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My Struggle

In writing this blog, I continually struggle with myself regarding what to share and what not to share.  Blog-writing is all about honesty and openness; that is what attracts readers – the ability to see inside someone else.  At least, that’s what I’ve read blogs should be about.  But, ANYONE can read blogs, which necessarily induces reticence.

By the way, I HATE the word “blog.”  It’s a very unattractive, fat word.  It lacks elegance.  I spent a whole 40 minute trip to work one day trying to create a better word for this online posting stuff.  The best I could come up with was “journlectic,” as in, an eclectic journal.  Tim was not impressed, deservedly I guess.  Journlectic doesn’t quite roll off the tongue.  What else to call it?  I guess I’ll have to consider that on another trip to work.

Ah, work, that is what I am struggling writing about, to get back to my opening point.  I recently changed jobs – moved from Treasury to Accounting.  The whole job-changing (and in my case career-changing) move is fraught with all sorts of writing-inducing feelings and thoughts.  Changing jobs/changing careers is not for the faint of heart.  You feel stupid and overwhelmed pretty much constantly, and just when you feel as if you are catching on, you post a journal entry in the wrong period and your boss can’t close the books until you fix it.  Or you fumble-finger an entry and do it for an amount 10 times larger than it should be.  Ah, my employer is so lucky to have me.

I just read a post this morning on Zen Habits with the catchy title of “The Insidious Perfidiousness of Doubts.”  And, yes, I did have to look up perfidiousness.  It was nice to know that I’m not the only one who has thoughts like this (quoted from the post):

“I can’t do it. I’m not good enough. I’d never make it. I’d only fail and embarrass myself. Why should I dare dream?”

These thoughts plague me daily, hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute.  Objectively, I know I’m an intelligent person.  If I ran across myself in the world, I would think to myself, “That girl is smart.  She can do whatever she wants and will be successful.  I wish I was her.”  But looking from the inside out, it’s a totally different story.  I have the above mentioned thoughts running through my head in a constant refrain and wonder if maybe I should go apply at Target for a cashier position.  I like helping people.  I could wear red every day.  I might be okay at that.

How to marry this external proof with the internal doubt, that is the real question.  Even though I’m very stressed about my current life change, I think that taking on this new challenge will be good for me in the long run.  If I am successful in this new endeavor, it will add more weight to the “external proof” bucket and weaken the internal doubt mantra.  I need to persevere and give it time.  I’ve caved in to my doubts too often, which is why I’m 30-something and still don’t have an encyclopedia page (I graduated from high school before Wikipedia existed) written about me, as my high-school classmates voted I would.  Giving in to doubt, I’ve not pursued many challenges and experiences.  The more I held myself back, the more power the internal voice got and the more I listened.

I do have to say though, that not listening to that voice is S T R E S S F U L.  I need to manage that better.  I know that the worst case scenario is not that bad and completely manageable (even if I did have to get a job at Target, we would still have enough money to eat and to make the house payment), but tell that to the feeling in the pit of my stomach when Lucent wakes me up at 4AM, and my mind starts racing about all the stuff I don’t know how to do and don’t yet understand.

I’m just trying to sort this all out and deduce if I’m making good decisions and living the life I want to live.  I haven’t been writing lately because I’ve been working so much, and writing about accounting is not that interesting.  But, I need to make my life about something besides work, so I need to write.  That’s a step in the right direction at least.