Gotta Get Out of This Place

We gotta get out of this place
If it's the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place'cause girl,
there's a better life for me and you
Eric Bourdon and the Animals

I’m having trouble concentrating. When I talk to someone, it’s fun. I wake up. I’m a little more energized. When I sit down at my computer, my head gets heavy, my eyes blur and I feel vaguely dizzy. I’m writing. It’s all I can do. Last year, I saw a career counselor. Let’s call her “Colleen” (her real name is “Colleen”). She got me to define what I was after in a career. I think my problems may just be deeper than that. Let’s define it:

Fear.

In my internal biological debate on how to react to fear, “flight” wins out of “fight” about 90 percent of the time.

Here is a start on the list of things that make me afraid:

Changing jobs·
Doing my current job·
Challenging authority·
Losing my paycheck·
Getting fired·
Not getting fired·
That I’ll be found out·
That I won’t be found out.

Frankly, I’m just afraid that anything will happen. Or that it won’t. I’m afraid of doing whatever it is myself, and afraid that it won’t happen on its own.

* * *

I wrote the above about a year ago. Not much has changed. But I'm learning... I'm finally talking to someone about net around my mind, the one that has settled gently over my life like a blanket that comfortably discourages the straining and striving against something so intrinsicially unfair as a net.

This is an exercise in straining and striving.