Holiday riffing and staying motivated

Yo, readers and friends! Here I'd like to riff about the holidays, and staying motivated during said holidays. 

Holidays at my job can be pretty stressful. In fact, I was elated to enjoy two days off from work this past Thanksgiving week. Normally I only get one day off a week, and that's cool with me, because more money is the best! That's the right attitude for a young guy, don't lose any of that money, get as much hours of work as you can, work hard, and earn your paycheck, like anybody else at their job. But sometimes its nice to relax. However, you don't want to be too relaxed because things have to be done-guitar playing, writing, reading, and possibly even gaming if I can squeeze it in. 

You have to stay motivated. Stay up as the 'woke' millennial kids say. For me this means getting guitar practice in almost every day (I try to only take one day off a week), posting ads to find jazz musicians to start a trio with (looking for a bassist and a horn to play straight ahead jazz), reading lots of things from novels to news, and writing blog posts like this one. Writing for the blog keeps me motivated. I get to write down all my ideas I've had in my head for a long time and unload all of it in type-press fashion via computer late at night. Its a great form of decompression, relieving stress and giving me new insight on any particular ideas. 

Staying motivated is difficult. Sometimes after a long 1 AM shift I don't feel like reading Don Quixote, Candide, or Aristotle on my Kindle (popular reads for me lately), instead I feel like falling asleep, only to miss out on what would've been great prime time reading time, in complete silence in the middle of the night where nobody will bother me or force me to go back to work (I read on every 30 minute work break to get more reading time in). 

What keeps me motivated? Music mostly. But also novels, great writing, journalism, poetry, classics, science fiction, video games, friendship, and probably last on the list-money. The holidays can be pretty brutal for most workers but I also think it helps put things in perspective. It took 28 years this holiday season before I realized that I don't need to buy luxury items I don't need, and that I should instead save my money, and only worry about getting gifts for others. The new Smash Ultimate game? I'll just play it at my friends' house. Dragon Ball Fighter Z? Been playing it at a friends' house. All those new holiday games? Forget about it. New guitar pedals or new music equipment? I should enjoy the stuff I already have more before I look into that, etc etc. (On second thought I do need a hollow-body jazz guitar)

It was my St. Francis of Assisi moment. At first I said to myself, "I don't need to buy anything for Black Friday or Cyber Monday". Then it turned into I don't need to buy anything for myself for Christmas. And now I've reached that zen state where I realize Christmas gifts for others is the only importance in addition to goodwill to fellow man.

Its a lot to think about but its also good to think about things like this. What motivates you makes you stronger. The moment you lose that motivation, and don't read, don't play guitar, don't write (in my case, yours will be different), then you're losing out on something that makes you happy. Of course there's always exceptions. Nobody wants to get stuck in a rut, reading until 4 or 5 in the morning every night--but its pretty damn fun. 

I've got to keep pushing myself. -Buckethead