BEFORE (in the corporate world):
Please don't make me write anything with the words "keepsake" or "figurines" in it, least of all together. Yikes. If you need keepsakes---or figurines---please go away.
I'm looking for inspiration today and I want to look for it alone, the same way I like to run: alone. And do yoga: alone (in my head at least). I don't like collaboration all the time. I like it when I'm ready for it, when I'm primed, well-fed, juiced with my own ideas. I don't like my ideas to get watered down (pissed on?) by those with less inspiration, perspiration, passion. Please, spare me. Leave me be. To my searching by myself.
Chances are, my ideas will be good, if not quirky and hard to convey (Seth knows). While yours will be pedestrian and perfunctory. I will hate you. I will berate you a thousand times, silently, in my head. Berate you for not choosing a profession more apt to your uninspired ways like telemarketer for a large, angry credit card company or administrative assistant in a windowless insurance agency. Why are you taking your anorexia of thought out onto my smorgasboard of try-it-all dreams?
I want to hide but I am in a cubicle. I want to run away but my car is downstairs in the huge parking lot and I am 60 miles from my home. I will stay here until my assigned "cohort" comes to fetch me so he can condescend (ironically) to my idea-machine with his churned-out, resigned-to-mediocrity schlock.
Chained to my need to pay bills every month, I have to tolerate. Endure. Breathe in. Breathe out. One more time.
Somebody save me.
Darth?
Oh Darth.
At least stolen ideas masked by that deep, haunting voice are....ideas.
AFTER (on my own): Ever since making the decision to work for myself, I have attracted more like-minded people. More talented people. More crazy people with ADD. Hallelujah baby Jesus.
When I said somebody save me, well, I guess I didn't realize all I had to do was save myself. Blah. So typical. A total cliche, I know. But still. When you're in the thick of it, you don't see any way out. It's too scary. You literally want Superman to swoop in. Or Calgon. Or Mr. Vader himself. Not that he saves people. But you get the point: Just something to transport you elsewhere. What you don't see is that all you have to do is...stop.
And I'm not going to lie and say that being on my own isn't, at times, terrifying. What freaks me out the most isn't the financial aspect, because money comes and goes, (and it mostly goes and the coming part is a lot of chasing.) Fine, so be it. What is the most daunting, really, is the idea that people rely on me, they look to me for answers. Who me? Answers? An authority on something? How did I get to this place? Years ago, I was the quiet girl at the meeting, hoping no one would ask me a damn thing. And now I can't shut up. Well, I can. But if I'm on a roll, I'm on it. It's a good feeling. But it still scares me, nonetheless. And I'm afraid that I might suck. I'm afraid that I might really suck a lot and my bullshitting is going to catch up to me. Except this is a bullshit industry, isn't it? Marketing and advertising? Yep. it sure is.
So it's really all so subjective. However, one non-negotiable is having a strong opinion and a persuasive personality. And because I work with others with strong opinions and persuasive personalities, we end up doing some really great stuff together. And I realize I've finally gotten to that point in my career where work is actually fun.
This is a new year, a new time. And I'm really grateful to work with the inspired and the perspiring and radiating and crazy and dedicated to the crazy and just being and doing and all the rest. I'm pretty happy. Happier than I've been in a long, long time.
Thanks for listening. I just had to get that out. But make no mistake: this is a call to action to anyone who's stuck in "BEFORE." (See above). Go out there and get your own. I can't recommend it enough. That is, unless you have outlets for your passions outside your day job. That's pretty cool, too. I have a friend who's a tremendous writer but his day job is in finance. I think it's amazing that he can work and be successful in that area and also be so talented and get a lot of satisfaction from writing for writing's sake. If I was good at anything besides writing, I'd love to be able to just write to write. But, well, like I said, I'm happy. I write for pay and that's alright with me. ;)
