Ending Things

Yes, the absolute f'ing worst title for a post, and yet the perfect title for this missive. A lot to unpack here, so read to the end before you freak out. Buckle up, Future Kitt, we're going for a ride. Here is where your life changed. (I really need a "Buckle up, Future Kitt, we're going for a ride" tag already.)

A couple months ago, I had dinner with F----. He was recently unemployed, and uncertain about what he wanted to do next. The company that F---- worked for was particularly horrible, in a way that is hard to believe it continues to exist, as it actively ignored expertise and ran away from each and every good practice (safety, security, testing, stability, knowledge smear, a post for another day). F was thoroughly miserable at the job, and I couldn't wait for him to quit. I encouraged him to leave. When he left two weeks before this dinner, I cheered.

When he left, his stress changed from the stress of that job into the stress of finding a new job. Worse, it was the stress of finding a new job when burnt out. I was REALLY hoping he would take time off and recover from his burnout, but he wanted to work through the burnout to not-burnout. While said technique has never worked for me, it had worked previously for him, and I support(ed) his choices.

So, I asked how the job hunt was going. He had signed up with a program with a very high success rate for helping people find jobs they really liked. One of the tasks was something like "Find 200 companies you want to work for," or "Find 300 jobs you want to apply for," something like that, I don't recall exactly. He wasn't having much luck finding companies and / or jobs because he didn't really want to be looking for a job. See above: burnout.

Hearing this, I, in the most supportive way possible for me, asked him, "What do you want to do?" He said he didn't know. Many options were open to him, but none was particularly calling his name at the moment. Again, above, burnout. He has many ideas, more than I do (which is saying something), many interests, and in this moment, nothing. That nothing was scary to me for him.

So, I suggested trying a challenge. I had read about a writer (influencer, probably) who was similarly stuck a few months ago. To help himself out of it, he was doing a 100 day challenge to answer one question, "What do I actually want?"

With the force of the 1965 Palm Sunday tornado outbreak, F---- pushed back.

F---- knows me. He knows me better than most people, having been in my life just under half of it. He knows that I pretty much have challenges going on all the time, of some flavor or another. I have them so much that friends ask, "but, why?" Why deny yourself the pleasures of this world? Why have days where you eat nothing? Why not eat the chocolate? Why climb the mountain (a question for another day, another post)? I thought, hey, doing these challenges really works for me, why not try it for you? I was not expecting the pushback.

I continued, trying to convince him to try it. I asked why not "What do I actually want?" for 100 days and see what comes out of it. Sure, the first answers will be scattered, but, according to this author, the answers would converge on a few answers that would be the new guiding light.

No.

Why not?

No.

I don't understand.

"Because those answers always lead to selfish answers, and I don't want to be selfish."

In true Kitt fashion, because I didn't understand, I pushed back.

Why not? Why not be selfish, find something that works for you? Do what you want instead of what other people want? Give it a go.

Yes, one of those moments I failed to listen. He didn't fail, though.

No, and in exasperation, said, "Look, people challenge themselves only in the areas they feel comfortable in being challenged. They will not accept a challenge if they don't feel comfortable in that area."

Really? I responded. How so? Because that is exactly WHY to do a challenge, because you don't feel comfortable with it, because you can't do and you want to do it, move beyond your comfort zone and become more than what you are today. That was the reason TO do the challenge.

"Okay, when was the last time you went to a gym and worked out in front of other people?"

"I don't know, maybe a week ago, when I retuned from my last trip?"

Fine, that wasn't a good example, he responded.

"Okay," I answered back, "what would a challenge that I wouldn't feel comfortable doing look like?"

He paused, leaned back, looked up at the ceiling, paused, looked back at me, and said, "Okay, I'm going to cheat a little bit, and tell you one that Dena told you: you don't like ending things. Challenge yourself in ending things."

