A Very Short Time in 2017

I have to decide, within the next three months, whether or not I’m going to sign up for another year in Satsuma. This is a difficult decision for a lot of reasons, and I’m going to outline them here. I think that I’ve come to what looks like a reasonable conclusion, but I’m hoping to use this as an opportunity to explore my options. Anybody who takes the time to read this, please, by all means, weigh in.
(As a note, as I wrote this, I switched between first and third person quite a bit. This is unintentional. I attempted to fix it in editing, but some may have made its way into the final draft.)

In defense of Satsuma:
I make more money here, at a lower cost of living, than I could reasonably hope to do without gaining a great deal more certifications than I currently have.
I have many wonderful people here whom I care about, and who care about me.
I love my students, especially the elementary students and the first year middle school students.
I have a settled life here, where I am a known entity who is invited everywhere.
I have felt happier here than I have anywhere since Hikone.

In defense of leaving:
This career is a dead end and sometimes one ought to rip off the band aid.
There are a lot of wonderful people anywhere, and, if China is any indication, I’ll forget 99% of the people I seem to love and care about anyway (Amanda was right: I’m Peter Pan).
I’m often frustrated by my lack of position and freedom while teaching. In China, I was a
locally semi famous professor. In Japan, I’m a nobody. And in Satsuma, I’m an Assistant Language Teacher.
I will not be able to move forward on any of my hopes and dreams if I stay in Satsuma.

First Rebuttal (refuting defense of Satsuma).
Yes, I make a lot of money in Satsuma, but if I stopped spending it on stupid stuff that I don’t need, money really wouldn’t be an issue. What’s more, I’d have a chance to earn more money by taking side jobs.
Yes, there are wonderful people who care about me, but I found them in China, and I found them in Satsuma. I even found them in America. I’m sure that I’ll find wonderful people if I go looking. Beyond that, though I care for them and esteem them, though I’d do or give most things for or to them, who can I call a friend? Honestly, nobody.
Yes, I love my students. But eventually, I’m going to have to leave students that I love, and, presumably, I’ll be leaving them for more students I love. In two years, I barley know ten students’ names. I won’t remember almost any of them within a month of leaving town. No matter how hard I try.
Yes, I have a settled life, but that’s a function of time rather than a declaration of any particular merit. If anything, it’s being stuck in a rut, which is something I have always derided. The fact that I’m so settled seems like ten years ago, it would have been in the cons category. This . . . upon further reflection, this point requires further personal reflection.
Yes, I’ve felt happier than any time since Hikone, but I’ve felt more miserable than any time since whenever the last time I felt miserable was. If anything, I think that I ought to have learned that happiness is not necessarily linked intrinsically to magical places. It’s in me. If I can just get it out. And, frankly, seeing as a lot of my misery appears to be caused by the weather here, I think that I may be well served by getting out.

Second Rebuttal (refuting in defense of leaving)
The career is a dead end, but it’s the best available, readily apparent, option without fundamentally changing my skill set (more on this later).
The fact that I monstrously forget almost everybody is not an excuse. That’s not a reason. That’s merely accepting as fact a personal failing which is almost certainly within my power to fix. In reality, I probably ought to be cherishing the people I care about even more rather than accepting, without a blush or sigh, that they’re disposable to me.
While I’m often frustrated by my teaching, and the lack of freedom, that is unlikely to change anywhere in Japan, unless it changes for the worse. Unless I go to a bigger city and network and network and network, I won’t be able to have the kind of pull that I had in China, and the nature of the business is so different that I will never be able to do what I did in China in Japan.
I’m perfectly capable of moving forward with my hopes and dreams if I actually use my time effectively. My problem is that I’m lazy and unmotivated, and I could presumably be ANYWHERE, and the results would be the same. Hoping for better things in a bigger town is, essentially, me rolling the dice and hoping that outside circumstances fix a personal problem.

Observations:
It seems that something needs to change. In defense of staying, I seem to offer the fact that I need to change myself. In defense of leaving, I seem to offer the opportunity of going to a new place.
So, the question is, what’s going to happen? If I move to a big city, am I going to use my opportunities more wisely, or will I waste time like I did in Chengdu? Granted, I did do some stuff in Chengdu, and I didn’t speak the language, but I didn’t do nearly as much as I had wanted. So, there remains the fundamental problem: I need to fix myself.
So, what’s going to be more conducive towards that?
In Satsuma, I have a steady schedule, time, money, a support network, and good working hours. These are all valuable things. What I don’t have is novelty. Yet, unless I could get a VERY good job in a bigger city (one that would likely require me to get some kind of high level ESL certification), I do not think that I could reasonably expect such living conditions. Then, the trouble comes in in that I do not use the time that I have. I waste it. I waste it doing things I love, mostly talking to friends, but I’m not using it to grow.
What do I need to do? I need to fix my body. Okay. Cooking and pool. That’s 3 hours. That’s . . . most of my spare time. But there’s more that I need to do. Japanese and music. Well, when can I work on that? The only answer is at school. And so . . . I need to suck it up and do that.
So, in a lot of ways, I think that this is goodbye to . . . possibly everybody. At least, for a while. That is, assuming that I can actually stick with this. My nights are going to get more full as time goes on and the workouts progress. My days will, hopefully, be full of studying. I just got permission to use the music room when it’s not in use to practice guitar. I wish that things weren’t like this, but, I don’t see any viable alternative.
So, if it’s time to renew my contract in December, if I’ve stuck to this, then I’m going to have a good case to make for staying in Satsuma. If I don’t stick with this, I may as well go to Kagoshima, or Osaka, or China, or anywhere. I have, right now, an amazing opportunity which I have spent two years wasting. If I can’t make the most of this, there’s not a lot of hope for me.