The Annual State of the Rob address...

Yesterday was my birthday, which I chose to celebrate as quietly as possible. The reason for this is that I'm not very good company on my birthday, as I get a little caught up in the events of the previous year, what went right, what went wrong, and what the future holds. It's a tough process for me, and it tends to make me very moody and mopey. I think a lot of people do this, but distract themselves with planned events to keep themselves from dwelling on it too much. I have never been very good at this.

Our culture has elevated our birthdays to a personal holiday that can never really live up to the hype. Your birthday is supposed to be filled with fun, good times, good friends, and a party involving baked goods and pyrotechnics. Mine involved two calls from the kids school (once about each kid), fretting about my wife's malfunctioning bionic implant, and bad news about an event I help organize. I did have the chance to play STO for a little while, but on the whole my day was spent moping.

I believe that we are the product of the decisions we've made up to this point in our lives. all of us make good calls and bad calls about our lives that in turn we have to live with. I have made a few doozies over the past year or so, but on the whole, I think that I have made more good decisions than bad ones. My carrer is going really well, and I seem to have more writing projects than I know what to do with. I have 5 appearences booked for the coming year, (up from 3 last year), and have more on the horizon. I'm really starting to enjoy this whole "Professional Writer" thing.

So, why so mopey? That's a little trickier to explain... In a very real way, I may be hitting my mid-life crisis. Yesterday, my thoughts primarily dwelled on things I haven't accomplished, and things that I feel like I'm failing at. A lot of these things are beyond my control, of course... I can't make Pint Size poop in the potty, fix Silverfox's implant, make Short Stuff pay attention in class, or magically repair years of wear and tear on my truck... but I desperately want to, and sometimes it's difficult to accept your own limitations.

So, in the coming year, I'm going to try to accept the things that are beyond my control, instead of bitching about them. I'm going to try to write in my blog more. Most importantly, I'm going to try to be less of a freaking sourpuss.