What would that look like, I asked. He looked at me, I looked at him. He looked at me, I turned and looked down at my two phones. He looked at the two phones. I looked at him. He looked at me. "Well," I said, "I guess having only one phone would be a start, eh?"

"Yes."

<flashback>

Some time last year, Hod, last year was so long ago, I was standing in Grue and Dena's kitchen and we were talking about relationships and something this or something that or I don't know something the other, probably yet another one of my sob stories about how much I was f'ing up my life. When I stopped talking, Dena looked at me, and in her beautiful "I am going to change your life" truth-bomb voice, told me, "You don't like ending things."

And she was and is correct.

When she said, "You don't like ending things," I listened. What I heard was "You have a strong loss aversion," which is very true. I had immediately after that declaration accepted that I had a strong loss aversion and started working on reducing it. I worked hard on accepting losses. I started actively moving into situations where losses were almost guaranteed. And I've been doing pretty well in addressing my loss aversion. I can better accept what reality is as opposed to what I want it to be. I can handle losses more gracefully than I had before, from the loss of an item (I am not a fan, but loss happens), to losing money (sucks, but here we are), to losing a game (becoming a gracious loser), to not traveling with Jonathan (managed to handle that better, though, than in previous years when he travelled with other women while we were still working on us), to letting go of projects at work (ego, you'll be fine). I recognize the feelings in my body at a loss, and I sit with those sensations, with those emotions, with those thoughts, I don't try to rush through them. I let them linger, and then I let them go.

My loss aversion is far less than it used to be. I still have it, we all do, but I'm better. I can let go faster, easier, with less lingering.

And here's the thing.

Letting go isn't the same as ending things. Letting go is passive. Ending things is active. Letting go is life happens, we drift apart, things wear down, we call less, reach out less, walk away. Ending things is a choice, it is a conversation, it is action, it is deciding that this moment, this thing, this situation is not working and choosing, actively saying no, grabbing our stuff and leaving, closing the door, ending it, ending things.

</flashback>

I looked back up at F----, every part of my body sinking, a fight response surging forth to keep this challenge away from me. "But I don't want to do that."

"That's my point."

I was quiet.

What would that challenge look like? I don't want to do this. How can I do this?

I slept on the idea of this challenge that night, and considered it for a week. What would this look like? What items would be on this challenge? What did I want to end? What did I not want to end but that I knew I needed to end? What would my frequency be? How big would I want to go?

Daily seemed unbelievably difficult and too frequent to be doable for anything other than the smallest acts. I discarded that time frame.

Monthly wasn't frequent enough to actually be a challenge.

Weekly seemed just right.

I settled on weekly. Each week, I would end something that was lingering, that was unhealthy for me, that was costing me money, that was painful, that I wasn't using, that didn't work for me anymore. I would end something that needed ending.

So, I wrote up a list of things that could be ended. Some items were big, some were very tiny. Some had a long lead time to complete, some could be finished quickly. Some involved other people, most were solo things that required only my doing. That list became long. I asked friends to suggest items for the list. I asked relative strangers the day before It Took A Fortune to suggest things I could end ("Oh, wow, usually the personal questions don't come out until the end of the trip!"). I asked family. I asked myself what was I holding on to that I shied away from even considering ending? Those went to the top of the list.

This moment was a long time coming.

In this, I realized, fuck, I did not want, do not want to do this challenge. I hate every aspect of it. I am not comfortable at all in this, not one bit. I am standing on a sharp, rocky summit and every way down is hurt and pain.

And so, I accepted this challenge that I absolutely did not want to do: each week, nominally until my list was complete, I would end a thing. If I managed one a week, I would be done at the end of 2025 with my initial list.

And I started.

Week 1: Starting small

The first one I did was small and almost laughably silly: I unsubscribed from emails. Before this, every morning, I would open my inbox, find and select about 20 newsletters and archive them unread. That first morning, I unsubscribed from them instead of archiving unread. If I wasn't going to read them, I wasn't going to keep them. "But, but!" my brain screamed, "I might need that information some day!" If I do, I'll search for it. I now continue to unsubscribe from emails that I do not read. I also delete emails now, too, instead of throwing everything into Archive. My inbox is still a mess, but it has less cruft in it now.

