About Me
My name is Jeff and I’m a 38 year old software architect that lives in Denver, Colorado. I like to spend my free time hanging out with friends, lifting weights, playing hockey/pickleball/volleyball, traveling, trying to come up with new business ideas (that probably won’t work), reading, trying new restaurants, and apparently, blogging 🤷🏼♂️
If I would have added long walks on the beach, this could have been the start to a really bad dating profile. All of these things are true, but I’d rather get into the meat of it. I’ve struggled with depression since I went through puberty (I’m not sure why it took me until 17, but I’ve always been a fashionably late kind of guy) and anxiety since I was 28 or 29. In my 30s, I’ve really started focusing on trying to sort myself out (via therapy, reading, supplements, etc) and figuring out what I want out of this life. I think there a few other things that have caused this shift:
- A lot of my old hobbies and interests don’t provide the same level of value / entertainment anymore (I think this is a blessing in disguise, but more on that later)
- For me, dating in your 30s seems to be very centered around whether or not you want to have kids. Given that I’ve been sitting on the fence for the past 8 years, this makes it very difficult to achieve the most important goal to me which is finding a life-long partner
In the past this has caused me a lot of grief, but I think therapy is helping me to be grateful for where I’ve been (since every moment has led up to this) and where I am (because I’m putting in the time and effort to improve myself). This blog will largely capture the journey that I’m on with a heavy focus on mental health, relationships, and the decision to have kids at first. Eventually I would like to come back and retrospect on my fitness journey because it’s been 10 years now and I think I can offer some wisdom (or what not to do at minimum).
If someone were to describe me, I would hope that they would say I’m a positive light in their life and that I always make them laugh. As it pertains to this blog, I deeply hope that this content will help accelerate people on their journey to a happier life (hot girls don’t gatekeep) while being entertaining.
What led me to starting a blog?
I’ve thought about starting a blog for a long time, but there have been two critical inflection points in my life when I felt like this might be my calling (the second being the impetus for what you see here today).
The first was back in March of 2021 which I’ll affectionately call “The Awakening.” I was sitting at my desk one day working and I realized that I could die at any moment and this would have been how I spent my life. Within two weeks, I had sold my townhome, quit my job as the Director of Architecture at a Fortune 500 company, and started traveling to at least one new place each month (more on this later). I thought it would be really cool to document what I was doing for work, where I was traveling, what I was learning about myself, etc, but I was spending so much time doing those things that I never got started.
The second was breaking up with someone I had dated for 1.5 years (off and on, but again, we will get into that later). She was the first person that I told friends and family that I would marry so us calling it quits because we have a possible mismatch in goals was and still is heartbreaking. Our relationship, even with it’s faults, has been one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. And for the most part, the way I showed up in that relationship is how I want to show up in life. A huge driver for finally creating this site is I want to share what went so well in our relationship (and some things that didn’t go so well) in the hopes that other people can experience what we did.
What’s the purpose of this blog?
I’m trying to be more intentional with the things that I do and I think that starting a blog serves a few different purposes for me:
- In the last couple of months, I’ve found journaling to be really helpful for me. I think this will be similar to journaling in that this will give me the space to organize and express my thoughts
- I’d like to get better at writing. Whether it’s an email or a text message, it’s sometimes very hard for me to express myself. I usually resort to calling people (this seems to terrify anyone under the age of 65) if the topic is anything more difficult then what are we doing this weekend or how is your day going
- I think the longer I live the more I’m starting to put together what it means to me to live a good life. I wish I could have been given a roadmap like the one I’m hopefully about to build
- Building on 3, even if my perspective and how I live my life isn’t for everyone (and it doesn’t need to be), I think it at least serves as a way for people to learn different perspectives, how other people think, and their struggles
- I am very interested in starting conversations with like-minded people. And by like-minded, I don’t mean people that share my every opinion, more-so people that are constantly striving to improve and looking to get the most out of this life
How will this work?
I have a couple of ideas on how I want to structure content:
- I’m going to use blog posts for more informal “discussions” for lack of a better term
- For things that I consider to be truths (at least for me), I will promote these to Pages so that the content is easier to access in one place
- I might start a YouTube Vlog, Podcast, or TikTok to make it easier to digest chunks of this, but that will be sometime in the future
Miscellaneous thoughts
There are a few things I’d like anyone to keep in mind while engaging with this blog:
- In any of the content I create here (or really with any aspect of my life), I am coming from a good place so if that doesn’t feel true to you, I’d like to hear about it for a few reasons:
- I would like to be more precise with how I talk (or type) so that I’m not misunderstood
- I am NOT interested in being offensive
- I am interested in hearing other people’s perspectives because, like suffering, I think discussing alternate viewpoints spawns growth
- I reserve the right to be wrong about anything and everything on this site. I feel like I’ve found some universal truths through life experience, reading, and therapy, but I most certainly don’t have this all figured out (ask some of the people I’ve dated)
- As of right now, I will not be making any money off of the content here (don’t you laugh about it not being worth anything). I won’t be including ads and I won’t be paid for reviewing products (which I plan to do). I reserve the right to change this at any time, but I will be open and honest if / when that happens