As an attempt to promote personal growth in the work place, my district manager is requiring us to fill out forms called Individual Development Plans, or IDPs for short. We've been given a list of personal traits that are ideal in our business, and our goal is to identify what we think we excel at and what we think we need to work on. During my previous shift, I got my co-worker started on some training for the upcoming quarter while I watched the sales floor and briefly scanned through these traits, in an attempt to make some sort of dent in this paperwork. One of the one-off goals I wrote down to set for myself was to be able to re-find the joy I had working here. Why did I leave and then come back and decide to stay as long as I have? Especially when there are weeks that I come home every single day with a headache or stomach ache due to stress I try to avoid but inevitably end up swimming in. What is making me stay? Where did I find joy working at my job in the first place? That's what I want to find; whether for the first time or as a re-discovery. I pondered over how I would put this goal into motion. It feels like this will decide to what degree I stay or go, depending on what the answer is. I stood with this paper in my hand, reading two and three and four times over my own handwriting, trying to dissect what I even meant by writing "I hope to re-discover the joy I had when I initially started working here." I tried not to think "all hope is lost," but it sure has been MIA for a long time. I know the conversation with my manager about my IDP will require some sort of further explanation of my plan on how to find that sense of joy. I think she sees the "what's the point" look in my eyes. I still want to give her an answer. And more than anything, I want to have an answer for myself. To prevent my eyes from crossing any further, I put the papers back in my folder and began to close the store for the night. I knew it would be something I pondered for a while, I knew I'd have to come back to it, but I didn't expect to be thinking about it all night. **** After 10 months of no music, almost getting lost in the shuffle and discombobulation of the entirety of the pop punk genre, and me living with a certainty in my chest that there was a good chance I'd never see With Confidence live again, they released a new song on Monday. By the time I got home from the previously mentioned shift at work, after only a few hours notice, With Confidence had released a song, a video, an album announcement, and pre-order opportunities for the new record entitled "Love and Loathing." When I finally got the chance to sit down and listen to the full song, it was wildly reminiscent of the first time I listened to With Confidence. The best way I could describe it was a churning in my head and in my chest of absolute elation. "That Something" feels like the full reincarnation of why I fell in love with this music. They're falling in line with the new wave of emotion I'm developing from pop punk music. All of these bands I fell in love with for bearing heavy drum fills and aggressive energy that turns my heart into a kick drum are making it easier and easier for me to understand why, above any other typical barriers within music genres, I've resigned myself (almost solely) to the comfort of bands made up of dudes in Vans and big t-shirts who write poetically about pieces of their lives that seem particularly redundant or normal to others, but make me feel like I'm not going to crumble my own pressure in the process. All of this correlates in some way, and I suppose I'm writing to make sense of that, like I normally do. As you can see, I've made no further progress in making sense of it all. My head was pounding with the possibilities of what I could say, in reference to the loss of joy in my job, to make it seem like a goal i'm trying to re-attain. Like I didn't become discouraged upon reviewing these traits we're supposed to have in this business, realizing i'm not business minded enough to run a business or even be a part of one. I'm too creative minded. I'm too concerned with the consumer well being rather than the financial well being. The pounding of excitement in my chest quickly replaced the pounding of concern in my head, and I'm curious and a little scared to understand how that could happen. How in a matter of just a few minutes, I lost the weight of hours of worry due to a 2 minute and 55 second music video. More than anything, I'm concerned with how to find that peace in every day life. I'm not sure it's possible. I know it exists, but not in the capacity I wish it would.