I thought I’d gotten over it. But every time I look at the LinkedIn profile of someone who’s still involved with a business or a career, I get pangs of…I don’t know what. On the one hand, I want to jump back into business, get something done! On the other, I recoil at my interest in returning to something so toxic.
Maybe I’m competitive, not just with others, but with myself. Maybe the unhealthy aspect of business, the aspect that seeks “more, better, more, best,” is what draws me back. But, on another level, I did truly enjoy competing, showing off, demonstrating that I had the wherewithal to do things others didn’t. Often, I gloated (internally) that I was able to get things done without the benefit of formal business education, while people with BBAs and MBAs didn’t seem to have the innate drive and determination I had. But that was, I suspect, mostly egotistical drivel, driven by pride and personal greed.
I want, more than anything, to bring happiness to people I love. So why, instead, am I pursuing writing as if it were paying the light bills and keeping food on the table? Well, maybe I’m only pretending to pursue it like that.
I don’t want writing to become a substitute for an unsatisfying career. That would be a terrible thing, in so many ways. I want to write for me. But that’s just so much hogwash, I think. If I truly were writing for me, I wouldn’t bother sharing it.
This is late-in-the-day stream-of-consciousness swill that belongs in a tabloid, not on my blog. But here it is. I have not been employed by a tabloid. Not yet.