Week 2: Daggering domains

The second week was not renewing domains.

I have over 100 domain names. Most are failed or incomplete projects, some are jokes, a large number are friends' names or a variation of my name. Good lord, do I really need ki.tt, kitt.co, kitthod.com, kitt.hodsden.org, and kitthodsden.org? I would argue emphatically no, except...

The first domain name I let go became a porn site by the next site owner, no doubt to capitalize on the SEO I had on the site. The second domain that I let expire I really should have kept, it would be worth like $1M at this point, without exaggeration. That one was phallic and did, rightly, become a porn site. The next domain name that expired was actually a bug with GoDaddy, that resulted in my going to court to reclaim my domain name. That was not fun, but it was satisfying to see a domain name scalper have to give me back my domain name instead of forcing me to pay for it.

Which is to say, I am reluctant to let domains expire. I would far rather they go to other people for non-porn, non-scalping, non-speculative, non-parking use. And so, when someone offers to buy my domains, my answer is usually emphatically yes, let's figure out a price.

Except, I had domains for two now-dead friends. I had domains for projects I am never going to do. I had domains for projects I started, and just seemed unable to launch or otherwise complete. So, with much cringing, and hemming and hawing, and hand-wringing, I looked at the domains coming up for renewal, and didn't renew them. I let 12 domains expire. I circled back to the renewal page a few times before I said no, I am done with these.

Two months later, this week, I received notices that the registration contact names have changed, the DNS has updated. I haven't looked to see what has become of the domains. I don't want them to be parked by speculators or crappy porn sites or malware sites. If they are, that sucks. I'm not looking.

Week 3: Closing accounts

The next week I closed down an investment account with no funds in it. The account was the one I first started trading with about 20 years ago. In it, I had managed to double my money from $10000 to $20000 over the span of about 6 months back in 2005 or so. This was during the era of $10 per trade, so I had to make money for profit and the trade fees. I got lucky, and managed to double my capital. That was an interesting tax return year, freaking out Kris when he saw I did $4,000,000 in trades, $10000 at a time.

I have a fondness for that account. It was a connection to innocence, to stories, and to a lot of tax documents. I didn't really want to let it go, I didn't really need the account. I couldn't do anything with the account because the name on the account didn't match my legal name any more. The brokerage house was bought out by another house, so the account number wasn't even what I had memorized.

I didn't need the account. I closed it. Ended that one that I didn't need.

Continuing

Next up was selling my car. And then closing my business. The ending things list continues. I have been actively dealing with the ending of ownership, of bad habits, of relationships that no longer work, of housing that isn't for me, of mental models that don't help, of situations that are unacceptable but that my childhood traumas did not let me face head on. I have stepped away from professional projects that were no longer satisfying. I have removed tasks that lack purpose or joy from my giant and ever-growing yellow-index-card to-do list. I have begun ending habits learned over the last decade, becoming fully open and honest with those around me. I have been clear, direct, and kind when my ending things involved other people.

I have had more weeks of ending things successes. I cry after each one: in release, in joy, and in victory. And then I am lighter, the weight of that thing is gone. From the outside, this absolutely looks like I am progressing slowly-then-all-at-once to the Ending of Kitt. That is emphatically not what I am doing.

I am stating right here, right now, I am not suicidal. When I tell friends of my Ending Things challenge, and about all the progress I've made about closing down accounts, giving away some things, selling other things, I notice the look of concern grows measurably on their faces. Not a single person I have verbally described this challenge to has not expressed extreme concern. This challenge is not about dying, nor about paving the way to dying. It is about ending things in my life that no longer work for me. It is about freeing myself from the weight of my past.

I hate this challenge so much. I am not comfortable doing any of these endings. I am crushing this challenge.