Level Grinding

It's another instance where a nerdy kind of reference is one of the best analogies for what I'm feeling in the moment, my friends.  For anyone who has a very different connotation with the word "grinding," rest assured that I will explain.

So, I was talking with my brother the other day.  We agreed that we were at some different kinds of crossroads in our lives, where we're preparing for changes to happen, to start out on new paths and new adventures, but unable to take any kind of plunge as it stands now for various reasons.  Perhaps it's money.  Perhaps the right opportunity simply hasn't presented itself.  Perhaps the timing simply isn't right.  It's a tough place to be, feeling that you're pretty certain of what you want to do but impotentent, stuck, and on the outside of where you want to be.  

I've been describing this recently as "the millennial cross to bear."  When you have a mortgage's worth of student debt but no house to show for it, it's easy to feel hopeless.  When there's no wiggle room in the budget to fit another mortgage, most millennials can't buy a house.  What entry-level job allows you to pay down your student debt AND a house payment AND start a family?  Is it any wonder that the millennials are, by collective conditioning, frugal?  But, no, we're killing the paper plate industry by choosing to wash dishes to A) save the environment and B) save on buying paper plates or destroying Applebees by recognizing that we don't have enough money to go out to a restaurant for food we can make at home.  Also, that's capitalism for you--if your industry is no longer relevant, then your business deserves to die.  These components are the core of a much longer rant that I might get to soon, but this context is important to what I want to say today.  To any non-millennials reading the above paragraph and feeling a knee-jerk response that includes the word "entitled," please hold off for the moment and take this statement instead:  what I would want you to understand is that there are concerns and pressures that are specific to this generation that other generations do not have context for.  This ultimately frames my perception and affects my decisions.  

SO, my brother and I were talking about our lives, where we might want to end up and what our dreams are.  It feels like I'm spinning my wheels right now in a lot of ways.  Andy and I are working hard, but we don't feel like we're making much progress.  It's hard to keep working toward goals with 42K of student debt hanging over your head, knowing that there are risks and opportunities that have to be turned down as a result, even if they would move you closer to what you really want.  But, we are still making progress--my student debt is down to 40K, for example, and it is now our only remaining debt.  Right now, I'm using an app and some fun reading books to learn Norwegian; we're building our emergency fund up a little bit before focusing our efforts on my student loans; I'm continuing to better my health and seek positive changes there.  Andy and I are doing alright.  But we're still homesick for the future, and it's easy to fall into existential nihilism and flat-out depression.  

Millennial=Sisyphus? 

My brother put it thusly:  we're just grinding levels right now.  When playing a videogame, sometimes you've got a really nasty boss coming up that you know would kill you almost immediately if you were to try and take it on.  So what a lot of gamers do is grind levels, meaning that they will spend a great deal of time in the same area, before the boss, building experience and getting stronger before returning to take on said boss.  E.g. walking around in the tall grass to find more Pokemon to fight and wandering back to the Pokecenter to heal back up again and again until the whole team is at a high enough level to defeat the gym leader.  This can take a long time, building up to that level a few experience points at a time, mindlessly churning through tedious, small battles until all members of the party are trained to a high enough level to meet that boss and succeed.  

I've said the same thing in different ways, that Andy and I are trying to make ourselves ready for whatever is going to happen (buying a house, moving to Norway, starting a family, whathaveyou), but there is a different feeling of accomplishment in comparing it to level grinding.  It feels more tangible, thinking about myself as leveling up in knowledge or strength or stamina.  My time isn't wasted or useless; I'm just working slowly toward the point where I'll be able to take on that next boss level and succeed.  The frame shift helps.  It's a much more positive way to look at what we're doing without feeling down about where we're at.  

However, some of that is still about finding balance.  Grinding levels in the same place again and again can get tiring and discouraging in its own right.  It's important to find the right areas that are going to level you up in the ways you want to grow.  I've decided that part of what I'm going to be doing is taking some extra courses at Heartland, just one a semester--I need some structure in learning new things.  I know that I have enough self-discipline to do this on my own to some extent, which is how I've gotten as far on my Norwegian as I have, but there' still something different about taking an actual class.  Starting with a Psychology course this week, as it happens!  This will continue to prepare me for whatever happens next and gives me something else to work toward in the meanwhile, if nothing else distracting me from how scary the numbers are in my student debt.  

We're not floundering.  We're not spinning our wheels.  We're just grinding levels, my friends.  That super-boss isn't going to know what hit'em.  

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Okay, I just have to share the following GIF that I found when looking for Sisyphus GIFs because it makes me laugh:

Yes, a tiger-shrimp moving a macaron up a mountain.