I only learned just the other day that the new season of Reacher came out on Prime. I’m kinda sad that I didn’t learn about its release until only accidentally while scrolling randomly through Reddit while trying to solve some programming issue I was having. Granted, I’m also glad I learned about it when I did. Otherwise, it may not have been as impactful as it has been in the last less than 24hrs.

For the last few months, I’ve been in a huge, depressive rut. Don’t like what’s going on at work, don’t really enjoy my work (that goes on longer, but it’s still a player), can’t stand the fact I have so little free time, I spend my free time trying to skill-up but I have no energy after work, sleep is difficult (always has been), and not cleaning my apartment (…at all). The list just keeps going, but I’m not going to keep exanding it since there’s no point. You get the idea.

Anyway, throughout this depressive period, I’ve been “forcing” myself to continually show up to baseball practice, Thursday night Italian classes, and learning programming (which I’ve been doing for the better part of 3yrs at this point). But, I’m not where I wanted to be and sustaining my focus on any one of those things has been a HUGE challenge during this time. I haven’t really wanted to go out and doing anything with anyone, outside of my obligations, and already being prone to loneliness doesn’t make for a good mix. So, of course, I’ve been extremely lonely throughout this time as well. That’s mostly of my own making, though. Regardless, I’ve struggled a lot with keeping my motivation to keep going with my programming and really dedicating time to actually coding and not just “learning” by consuming programming content, essentially “faking” learning to create the illusion of learning so I could say I was studying coding to those who asked. To be fair, I’ve still been actually practicing during this time and have been making a conserted effort to create programs and not just follow my Boot.Dev curriculum.

But, sustaining that effort has been an enormous hurdle. I often can’t bring myself to code for more than about 1-4 hours when I have huge chunks of time. Yes, that’s already a solid effort, especially while battling depression at the same time. But, it’s something that’s really frustrating for me as someone that has prided himself in being able to sustain his efforts put into something for long periods of time. I like being able to mostly finish something all in one sitting, though programming doesn’t really allow for that at my level since I don’t yet have the required knowledge to be able to build things that fast. I can make small iterations, sure, but then I get the dopamine of making the small thing work and almost immediately lose all motivation to continue working on the thing. I don’t know, it’s just what I’m struggling with that’s pertinent to me. I won’t even talk about the fact that more often than not, especially on the weekends, I can sustain only about 30min to an hour of focus until all I want to do is go play video games and/or watch YouTube for a little bit, which then turns into the entire weekend slipping by without even noticing what’s happened.

What does this all have to do with some random TV show, though? Everything. After learning that there was a new season of Reacher I had to watch it. I loved the first two seasons, so I knew I’d love the third. While it’s not over, yet (still 2 episodes left to realease :tears:), it’s been so much fun watching how they continued the series. While I would’ve been hugely satisfied if they only had the two seasons because season two ended so well story-wise, I’m also glad to have more Reacher to enjoy. It’s not without its faults, of course (looking at you corny dialogue…), but it flipped a switch for me.

The thing I love about Reacher is his raw capability to accomplish the tasks set before him and solve the problems that arrise at every turn. He’s extremely competent in what he does, is a hulk of a human, and of course wins the affection of the beautiful, highly competent woman of the season. Now, I don’t personally condone going from woman to woman and not being committed to one, but that’s his character and each season stands alone really well. Who doesn’t want all those things, though? To be the person who’s highly competent at what they do, able to solve the problems that they are confronted with, being in peak physical shape to survive what life decides to throw their way, and winning the heart/affection of the person they’re attracted to. Is this all stupidly simplistic? Duh. But, that’s also part of the point. It’s supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be a fantasy. You can pick the parts you like and discard the rest. But, overall, it’s a lot of the things that I myself would like, to finally speak more “specifically”.

I want to be competent. I want to be physically and mentally fit. I want to get the girl. Like, it’s really that simple. But, all of those things are hard to think about when you don’t actually interact with those aspects regularly as reminders of what you’re wanting to achieve: what I’m wanting to achieve. When I’m stuck in a seemingly never-ending rut, I can barely think past the current day’s BS that I don’t want to be dealing with. I want to move through it as fast as possible so I can get to the next day and the next to eventually reach the day when I don’t have to deal with the BS and I can do what I want to do. However, life doesn’t work that way. It throws speed-bumps in the road, random boss encounters, and tedium that only an insane person would enjoy. But, that shouldn’t prevent me from going after what I want and who I want to be. Watching Reacher was a reminder that I still have things I’m striving for, and they can be achieved, but they won’t come easy. I have to put in the work to be and stay healthy. I have to put in the work to become a competent programmer so I can get a job in tech. I have to put in the work to go out and meet new people and share my kindness with the world to eventually meet my future wife. None of this will happen over-night and it certainly won’t happen staying coopped-up in my apartment (well, getting better at programming can happen from home, but that’s beside the point). But, I can take the small steps necessary to move the needle, like just cleaning my apartment and sitting down to build my programming projects. And one day, I will achieve what I’ve set out to achieve and continue striving to do/be better than yesterday.