Waiting to Reap What is Sewn

I have to admit that for the last week I've been in something of a funk. It happens. I was looking at the world and my place in it and wondering what was the point.

I've always said that the greatest decision of my life had been to go away to college. If I hadn't done that, I said, I would have lived my life in my father's basement and worked part-time at the local truck stop washing dishes. I'd be about six hundred pounds and be the sharpest wit in the fantasy Broadway chat rooms.

But, I escaped to Des Moines, completed my degree and then escaped to Chicago where I've had several careers -- all of them pretty interesting, actually -- and I'm about to embark on yet another. While there are deficiencies in my life, things I'd like to change, by and large I'm pretty happy with my accomplishments. True, I'm not a world-recognized authority on anything...yet...but there aren't many people around who've done all that I've done.

If it sounds like I'm tooting my own horn a little too loudly, you may be right. It's compensation for spending the last week focused on my failures and shortcomings. Does anyone bat a thousand? I think not. Yet, I'd say that I'm batting better than .300, and I'm very proud of that.

Frustration comes when I don't see immediate results. I'd be a terrible farmer. I'd toss the seeds on the ground on Monday and on Wednesday I'd want to see sprouts. The torture comes in resisting the urge to dig up the seeds and scatter something else. But, if we keep this agricultural metaphor going, what I've actually done is some crop rotation. My focus has been on the business. The seedlings are beginning to break ground in that field. Now the focus has to be on the job search.

But, you say, if you're starting your own business why do you need a job? Frankly because I need security. I need health insurance. I'm completely willing to take a job that pays less than my market value in order to nurture the business along. It's an investment that will pay off. I no longer feel the need to scale to the top of the corporate ladder. My self image is no longer defined by that type of success.

So, in the last week revising my resume has been my focus. It has been an ugly, painful thing that's involved discussions with "employment marketing professionals" and reading all kinds of books. I've spent long hours trying to generate enthusiasm and interest in the types of jobs that fit my resume. I've worried about the warts on my resume and allowed myself to wonder if I'll ever get another job.

Then I put the book down and realized that I was fretting about landing a job that I didn't want. I want the salary. I want the benefits. I want the security. I don't want the job. So, I need to decide what type of job I wanted. Then I realized that I know what kind of job I want, I just haven't looked for it, assuming that I don't qualify.

That's when the book started to make sense. I need to target my resume to the jobs I want, not the jobs I think I qualify for. With that realization I'm energized again. Problem: these jobs don't pay what I want. Reality: neither does unemployment. So, the new seeds are beginning to be sewn and these are seeds that I know will germinate pretty quickly.

So, that leaves us with the third field. School. That's a rocky field and one potentially littered with land mines. I want to get into a good PhD program, primarily because I'm a credential snob. But I'm terrified that I'm not good enough. Of course, there's only one way to find that out, and that's to simply shut up, do the work and apply. The deadline for those applications is December 31, but I'm going to get all of my ducks in a row this month.

Finally, there's the writing, which hasn't just taken a back seat, but has been left standing in the driveway in the oil spot. Shameful. But I can say that I've been trying to view my work as objectively and I have to say that I think there is some quality there. It is publishable. I've just got to start getting it to publishers.

I know, I know, I've been saying that for months, if not years. But slow as it's been, there has been progress on that front as well. I have about a quarter of the collection ready to go.

But I wonder if I've made the right decision sometimes. Wouldn't it have been so much easier to live in my father's basement? Easier, yes. As much fun? Absolutely not.