It wasn’t the content in my life making me miserable; it was the context.
I gave 13 years of my life to a job that I hated. I was quite comfortable there, but miserable. I was the Assistant Manager, and I was waiting impatiently to become the General Manager. I was doing the job for it, running the place. I was never going to quit the place; I needed it to quit me. It finally did.
I was chasing the money, like most young guys. I didn’t want to quit because I wanted the massive severance pay. I got what I wanted, but instead of using it for what I wanted, I took some time off. I needed to find myself. I didn’t want to end up going into the next job chasing the money and hating the place.
Scamdemic got in the way. We entered the dumb ages. I lost everything but my car. I ended up at a big box store, but part-time. I was getting full-time hours. Until I wasn’t. I tried multiple times to secure a full-time position. I don’t want to get into that saga again either.
Now I have landed the job I have now. It’s full-time, pays a lot more, and has great benefits. I love my job on the surface, but I find myself bitter again. It’s got to be me. I’m toxic. I built my program from the ground up while my coordinator got the salary for it. I feel jaded because he got the raises and the promotions, too.
I find myself struggling to separate myself from my work. My morning was peaceful until I started to think about work. The thought of the new hire making more than me sent me into an internal fury. Even though I have no reason to believe that she is making more than I am. We were offered a range for our salaries. I took the one in the middle, believing that I would earn the top-tier one down the line. That was naive. They do not give raises, period. There has been some success in other programs. My coordinator tried to get that for me, and they put it on the back burner like they do everything else.
So now, apparently, I am going to be fixated on this. I’m going to hold on to it until it burns like everything else that is already burning.
My real problem is that I have too much time to think. I do keep myself busy, but that’s just a distraction. Masking a symptom, basically. That’s not what I want to be about. I spent yesterday numbed out. I have burnout, so I accepted my body’s terms and conditions. REST.
I’m just going to end up miserable no matter where I end up. No matter what I do. That’s the moral of the story.
When you need water, you feel thirsty. When you need food, you feel hungry. When you need growth.... You feel stuck. I feel stuck. I feel stagnant. Inside and out.
But hey, I’ve had worse problems by a lot. I have great problems now. I wouldn’t trade my problems with anyone else. I’m trying some good old toxic positivity.
I just feel like I am waiting. Waiting to feel like it. Like tomorrow is going to be the day I finally have a fire under my ass. I have ADHD, a dopamine deficiency. I literally don’t have the chemical for motivation. I need a crisis. I need to have myself a merry little crisis. That’s what it took before. Burn it all down, and then start fresh. I got to figure this shit out, so I don’t have to self-sabotage myself into change.
Anyway, I’m going to hit the gym. My cough is gone, so I can hit the gym hard. I had my 5-day fast last month, and then a two-week hiatus from the gym because of a cold, so you would think that I would have lost a lot of mass, but I didn’t. I’m busting out of my winter coat and some of my clothes. It hurts, and I need to buy new clothes. I felt frustrated about it yesterday because I’m too old to experience growth spurt problems. It’s a nice problem to have. I’m finally putting on weight. I have a massage later, and then I’m doing Christmas baking with some friends.
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