Perhaps it was the pneumonia, or the insanity-inducing antibiotics, or the crazy delusions I had while I was on them, the horrendous insomnia I'm suffering from, or the fact that I was at a funeral at the weekend. I'm not really sure. But there is something abuzz in my head and I don't like it one bit.
Buzzes, niggles and trifles are whirling round and round, but they're pretty normal things which I imagine most of us are probably guilty of uttering at some point... "if only I had a bit more time, I would start my own business/be more creative/volunteer/do something more worthwhile" etcetera etcetera etcetera.
And I'm guiltier than most: I've been saying for the last 3 years, "oh, if only I could leave my job and have some time to myself, I would start my business and work from home and be super creative and keep a tidy house and have time to make proper meals and not make myself ill with stress and spend more time at the gym and be way more relaxed and much, much happier"...
And perhaps I would be happier, and perhaps I would be less stressed and perhaps I would be able to start a business, but that in itself is a pretty huge commitment/struggle/headache. Admittedly, leaving my job would do me no end of good, physically and mentally, but it would also bring about masses of other issues, largely financial - how on earth could I afford to live in London without a regular income and just my craftiness to support me??? I know people do do it, but it's a huge step to take and one that we're never really trained or set up for taking. It is expected that when we leave school/college/uni we get a job and work up the ranks. I wouldn't say that I'm un-ambitious, but that's just not how I work - I constantly want/need new challenges and changes of scene.
I long to be wholly independent and work for myself, do (roughly) what I like, and have the full pressure on me rather than having to rely on other people. If everything screws up and I get into a pickle I can accept that there's no-one to blame but myself, and I'm fine with doing so. I'm pretty good in that kind of situation, and I work well under pressure - it's the one good aspect of being an utter control freak. If you give me a week to write an essay, you just know that I'll leave it to the last night and still manage to pull something magnificent out of the bag. Give me a deadline to do almost anything and it will get done. It could be a close scrape, but it will be done, and it will be done with the same obsessive perfection as it would have been done had I spent months working on it.
I am of the belief that you can do pretty much anything if you put your mind to it, but that doesn't take away any of the fear associated with the initial starting of it. In fact, it puts on even more pressure to make it work, otherwise you might end up feeling like a failure and I'll bet that's worse.
Something does need to change, but it's scary stuff and I don't know if I can do it.
4 hellos:
How about start with a baby step? Your job only part time? That would leave you part time to get the craftiness up and running to a level that you could potentially quit completely but take away some of the risk? You'd have a smaller steady income, but it would be there all steady, you'd still get lots of time in the summer for bigger projects/holidays/rest/seeing people (me!) and you can rest more? Maybe? Maybe?
I like Siobhán's maybe. I also like the fact that I'm seeing you on Sunday, when hopefully we can discuss this in depth :)
Are you all better now? Hope so. And yeah, maybe not stay on in your current job, because you don't like it, but find something part-time and go from there.
I was thinking along those lines, but I can't do part time at my job, so it will have to be another part-time job.
The only problem with that is that I'm quite an all-or-nothing type person - either a full time job or no job at all. It's a problem I seem to have always had, I have quite extremes of opinion/behaviour and this weird situation is one of them.
If you hear of any part time jobs, however, do let me know ;)
Post a Comment