I've made the call: I'm totally spending big money and roping in all the help I need to claim back my living space. It's not yet in the category of 'unlivable' or 'unthinkable', but it's absolutely not deseriable. Grime, grease, clutter, broken blinds, lack of a maintanable system for the reality of life: I need to put a stop to all this. Even if this means my whole paycheck this month will be gone for this 'living space revolution'.

I did this once before, back in 2018. It served me really well. I'm gonna do this again: ruthlessly making space. Space is great.

I can do this, there's no shame in getting help!

My annual review today was a mixed bag: a glowing written evaluation paired with a 'Developing' rating and a 3% increase. My manager noted these figures were locked in back in November, only six months into my tenure. A lot has changed since then; I’ve taken on more, and I think I have a fair chance of a better outcome next year, but the prospect doesn't cheer me up.

The truth is, I wasn’t so much disappointed by the 3% raise, or the fact that the company simply delayed it until August, as I was disappointed in myself. It’s the realisation that if I were further along - if I were 'better' in real terms - I wouldn't be in this position at all.

At 37, there’s a certain bitterness in sitting through a performance review, just like a schoolchild, waiting on someone else's green light. I feel kinda sad.

Lately I’ve realised something mildly tragic but mostly funny: I’ve been having some massive blind spots about inner peace, which explains why I hardly felt at peace 🙃

First, I missed the point that inner peace is… well, inner. You’d think the name would have clued me in, but no. I spent years outsourcing my calm to the “out there.” I thought if I could just organise the "out there" - the tasks, the space, the people - the "in here" would naturally settle.

But does the peace out there even exist? Apparently, life always finds new ways to shake the table. Waiting for the external order to deliver some internal calm is a miscalculation at best, and an addiction at worst.

My second blind spot: I wasn’t actually choosing inner peace; I was just loving the idea of it. When it came to practical decision-making, I threw peace out the window so easily, even for little things like emails and bad weather. For the longest time, I treated inner peace just as an afterthought, after all is said and done.

Now in my late 30s, I'm moving forward with the vision that inner peace is important to me, and it isn’t waiting on the other side of an ever-expanding to-do list. Inner peace is inner. And it’s a priority.