So 2024 has been a wild year for me, with a lot of changes and some contemplations as to what I wanted the rest of my life to be like. First and foremost I have recently become a Corporate Site Manager for a security company which I feel like has been a culmination of over a decade's worth of hard work. Having started as a grunt in the military and doing menial security work to now being pretty high up on the corporate chain and liaising with some of the upper echelons of the company. Ontop of being a welder on the side I feel like in a few years I will be able to achieve financial freedom with the potential for upward growth being almost limitless. With that being said Ive come to a conclusion, apart from my parents, some friends and my daughter (whom is my biggest cheerleader and motivation) Ive accomplished all of this virtually on my own. Every day with the exception of weeks where I have my daughter I've come home to an empty house save for my dog with no one to ask how my day has been or how I'm doing. No one was beside me when I was grinding and rebuilding my life from the ground up and the fact Ive done so on my own makes me wonder if adding someone else to my life IE dating would be worth it in the long run. Like I said apart for a select few people Ive put in the work in to go to therapy, get my degree, buy a house etc. why should I allow someone to come into my life when no one wanted to grind with me? Ive become very comfortable in being alone and enjoying my own company and while I won't deny it does become lonely at times I ask myself what could I benefit from allowing someone to come into my life? I have almost everything I could ever want and I continue to want to keep moving forward and I feel like having a partner would just slow me down or at the worst completely derail all of my hard work. Maybe Im just cynical or imagining the worst but I feel like I can't afford anything or anyone that would compromise my career or my daughter's well-being. Ive come too far in life and been through too much heartbreak, betrayal, disappointment and failure to let it all be undone. Im optimistic for my future and for once I have hold that my future will be brighter and when its all done I can give all of my life's hard work to my daughter to inherit.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk