THE CLOCK DOESN’T GIVE A F*CK ABOUT YOUR PLANS
THE DAMIEN BLAAUW CODEX
CHAPTER VIII
I DON'T HAVE TIME TO BE SOMEONE ELSE ANYMORE
The clock is ticking. I've finally found myself. Now I have to figure out what to do with the time I have left.
THE HOOK
There is a clock ticking somewhere in the background of my life.
I can't see it.
I can't switch it off.
I don't know exactly how much time is left on it.
But I can hear it.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
And lately, it has become f*cking loud.
I'm approaching 50, and something about that number has unsettled me in ways I wasn't prepared for.
Not because I believe 50 is old. It isn't. I'm not interested in the usual bullshit about age being nothing more than a number, or 50 being the new 30, or life beginning at 50.
I've heard all of that.
The problem isn't the number.
The problem is time.
For the first time in my life, I am painfully aware that I may have lived more of my life than I have left.
And that scares the shit out of me.
Not necessarily because I'm afraid of dying.
I'm afraid of dying having spent too much of my life living for everybody else.
That is a very different fear.
And it has forced me to ask myself a question I have spent decades avoiding:
What the hell have I actually done with my life?
THE WOUND
A couple of years ago, I wrote about three resets I was experiencing in my life.
A spiritual reset.
A personal reset.
A career reset.
At the time, I thought I understood what a reset meant.
I don't anymore.
Because this time feels different.
Much more intense. Much more personal.
This isn't simply about changing jobs. It isn't about fixing a relationship. It isn't about rediscovering my faith.
It feels like life has stripped away enough layers for me to finally see the man underneath all the roles I've played.
Father.
Partner.
Provider.
Executive.
Employee.
Son.
Priest.
Fixer.
Problem solver.
The dependable one.
The one who carries.
The one who adjusts.
The one who compromises.
The one who tries to understand everybody else's behaviour.
The one who keeps going.
I've spent so much of my life being what other people needed me to be that somewhere along the way, I stopped asking what I needed from my own life.
And now I'm paying attention.
Maybe too late.
That's the fear.
I have a daughter who suffered a stroke and still needs significant medical care and support. I need to make provision for her future. I need to know that she will be protected if something happens to me.
That isn't some distant hypothetical.
That responsibility sits in the room with me every day.
Then there is my financial reality.
I've been unemployed for several months now.
At almost 50.
After building a career. After years of experience. After carrying responsibility. After achieving things I once believed would guarantee some measure of security.
And now I'm hunting for a job.
Trying to pivot.
Trying to figure out where I belong.
Trying to rebuild financially while knowing there are people who depend on me.
That is humiliating.
It is frightening.
It makes me angry.
And if I'm being completely honest, there are days when it makes me feel like a failure.
I feel like I'm letting my family down.
That is one of the hardest things I've ever had to admit.
THE MIC DROP MOMENT
I've started becoming comfortable in my own skin.
And strangely, that has made life more difficult.
Because once you become honest with yourself, you can't unknow what you know.
I see the relationships that weren't reciprocal.
I see the compromises that cost me more than they gave me.
I see the times I accepted behaviour I should have walked away from.
I see the years I spent trying to be enough for people who had already decided I wasn't.
And there is one truth I have struggled to say out loud.
I wasted time on people who had absolutely no regard for me.
There.
I said it.
That hurts because I don't regret loving people. I don't regret caring. I don't regret trying.
What I regret is abandoning myself while I was doing it.
That is the distinction I've only recently learned.
Understanding someone does not mean tolerating them.
Loving someone does not mean losing yourself.
Being a good man does not mean endlessly proving your worth.
And being responsible for other people does not mean becoming irresponsible towards yourself.
Perhaps the greatest failure isn't failing other people.
Perhaps the greatest failure is spending your entire life successfully becoming the person everyone else needed while never becoming the person you needed.
WHAT I KNOW NOW
At 30, I thought success meant a good job, a home and a car.
At 40, I thought success meant being happy.
At almost 50, I think success means being true to myself.
That's it.
Not impressive.
Not particularly marketable.
Not something you can put on LinkedIn.
But perhaps the most difficult thing I've ever had to do.
Because being true to yourself means accepting that some people won't like the person you become.
It means setting boundaries.
It means walking away.
It means saying no.
It means disappointing people.
It means admitting that some relationships don't work.
It means accepting that some dreams didn't happen.
It means acknowledging that some years were wasted.
It means looking at your own failures without dressing them up as lessons.
And sometimes it means standing in the middle of your life with absolutely no fucking idea what comes next.
That's where I am.
I know who I am.
I know what I want.
I don't know how to get there.
And that is terrifying.
