Life on Hard Mode

The date is May 1st, 2021. It’s still pandemic-ish. Pandemic-ish meaning that you go to your friend’s wedding, but maybe don’t pass a bottle of Fireball around on the bus. I’ve just started a new job, I have a baby on the way, and for whatever reason I have decided that now is the best time in my life to get my MBA. (I’ll be home a lot anyway, babies don’t actually do anything. These are the lies I told myself.)

Fortunately, I was able to free up a significant chunk of time by canceling my own wedding. We didn’t split up or anything. In fact, we had been secretly married at a courthouse in Santa Ana on a random Monday afternoon. We had Portillo’s for lunch that day and Baby Blues BBQ for dinner that night. Quite the bridal feast! There’s a famous photo of me floating around from that day with hair down to my shoulders and a bushy, blonde Covid-mustache. Quite frankly, I look like a 70s pornstar or a member of The Allman Brothers. It was never supposed to be my REAL wedding photo. That would be when we got married at my in-laws’ place in Sweden. It was going to be magical, Anna was going to arrive by boat, there was a big tent! We would bring red Solo Cups and have an ‘American BBQ’ themed reception. 

Alas, Sweden decided to shut down the border to Americans due to the rise in Delta cases and we canceled the wedding. 

However! I still had to juggle a new job, a new marriage, impending fatherhood, and grad school. How’d that work out, you ask?

Well, I am happy to report that I am still happily married and my child is thriving. (By thriving I mean he punches me in the stomach when I'm not looking and laughs.) I cut all my hair off, shaved my mustache, and graduated top of my class. Yay.

As for the new job, well I’m not there anymore, one of the thousands (maybe millions?) who were hit last year by the terrifying RIF or reduction in force.

Fast forward to today! Three years later, it’s May of 2024. I just started a new job and my wife is pregnant with number two. Despite strongly considering going to law school at times during my period of unemployment, I have decided that I’m probably done with school for a while. But since I’ve made a habit of bundling large life-altering changes together, we decided to buy a house.

As a first-time home buyer, I really had no idea how it was done. I just assumed you hopped on Zillow, saw something you liked, and Amazon delivered it to your doorstep two days later. 

My friends, that is not the case.

In Los Angeles, for example, the process involves going to an open house, and submitting an offer, only to quickly realize that you are in a bidding war against other families, private investors and sometimes yourself. 

Oh, yes! One would not think that you can bid against yourself. But the counter-offer in the real estate sense, is more like making it to the next round, think Sweet 16 to Elite Eight. It’s considered a privilege. My God, the seller liked my bid enough that they are giving me the opportunity to offer more! Now of course they don’t tell you what the highest current bid is, they just ask for your ‘best and final offer.’ And usually, they want you to remove inspection and loan contingencies. You know, in case the bank comes out and says you have vastly overestimated the property’s worth or an inspector tells you that you’ve bought a house on a literal bog that will be swallowed into the Earth’s core within the following six months.

So once you offer more money and promise to buy the house even if the bank tells you to take a hike or an inspector finds it unlivable, then and only then do you get the option of liquidating your savings on the biggest gamble you will ever make.

Right now we’re in Escrow. I can’t tell you what that means. I think everyone throws money into some random account controlled by a neutral third party and they give it to the seller once we get the keys. But apparently, Escrow pays our property taxes and home insurance too. I have to drive to San Pedro tonight to give Escrow some forms that need a ‘wet’ signature, which basically means I need to print and sign some forms in ink. I’ll be sure to pitch them on the Formstack suite of products.

And yes, Formstack. I’m happy to report that I have taken a job as the Content Marketing Manager of Formstack where I will handle all of the content channels and tell the story of why digitization can make brands more efficient. Perhaps I’ll write a blog about a guy who had to drive 60 miles while listening to Bill Simmons recap a 30-point Pacer loss merely to deliver, in person, a ‘wet’ signature.

Ironically, while I live 2,100 miles away from our home office (my mortgage lender made my HR department send a letter saying that I was a remote employee because apparently 31 hours is an unreasonable commute) I actually grew up 1 mile from the office.

After running away to the furthest corner of the country, Indiana has dragged me back in. Dragged isn’t the right word. I love Indiana, Geist was a great place to grow up. (And now that Fishers has a Top Golf I will find my trips home more palatable!) But what I’m most excited about with this new role is to once again have an opportunity to tell a company’s story, connect with customers, learn their pain points and deliver the solutions they are looking for. And if a trip to the home office happens to coincide with a home IU basketball game, well, that’s just a bonus.

The first few weeks of work are going great, the team is excellent and the company has a very bright future. But I keep asking myself, why did I decide to make all of these life changes at the same time again? Am I a glutton for punishment?

I think it all comes back to video games. (Wait, what?)

I played a lot of video games as a kid, much to my father’s dismay. 

“It’s a beautiful day out David, why don’t you go play basketball?” Sorry Dad, Link isn’t going to save Princess Zelda by himself. 

But with video games, you would often be given a choice. Do you want to play on Easy mode or Hard?

Easy mode would make you an omnipotent power that could fell any foe with a single swing of the blade. It was fun for a while but quickly became boring. Hard mode on the other hand, required creative thinking, problem-solving, time management and skill. There would be periods of frustration and failure, but the reward was always better. Defeating the Covenant on Legendary Mode was something you would call your friends on their landline to brag about.

Life is similar. 

You can prioritize one change at a time, and take a linear approach. Maybe it would have been easier to take a more conservative approach. Have the baby arrive, then move into a slightly larger unit in our building, then start seeking a new job. 

Or I could say “F*ck it” and do everything at once.

Life on hard mode baby!

One thing about hard mode is that it is more rewarding and allows you to push yourself to see what you are capable of. When stretched to the limits, humans are typically able to perform at a higher level, and I’ve realized I’m more productive and creative with my back against the wall. 

Close is coming, baby #2 is coming, and I have a lot of work to do for my actual job. Will our protagonist rise to the challenge, is he capable of greatness? Or will he melt under the ever-growing pressure of life’s responsibilities? There are no extra quarters, no cheat codes in the real world, so I guess I’ll just have to go for it and hope for the best. I hope I know what I’m doing.