10 Greatest Challenges I Have In Life Right Now

I love the company I work for, but I hate my job. More than that, I am tired of being an employee. I have a plan in place to leave my job around 1 year from now. While I have some things in mind, the overall goal is to do whatever the heck I want to do from day to day and find a way to earn an income from it. There is so much I would love to do in my life, and this job is in my way.

I've had zero financial discipline for most of my life, I've even gone through a bankruptcy. Per my plan mentioned above, I am trying to save 1 year's worth of living expenses to quit my job. This is a major change and challenge for me.

I've been a negative person from day one. Fighting bouts of depression and anxiety, I am trying to change for the better. Old habits keep creeping up, but I feel like I'm slowly improving day by day.

I live with my aging father, and it's easy to see where I get my negative traits...I am my father's son, no doubt. I read so much about surrounding yourself with like-minded people, and removing the negative ones from your life. But I believe you can turn this logic on its head. The premise is that negative people bring you down, and positive people bring you up. If that is the case, and since I am 110% dedicated to being by my father's side, I choose to pursue positive change for myself and to be the person that lifts him up. This is my greatest challenge.

Well, I'm only 52 so... I've made a prioritized list of things I want to try out. I also have a VERY long list of things that I would like to learn more about. I get so indecisive about what I want to focus on, and I end up jumping around from one topic to the next. To embrace this scatter-brained fascination with learning, I am starting a blog where I can write about all of the different topics that I'm exploring. This will help with my learning process(and one of my interests is writing), and also might turn into a source of income over time.

I would argue(since I'm a negative person) that the only positive trait that I've ever had is my brain. In my formative years, I had a photographic memory and could do fairly complex math operations in my head, arriving at answers as fast as my buddy who used a calculator. Over the years, my photographic memory has run out of film and my internal calculator needs to be recalibrated. Dementia runs in my family, and I am very concerned about my future.

I know I need it. Getting started and making this a habit is proving very difficult.

I work 40+ hours a week in my job, I'm on call 24x7, and spend time with my father as much as possible. This leaves 10-15 hours per week of "me" time. Sometimes I wonder just exactly who is running my life? I feel like I am taking small steps in the right direction but sometimes it seems like the whole world is conspiring against me.

I'm a daily drinker. Every day. I once went to AA's website, and when I saw the horrific stories of people not even getting through the night without gettin up for a drink...I decided that I'm not an alcoholic. A close friend refers to us as "functioning alcoholics". I love beer, but I seemed to have developed an allergy to it. Maybe this is a blessing. I now mix club soda, lime juice and tequila(a zero-carb margarita!) and I like this because I can minimize the alcohol in each drink even though I'm supporting this habit of having a drink in my hand. The long term goal is to enjoy my daily club soda & lime and nix the tequila. My apologies to Jose Cuervo...

My job is in I.T. I get bombarded with request after request, with no time to complete any of these requests. People walk into my office and immediately start into what their problem is and what they need me to do. It doesn't matter if I am on a phone call or trying to think and work on an existing issue, they won't even ask if I'm busy or if I have a few minutes. I am to immediately drop whatever I am doing and give them my full attention. Ugh...I already feel empathy for my replacement.