I've been trying to pivot into another career path, but that has proved challenging. I'm questioning where I belong professionally, and whether there is still a place for someone like me in the country I've called home.
I feel humiliated, angry, frightened and betrayed by where I find myself.
I should be financially secure by now.
I should be building something for my future, not trying to figure out how to get back on my feet.
I should have more to show for the years I've invested in my career.
But life doesn't give a damn about what I think should have happened.
It deals with what is.
And what is, right now, is a man who has to find a way forward.
My daughter needs me to think about her future. My relationship with my son feels as though it is deteriorating. I feel the distance growing between me and my children, and I know there are only so many years left in which I can influence their lives in the way I want to.
I've always wanted to leave a legacy.
Right now, that legacy feels uncertain.
And that hurts.
Because I don't want my children to remember a father who spent his final decades consumed by regret, fear and the things he couldn't fix.
I want them to see a man who faced his circumstances, even when those circumstances were ugly, and refused to let them determine the entirety of his story.
I don't know how to achieve that yet.
But I know I have to try.
LOVE, OR WHATEVER THAT WAS
My understanding of love has changed dramatically.
I used to be a hopeless romantic.
Now I think love is a joke.
That's blunt.
But it's honest.
I've been told I wasn't loved. I've been told I've never been loved.
Those words don't just disappear.
They sit somewhere inside you.
They make you question your memories. They make you question your judgement. They make you question yourself.
And right now, I don't want another relationship.
I genuinely believe I would be better off on my own.
I'm exhausted from adjusting, compromising, fixing and carrying.
I don't want to spend the remaining years of my life convincing someone that I'm worthy of being loved.
I don't want to be tolerated.
I don't want to be somebody's option.
And I certainly don't want to spend another decade losing myself inside a relationship just to prove that I know how to love.
Maybe that changes one day.
Maybe it doesn't.
But for now, I need to learn what it means to belong to myself without feeling guilty about it.
I've spent enough time trying to be someone else's home.
I think it's time I became my own.
THE SPIRITUAL WOUND
My relationship with God has changed too.
Profoundly.
I don't have the certainty I once had.
I feel spiritually lost, disconnected, angry and exhausted.
There have been moments when I've genuinely wondered what the hell God is doing with my life.
Nearly a decade of what feels like a shitshow of epic proportions will do that to a person.
Divorces. Loss. Financial collapse. Career disruption. Family difficulties. My daughter's stroke. Relationships falling apart. My sense of identity being dismantled.
And now I find myself approaching 50, exhausted from rebuilding things that seem to keep collapsing.
I'm weary.
Really f*cking weary.
But I'm still hanging on.
Not because I have all the answers.
I don't.
I'm hanging on because somewhere underneath all the anger and exhaustion, there is still a small part of me that believes my faith can be restored.
Maybe faith isn't always about having answers.
Maybe sometimes it is simply refusing to completely let go when you're exhausted enough to do so.
I don't know what my relationship with God will look like in the years ahead.
But I haven't closed the door.
And for now, that has to be enough.
THE CODEX TRUTH
You can spend your entire life being there for everyone else and still wake up one morning and realise that you have abandoned yourself.
That is a brutal thing to confront.
But it is also liberating.
Because once I accept it, I have to stop waiting for someone else to give me permission to live my own life.
I have to stop expecting reciprocity from people who have repeatedly demonstrated that they aren't willing or able to give it.
I have to stop confusing endurance with love.
I have to stop confusing responsibility with self-sacrifice.
And I have to stop measuring my worth by how useful I am to other people.
I cannot recover the years I've given away.
I cannot force people to love me.
I cannot undo every mistake.
I cannot guarantee my children's futures.
I cannot control everything that happens to my daughter.
I cannot force a country to give me an opportunity.
I cannot manufacture faith.
And I cannot turn back the clock.
But I can decide what I do with the time that remains.
That is where my attention needs to go now.
Not into becoming who everybody else wanted me to be.
Into proving to myself that I can finally become who I know I am.
THE ARTICLE SYMBOL
THE SHATTERED CLOCK
Symbolism: Time. Self-abandonment. Urgency. Reclamation.
The central symbol of this chapter is a shattered clock.
Its face represents the life I thought I would have by 50: the career, the financial security, the family relationships, the spiritual certainty and the sense of having finally arrived somewhere.
The cracks represent the years that didn't go according to plan. The relationships that took more than they gave. The compromises I made. The opportunities I lost. The parts of myself I neglected while trying to be enough for everybody else.
The Roman numerals represent the relentless passage of time. The restrained gold represents the value of the years I have left. The crimson represents the pain of confronting what has been lost, while the black-and-white imagery reflects the stark, uncomfortable honesty this chapter demands.
