Sometimes I forget that it's important to spend time alone and after yet another stressful week, I took my day off as an opportunity to go on a solo adventure. I’ve spent the last year resolutely becoming a workaholic and I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t seen much of the city I’ve come to call home so I wandered downtown.

Unfortunately it was raining and I discovered belatedly that my umbrella was broken so I holed up in a coffee shop and read a little Lovecraft.

On the way back, I had a chat with an older man on the subway who was going through a midlife crisis. He saw my tattoos and wanted to share his excitement because he was about to get his first. I listened to him talk for a few stops and he decided to share a piece of life advice with me.

The most important thing he’d learned, he told me, was not to put all of your energy into something you aren’t passionate about because someday you’ll find yourself retiring from a job you never wanted in the first place and wondering where your last thirty years went. He finished the conversation with a sad smile, quoted Joseph Campbell (“follow your bliss”) and got off the train.

It was a short conversation but it was exactly what I needed to hear at this point in my life. For the first time in awhile, I feel like I’m pointing my energy in the right directions.