January 2nd, 2020. Just rolls right off the fingertips, doesn’t it? It’s a fresh start, a clean slate, a white piece of paper. It’s a brand new year and a brand new decade. This is your chance to leave the last 10 years behind and build upon them. There’s surely something positive to use as a foundation.

We’ve made our mistakes but we’ve learned from them. We’ve walked the path that leads nowhere, we’ve chased fruitless endeavors. We’ve learned skills and facts that have no impact on our day to day life. Did you know that China has more English speakers than the US? Told you. Zero impact.

I’ve decided that having all the world’s knowledge and history LITERALLY at my fingertips, I’m going to spend the next couple weeks learning things that could actually apply to my path and life. Free certifications are everywhere. With my desire to work for someone else diminishing, it only makes sense to grow my own “business” – Me. I have 0 idea what to sell, do, produce… but I’ve become weary of hunting for work for dead-end jobs. I asked one interviewer what the possibilities were for upward movement. “None. But is that kind of stuff important to you?”

Not at all, man. I’ll sit on a production line for 8 hours a day for the next 20 years with no chance of improving my position within the company. Holy shit, I was waiting for him to laugh and say “JUST KIDDING! OF COURSE THERE IS. YOU THINK WE’RE SLAVEDRIVERS OR SOMETHING?!” Nope, he kept his serious-face on. Thank you, but no thank you.

I’ve worked an unexpected 5-hour shift for an empty restaurant where I was to take on a role of supervisor. I was lied to, made no money, but I DID get a free delicious meatlover’s omelette for dinner. Spoiler alert – I emailed them the next day informing them to the fact I wasn’t coming back… even for more free omelettes.

My options have been few. Without listing them, I promise that very few have light at the end of the tunnel. I’m looking at the new year, a week in Mexico (4 days away), and endless opportunity as a chance to make myself a force.

For years, I’ve almost been borderline embarrassed of who I was, what I’ve done in the past, and the name that I was born with. Even typing that out is depressing. 10 years from now, 2030, I’ll be 44 years old. That’s always a number that I associate with someone being in the prime of their career, of their identity, whatever it may be. I’m unsure of what my career will become, but over the next couple weeks I’m going to be using my time to certify myself in anything I can find for free that could be interesting or separate me from the herd. Today’s journey? SEO rankings. I have very little knowledge of it besides associating tags with your content so people find it. We’ll see how true that holds up in a couple hours.

Now, shouldn’t that always be the thought process? Become something different? Does the world need more lawyers? Probably not. Do we need more salesmen? Eh… What about Instagram influencers? Obviously not.

The world needs more love, more people paying attention, more people that want to learn new things, make discoveries, differentiate themselves and contribute. Sitting here blogging doesn’t exactly make me the next big thing, but it’s reinforcement that this is my little experiment. I have let all of ONE person know about this website, and I’m not entirely sure how much she’ll actually read this. As I continue to grow my online presence, I’ll tell more people, but only when I’m more confident in the content I’m producing. I’m over 4 months in consistently, but it’ll take some more time, thought, and effort. This is the early-access version. Full release coming soon 😉

Iss there a potential in helping people empower, motivate, and enliven themselves? Yes. I think there’s people out there that struggle with the ridiculous and insane internal dialogue that I do. Can my redirection of words help? Yes… but only if people are willing help themselves. It’s easy to feel sorry for yourself. It’s easier to do than to wake up early, do some pull-ups and contribute to the world (see Jocko Willink’s Instagram). Tim Ferris released a blog today about “Make Before you Manage” essentially saying to contribute some creativity before you take on the pile of shit. Anything. I wholeheartedly agree – it’s easier to take care of your dumb shit after you’ve contributed. Something I should get better about.

I reach back to a battle I have all the time: I’d love to post about myself, share about what I’m doing because I find it hilarious and awesome, but how narcissistic is that? Can’t I just enjoy this without having to post about it so other people think it’s awesome? But wouldn’t they want to see it too? No they don’t, it’s boring and attention seeking. UGH. YOU FUCKING NARCISSIST!

Here’s to 2020 – the decade of not giving a fuck. I’m late to the party, but it’s time to join the online community and embrace who I am, where I’m headed, and sharing the journey. It took me almost 5 years to make my first reddit post. Figure that one out. Today, I’m going to make an Instagram post – no clue what it will be, but it’s time to do things out of excitement and love rather than to NOT do something because of fear… irrational, paralyzing, fear. 2010’s were filled with it, but the 20’s will be filled with adventure and similar to Jim Carrey when he said “Yes” to everything.

Except pizza… I’ll get too fat.

https://www.instagram.com/krisoakey/

Reach out and say hi. I need some friends.