But the clock is not simply a symbol of regret.
It is a symbol of urgency.
I cannot repair the past by wishing it had been different. I cannot reclaim the years I've already lived. And I cannot negotiate with time.
What I can do is refuse to surrender the years that remain.
The shattered clock reminds me that the life I imagined may never materialise exactly as I planned. That doesn't mean the rest of my life has to be an extension of everything that went wrong.
I may not be able to change where I've been.
But I can change how I live from here.
The symbol's message:
Time doesn't ask whether you're ready. It keeps moving. The question is whether you'll spend what's left living as yourself or continue performing for everyone else.
ONE HARD TRUTH
You don't get those years back.
You don't get back the time spent begging for reciprocity.
You don't get back the years spent trying to prove your worth.
You don't get back the opportunities you passed up because somebody else's needs always came first.
You don't get back the pieces of yourself you sacrificed to keep other people comfortable.
And you don't get a guarantee that the future will give you enough time to make up for any of it.
That is the reality.
But regret is not a plan.
Guilt is not a strategy.
And beating yourself up over the years you've lost will only cost you more of the years you have left.
I have to accept what has happened without allowing it to become the only thing that defines me.
I have to take responsibility for the choices I can change, even if I cannot change the consequences of the ones I've already made.
I have to build something with what remains.
Not because I am guaranteed success.
Because I owe myself the attempt.
THE REFLECTION
Maybe this is what turning 50 really means.
Not getting older.
Getting honest.
At 30, you can tell yourself there is plenty of time.
At 40, you still believe you can fix everything tomorrow.
At almost 50, tomorrow starts to feel expensive.
Because you finally understand that time isn't an unlimited resource.
You can't bank it.
You can't buy it back.
You can't negotiate with it.
And you certainly can't spend decades abandoning yourself and expect to receive a refund.
So yes, I am scared.
I'm scared about my daughter's future.
I'm scared about money.
I'm scared about my career.
I'm scared about my children.
I'm scared about my health.
I'm scared about what the next decade looks like.
I'm scared that I've already wasted too much time.
And I'm scared that I have less time than I think.
But perhaps fear isn't the enemy.
Perhaps the clock isn't there to frighten me.
Perhaps it is there to remind me.
Stop f*cking around.
Stop waiting for permission.
Stop trying to be understood by people committed to misunderstanding you.
Stop pouring yourself into places that give nothing back.
Stop living according to expectations you didn't create.
Stop trying to resurrect relationships that have already died.
Stop confusing suffering with purpose.
Stop waiting for the perfect time.
There isn't one.
There is only the time I have.
And whatever that amount is, I want the remainder to be mine.
Not selfishly.
Not recklessly.
But honestly.
I want to put life into my remaining years.
I want to be present for my children. I want to provide for my daughter. I want to rebuild my financial security. I want to take care of my body. I want to create something meaningful. I want to restore my faith.
I want to live.
Actually live.
Not merely exist while waiting for circumstances to improve.
And perhaps that is what this reset is asking of me.
Not to become somebody else.
To finally stop abandoning the person I already am.
THE QUESTION I LEAVE YOU WITH
I've spent most of my life asking:
What does everyone else need from me?
Now I'm asking something completely different.
What does the rest of my life need from me?
I don't know the answer yet.
Maybe that's okay.
Maybe being lost isn't always about having no direction.
Maybe sometimes being lost is what happens when the old direction no longer makes sense.
And maybe the purpose of this particular reset isn't to give me another map.
Maybe it is to force me to draw my own.
Because I cannot change the years I've already lived.
I cannot recover the time I've wasted.
I cannot make people love me.
I cannot undo every mistake.
I cannot guarantee my children's futures.
I cannot control everything that happens to my daughter.
I cannot force a country to give me an opportunity.
I cannot manufacture faith.
I cannot turn back the clock.
But I can decide what I do with the time that remains.
And that is where I am putting my energy now.
Not into becoming who everybody else wanted me to be.
Into proving to myself that I can finally become who I know I am.
The clock is still ticking.
I hear it.
But for the first time, I'm listening.
What would you stop tolerating, stop chasing or finally start doing if you accepted that your time was limited, and that nobody was going to give you those years back?
Maybe the goal was never to find myself.
Maybe the goal was to stop abandoning myself.
Perhaps that is what this next chapter is really about.
Not becoming younger.
Not starting over.
Not pretending the past didn't happen.
Just taking whatever time remains and finally making it count.
For the men rebuilding themselves... one hard truth at a time.
THE DAMIEN BLAAUW CODEX
No masks. No excuses. No bullshit.
Till next time! Ciao! Damien.
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