About two weeks ago, my boss offered me a promotion. I know. Tearjerker, right? Such an OUR GENERATION crisis, isn't it? The horror of getting promoted at a job you hate because it's "not really what you want to be doing."
My whole life I've had crappy jobs. And, that's okay. You do what you gotta do. Still the thing that always gave me solace at the end of the day was that I wasn't really rooted in any of them. If things got bad enough, I could always find another crappy job. One's as good as another-no big loss.
But, if I take this promotion then all of a sudden it's like "I'm invested." Time will pass, I'll make more money, I'll grow more comfortable there-next thing you know five years have gone by, and I've completely forgotten that this wasn't supposed to be a career. It was just the thing I was doing on the way to what I really wanted to do.
I don't want to be one of those people who gives up on their dreams because something easy came along the way, and they were too practical to pass it up. I just got finished writing a book. It took six months. And, I don't mind that it took six months (if it works out), but I don't want the next decade of my life to be divided up into six month chunks of projects (that didn't work out,) while I'm cementing myself into some job I can barely stand. Just seems like there should be something more.
But, there in lies the rub. I never wanted anything more. Some people they want a wife, a husband, two kids, and a picket fence. And, that's fine if that's what you want. Truth is none of that stuff ever meant anything to me. I am my work, which, sadly, is the hardest part because as long as I hate the thing I (barely) earn my living at then logically I'd have to hate my life, wouldn't I? One plus one, right? Always ends up being two.
1 comment:
If you'll note my post further down the page, A wife, two kids, and a picket fence is exactly what I want. I propose we switch lives.
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