Scraping By.

I currently have $20 to my name. Check that, $15, because I decided to spoil myself with a hot chocolate. Or at least, when rent goes through at some point today. Thankfully, I'm getting paid tomorrow. Unfortunately, most of that money is already going to vanish to pay for something else I'm working on.

For the last few weeks, I've been living pretty close to being bankrupt a number of times. If you've been keeping up to date on Facebook, you'll be aware that I currently have no car. As much as I enjoy not having to deal with having a car any more (I seriously hate cars), it makes it rather difficult to get work - and I have enough difficulty normally. Not being strong, not being fast, and not being able to sell stuff takes out trades, hospitality, and retail straight away. That's probably 80% of casual jobs or something. Yeah. But I've probably ranted about that before at some point. 

Regardless, money isn't being fun for me right now. Thankfully, I don't tend to spend that much, so I can get by okay. I don't really go out much, I don't drink, and since I moved out I've gone vegetarian. So that all helps. 

There's been a lot that God's been doing this year. He's given me lots of challenges, but lots of opportunities as well. I had the album launch recently; I've gotten bits of work here and there that I've been enjoying; the internship has given me lots of space to help my church do what it does even better. And I've got no clue what he's got planned for next year, but I think it's going to be big.

But right now, I'm not seeing how I'm going to even get there. Financially, short of something big coming through, I'm going to be in debt before long. Emotionally, I'm swinging between being relaxed and being a wreck. Spiritually - I'm having major difficulties in trusting that God is going to get me through this. I believe that he will, somehow. But I don't know what state I'll be in when he does.

I've shared a couple of videos recently, talking about how the opposite of addiction is connection. Well right now, there's a lot of times I'm struggling to find or see that connection. All too often, it seems to exist more in theory than in practice. And that's hard. 

I don't really have a nice one-liner to end this on, folks. I guess we'll see what happens. 

Thoughts on Money and Work.

Warning: rant approaching.

The world does not take kindly to creative people, in general. It doesn't have time for dreamers, for idealists, for those who want to follow their passion. You wouldn't think that, of course. Because the movies, the media, always says that that's what we should do. Follow your dreams, follow your passions! Pursue those crazy ideas!

Oh, but....you need money. You need money. You cannot survive without money. We have made it so that you cannot do anything without money.

People can have a perfect idea of what they want to do with their life. They can have a dream about what they want to do; know exactly how it is they could do it; have a plan for how they want to spend their time; but they're not able to, because of how money works in this world. The number of people that you have that dreamed of doing one thing, but then ended up doing something else - is just way too many.

And really, this isn't just a problem for creatives. It's probably especially a problem there, but it applies across to so many other fields. And it begs the question: would a society without money work? Are there jobs that people just would never do if they weren't paid for it; are there people that are so greedy that they would never let it become possible? Or does it just seem too much like socialism, or communism, or head-in-the-clouds thinking, and people will just be against it from the start?

For my part, I think that it should work. And that it could work. But whether it would....perhaps we have gone too long like this. Time will tell.

</rant>

Pushing On.

I haven't been posting much - at all - over these last few months. And it hasn't been for lack of time - I've been having a fair few days free here and there - and neither has it been for lack of things to talk about; there's been rather a lot. Unfortunately, I've been really struggling with self-motivation this year in general - guess that's what happens when you move out! Does make it harder. The fact that I've got a decent helping of Nine in me probably doesn't help. (Enneagram reference. Yay!)

But yes, there's been rather a lot happening. Work has been all over the place; I finished up at Koorong, started doing a few other casual jobs - but then my car decided to pack it in. Or, rather, I had a crash. Thankfully, everyone was okay, though my car looks like it had a run-in with the Incredible Hulk. Getting to different jobs without a car has been markedly more difficult; even getting to church or the shops can be an issue. It just takes a lot more time out of my day. I don't mind walking - I actually rather like it - it just takes a lot of time. I've started to look around for other work that's either more easy to get to by public transport, or that I can just do online, but not too much luck yet.

To compound that, money is a bit of an issue at present - I thought I'd be okay with the jobs I've gotten, but the problem is that I haven't had a shift yet at one, and another is project-based; so it pays me half at the beginning, and half at the end. Wouldn't be a big deal, but our schedules seem to not line up well, which means that the end of the project seems to keep getting further away. Since I'm under 25, I have to pay the age excess on top of the normal excess to insurance, so it's a fair bit of money that's coming out of my pocket each week - and not nearly as much going in. So I'm trying to find a job quickly to even out the balance, without going back to jobs that I'm neither good at or passionate about, which is why I finished up at Koorong.

Just to make things a bit more interesting, God's given me a bit of a challenge. I talked about it a bit in this video. Essentially, at the end of this year, I'm taking a week away somewhere - I really don't know where - to re-focus and start with a bit of a clean slate. And then just asking God where he wants me, what he wants me to be doing and focussing on - because I've really stretched myself thin, and it shows in a lot of ways. So starting from scratch, finishing up with everything I'm doing, and going in to a new season. I have no idea what that will look like. But we'll see when we get there.

We do have to get there first, though. The end of the year is still four months away, including this one. And for me, I know that each day has been hard and challenging in different ways. Sometimes, because of loneliness; others because of worry, or fear; sometimes temptation; and sometimes, like I said before, dealing with my lack of self-motivation. It makes everything harder, really.

But I keep pushing on, because I know that God is with me, and helping me to get through. I don't really know how he's going to make everything work. And it's quite possible that not all of it will. I don't know. But I trust that he's going to get me through, one way or another. However long it takes.