This Job Is Changing Me and I Don't Like It
Navigating the Pre-Spiral
I don’t like who I’m becoming and that’s saying a lot.
This job is changing me in ways I don’t feel comfortable with and I need to make some difficult decisions sooner rather than later.
Acknowledging how one is mentally spiraling is a positive thing. Old me would have shamed myself for so many reasons. New me is more forgiving especially when the voices around me are not.
Despite how others might view it, I do take responsibility for my choices. What I find interesting about that sentiment is that when accountability looks a certain way for me - suddenly I’m the problem. It takes guts to decide that life is not working in the way you expect.
It takes courage to do something unpopular about it.
I know I need to get back on meds and eventually I will. Also, eventually I will have new stripes with a new direction - preferably with palm trees. I’ve let go of way too many things to accept that this kind of emotional chaos is supposed to be my new normal. I’ve never been one to conform and I don’t know why I feel the urge to do so now. I’m working a job people would kill to have. And yet, the unsettled feelings I have are not because of I don’t love what I do. I simply don’t enjoy how I do it.
And I am supposed to feel bad about being selective with how I want to spend my life??
I am supposed to suck it up and not just walk away??
The “responsible” thing to do would be to wait it out because we’re not supposed to quit when something is difficult.
Right?
When are we supposed to walk away?
When are we supposed to find something better?
When are we supposed to feel good about where and how we spend upwards of 8-10 hours per day?
When do we get to choose who want to work with?
These are all luxuries that the upper echelon get to have while those struggling to build a life that is tenable are expected to compromise on the very things that could improve who we are and how we thrive.
I feel guilty for quitting my last job. I feel guilty for wanting to leave this one and move to Miami. This guilt imprisons me to a life that is not lived for me but for the acceptance of who I think I need to be in order to be of worth.
I will always feel like an outsider looking at how everyone else deserves to be loved in a way I will never be.
In school, at work, with friends, and in life - I was never and will never be the first one picked. I will not be considered without first declaring my presence. I will not be celebrated unless I dim my own light. These truths set the foundation for how I need to approach decision making within all areas of my life.
Because if I am trying to accommodate my entire existence for people who don’t care enough to appreciate my connection, then I shouldn’t feel guilty about centering my own needs and desires?
This is always a story of reinvention. The nuance of my life is that I want to live it even when I feel like I don’t deserve to be here.
How do we reconcile the ways we emotionally and psychologically self-harm?
Am I in crisis simply because I’m unrelenting in how I participate in public storytelling?
Am I seeking attention with my musings?
Am I complaining about choices that aren’t so black/white?
There is an intersection of audacity and vulnerability for all of us to reimagine who we can become. Freedom was always a core desired feeling for me and it was more around physical freedom because who doesn’t want to sunbathe in the Amalfi Coast?
The older I get, the more recognize that freedom comes with surrendering expectations. This kind of freedom is liberating, or so I hear. However, liberation when your entire life depends on being tethered to the illusion of acceptance, comes at a price that may be too expensive to pay…at times.
This is why the word investment is so powerful in entrepreneurship. Because the freedom that potentially comes from self-employment depends on how you empower the inner rebel to spend currency on faith. The return on investment is joy but the cost to experience such returns means you have to bet on yourself first.
You’re either all in or you’re out.
And this is what I have to remind myself everytime I wake up at 4:45am. Because if I’m not all in on myself, I can’t expect anyone else to invest in me either.