The sands begin to run through the hourglass. With three weeks left in my course, I spent last weekend pondering the age-old question what the (bleep) was I thinking? I learned a lot from my course, and I just learned the biggest lesson of them all: take something you enjoy. My brain kept thinking about keeping my skills fresh, making sure I stay competitive, and kicking off a swirl of what ifs along the line of ‘what if I found myself out of a job?’
I had to sit my brain down for a chat.
Listen up brain, I began, we are doing fine. We have a good job. You helped me decide to leave a full-time job, with benefits, to go back to school. Yes, I live in uncertain times. However we are doing alright, and this time the heart is getting sick and tired of taking second place. It’s demanding I do something for myself, and it’s really ticked off I took this class while taking acting class, and trying to finish my story for Off The Wall. I mean it’s whining about doing two stories instead of one. It’s driving me crazy.
From now on, brain, you are helping out in the creative department. We will write more, and we will take another acting class. And I am taking the one for television and film. Yes, I know the camera adds 20 pounds, but I want to shake up my fears. This will shake things up. Understand?
The brain and I need to discuss matters further.
Let me clear something up: I enjoy coding. I wished I took the self-taught approach rather than a class. Even as I wrote that sentence, I search for some fault within me. I have an uneasy relationship with formal schooling. On the surface I understand its necessity, and I have succeeded through the system. On the other hand directing my learning made me retain more, and it also imbues things with some meaning. I have a check list in my head of things I should have done to not feel so overwhelmed. On the other hand, I have an even bigger checklist to go with a strategy in my head, making sure overwhelmed does not incapacitate. Ever see a squirrel freeze in the middle of a field thinking if I stand perfectly still no predator will eat me. Welcome to what happens if overwhelmed crosses into incapacitated.
In the end it’s onward and upward. Just finish the course and pass.
Unpaused Life 