Wednesday, May 16, 2012

What Price Your Train of Thought?

I don't know how to say this.

I want to work again, but I'm having trouble with the existing system.

It sucks that I only get paid ten bucks an hour to do editing and stuff.  That I can't just wake up in the morning and go to my desk and do something and make ten bucks an hour.  But no, I've gotta go sit in their office for eight hours, while they time me and rent me and make me "productive" as they want it defined.

I don't like the rules.  I don't like the system.  I should get more for doing what it is that I want to do.

I'm not asking for a million dollars.  I'm asking for enough to get by.  And that's more than ten bucks an hour, doing something I would rather not do.

If I made twice that amount, it would be better.  Maybe even okay.  Then we could breathe, economically.  Financially.  If I could collect the money from my retirement fund, the ten bucks an hour would be okay, because we'd be covering our debts.  But it's not adding up right now.

We're sinking into greater debt, there's more going out than coming in, and there's no end in sight.  No turnaround foreseen.  How do we turn this thing around?  How can I take my many talents and make a living again?

I feel like I've got to put myself out there, right out in front.  Go live, so to speak, and just have everyone stare at my big ass hairy problems as they are.  A big ol' plate of honesty.  How much is that worth?

I hate that I feel guilty for feeling sick like I am.  As if feeling sick isn't enough, I need a "real" problem as well.  If I could just snap out of it I would have done it years ago.  But that's not happening.  If you can actually develop a methodology and practice for the "snap out of it" therapy that works, you'd have yourself a winning product in the marketplace.  I don't think it's been invented as of yet.

But mental illness exists, and it exists with a grand stigma.  People don't talk about having mental illness, even if they do, because they don't want to be judged as "crazy" or "weak" or whatever.  You can't be president of the United States if you're mentally ill.  Well, evidently, anyway.  That's what our insane "vetting" process says, and yet we have a whole congress full of nutcases.

I don't know what else I want to say, except that we have real problems that need real solutions, and to get at those real solutions we need to be real honest with ourselves. 

If I'm going to do anything for forty hours a week, I need to benefit from it.  I need more than 400 bucks and a "thank you."  Especially when it costs me a hundred bucks for gas and wear and tear on my vehicle. 

This is not a plea for winning the lottery, or handouts, or even sympathy.  I'm entitled to peace of mind, and for that I'm willing to work.  But I don't want to paint myself into a corner.  And especially not at ten bucks an hour.

I want to get fair value for the work I've been doing.  I'm making progress, I do believe.  I'm writing much more frequently these days, and I'm approaching a consensus, or a vision.  A clarity, perhaps?  I don't know, but I'm moving along the path toward greater understanding and wisdom, I do feel that.  And I'm creating something here with this blog.  I will continue to work at it, and allow it to define itself.  It will evolve as I evolve.

And the acorn does bloom into a grand canopy of tree greatness.  In time, and at its own pace.

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