Week from Hell

This Week Sucks

I usually try to keep my blog posts more formal, optimistic, and otherwise useful to you, the reader.

But today - or rather tonight - is a bit different.

I've had a week from hell, and I'm just going to spout off some of this garbage to get it out of my head. With any luck, maybe you'll find my chaotic mind comforting in case you're going through a similar experience.

Day Job

Without a doubt, the number one thing that has really set me off this week is my day job. It has really pissed me off. I am absolutely sick of it right now.

I have been on this lonely, solopreneur, bootstrapper journey for three years. Read that again: three years.

And the entire time, I've had to balance a day job. Living off of savings, or my wife's salary, or a cheaper living situation is simply not possible right now. And while I am blessed and have much to be thankful for, I'm not rich. Neither is my family, and in fact, I've come to realize that I'm the first-generation entrepreneur in my family. I think I need to write another blogpost on being a first-generation entrepreneur because you have to setup an entire foundation from scratch, all on your own. No offense to people who inherit a family business, but if you don't know what it's like going from zero to one, then you simply don't know.

So here I am, stuck endlessly balancing a day job that insists on making my life miserable half the time.

Is there a magic formula to making it all work? Hmm... let's see... NOPE. If you find a magic balancing formula, then please let me know. The closest concoction I've found is God, wife, gym, Xbox, and friends.

If I'm being honest with you, I feel like I'm barely holding it together sometimes.

It's brutal and it sucks, and I've already endured three years of it.

Gym

Speaking of the gym, my physical fitness has been disastrous for the past few years. My entire life, I've been lean and skinny and was always able to eat whatever I wanted. During my undergrad years, I was the school's top mathematics tutor, so I was constantly walking, moving, and burning endless calories.

Then, I got a "real job", life caught up with me, I didn't discipline myself physically, and for years now I've been suffering the consequences. And man have they sucked.

If there's a glimmer of optimism in this post, it's that I've spent over a year now building good exercise and gym habits, and about three months ago, I totally revamped my workout routine. And WOW has it been showing me some results!

The results are slow, painful, and only achieved one gym session at a time, but I am really locked in with the gym right now. While my day job has been incessantly pissing me off this week, interestingly my mind has just perfectly synced itself to the gym. I can barely make myself take a rest day for my muscles right now, and yet again tonight, as I was having another mental meltdown, I went straight to my car, walked in the gym, and murdered a cardio session for half an hour.

In fact, I want to give myself a pat on the back: for the past three days, I've gone to the gym as late as 8:30pm and 9:00pm! Now that is dedication. I'm getting to the point where I'd rather sacrifice dinner or free time to hit the gym, and I like it.

My gym routine is very simple right now: 3 sets of 12 reps per exercise, where set 3 is to form failure. If I complete at least 12 reps on set 3, then I up the weight next gym session. I've learned that this is what Jeff Nippard and friends call "progressive overloading", and I love its simplicity.

I look forward to seeing where I am about a year from now.

My Business

And in the meantime, I'm still desperately trying to work on my business. When the day job decides to be a stupid pain in the neck like it has been this week, it makes finding time for my business really difficult. And that makes me angry.

One of these days, I'm going to break free. And I will never, ever look back. Gone will be the days of me working for someone else, may they die in infamy.

Why the heck is this absurd journey so painful?

Sometimes I really think I must be a complete moron, else why would it be this hard? But thanks to some of my bootstrapper Twitter friends, whom I am immensely grateful for, they have reminded me that they are experiencing or have experienced the same thing.

So maybe I'm not a complete moron after all.

Maybe solo-bootstrapping a business with a day job just freaking sucks no matter who you are.

Maybe some weeks are just from hell.

Here's to the next one.