what I’m writing now.

Maybe 25 year old Will will leave a comment in the comments section to update on their thoughts here.

I’ll probably forget, but at some point, if I check this post out again, I’ve gotta know what the current day Will thinks about what Will at age 22 writing this post thinks.

I watch Minecraft videos 15 year old Will made and I watch WordPress videos 18 year old Will made and I’m like super proud of that person.

I don’t feel like that was me.

I feel like that was my kid or something.

I don’t identify with that person,

I legitimately feel dissociated from that person

But I’m like, “that motherfucker is a badass, and because of him, I’m where I am today.”

And I know that kid felt depressed.

I know how that kid knelt on the floor like empty crying (crying with no tears)

Feeling like I was stuck and at rock bottom the whole way up.

I carry the burden that motherfucker had, but in a way, I’m happy I have it.

I’m happy he no longer has it and in the past I can choose not to see the depression.

I can choose to take on the pain today and look back and be like, “you’re doing great man, I love you.”

I think about killing myself a lot. Too much. But here’s the thing,

In some way I want to know that his work and his hope of finding his way out of a small town in Minnesota didn’t go to waste.

That the freedom he dreamed of is something I now have.

Something I now can hold.

I want future me to know that the freedom they have is because of the work I’m putting in today.

The work I’m putting in learning to more freely express myself is why she can do the things she can do.

Changing in life is hard.

Changing in life if fucking terrifying and scary

And new perspectives are hard to grasp.

It’s hard for me now to be like, “I’m going to be close to poor for a while”

I’m going to spend less and grind more.

I’m going to reflect on these last 3 years and last 8 years and I’m going to try and understand what truly happened.

I’m grateful to be in the process of documenting it though

Getting in the process of figuring out how to express my ideas in a more creative way.

A way that’s more in tune with how I’m thinking and feeling

I knew somewhere out there I’d find some sense of freedom if I kept looking for it.

I think I’ve stumbled across a unique brand of creative freedom here with this writing stuff and I hope I carry it on only if I want to and not if I feel like I need to.

I hope I do what I want and do what I need to do and communicate with those I need to communicate with.

Not those like Briar who like to ignore me.

It breaks my fucking heart that she ignores me.

It breaks my heart.

God, that shit makes me so sad.

But I know that future Will will not feel my sadness now, but I want future Will to know I feel hers.

And to know that 22 year old Will, 18 year old Will, 14 year old Will, are all on her side. Fighting for freedom for all of us.

I guess that’s what I’m dedicated to for now, for this week.

I’m dedicated to fighting for that mental liberation, self-actualization, and emotional freedom.

Maybe I’ll be inspired to push myself the way the professional basketball players do. Or maybe I’ll just fuck around and be okay with that. I sucked at basketball as a kid. I loved cool ass moves. I didn’t care much about winning at all.

That’s the time in my life when I thought, “fuck winning, I’m just here to do cool shit and have fun.”

Maybe 10 year old Will knew something 22 year old Will doesn’t.