*This one comes with zero shade to the people I worked with nor the work mentioned, this one is about my feelings toward myself and my personal fulfilment from the work I produced*
UNSERIOUS CONTENT WARNING: mixed metaphors and cliches everywhere.
Also many tenses, which I don’t think is such a bad thing.
Dreams or security. For most of my ‘working life’ I have tried doing both simultaneously. Burning the night oil operating on a rule of ‘one [piece of work] for dreams one for security’. It doesn’t work. Eventually this must splinter. You either produce work that you’re not completely sold on in both departments, or you focus on one of the two and really go for it, and more often than not, if you do really go for it, you reach a form of destination down the path you set out on.
In the past, I think it was different. I think it was easier to take risks and to therefore dream without a need for security; I also think security was easier to come by. Dreams and security were two lanes on the same road, not a crossroads as such. Perhaps in the future, I will have set myself up to find a place where these roads do rejoin again, for if you’re lucky, one can follow the other: You become secure yourself enough to take the risk, or you chase the dream and security comes with it. But both cannot come at the same time. People are incredibly short-sighted with how they experience emotion for the most part, and so they must choose the path they want to veer down. I must choose the path I want to veer down.
I am at a crossroads, but only just. I have one foot in the middle, the other has, this week, gone towards the path of dreams.
This is what happened.
The last fifteen months have, with a few exceptions, been pretty crap for me. The top line: half a dozen deaths and two bad illnesses in and around the family, living in hostels for a few months because I had to move out asap, haemorrhaging my puny savings because of this, and dealing with panic attacks. There’s other less immediately crap things, existential, identity-centred, things, but we’ll stop there.
Throughout this time, work or at least doing the work I wanted to do, took a hit. I chose security, heavily. “I did what I had to do” to keep fairly sane, not panicked, pay the bills and recuperate the modest four-figure savings I had (which granted, I’m lucky to be able to accumulate, but my anxiousness over not having them forces me into making sure I do).
When life began to settle down again, I was hit with a bad spell of depression on top of the dysthymia I generally enjoy. This has happened before and the combination is known as double depression, I shit you not.
I looked back at this period of my life, where I went from late 25 to early 27, with a sulking anger, frustration, and useless, dark, cloudy pity. I accepted that this, fresh out of the covid panini while others around me were making strides again, was the universe was giving me a director’s cut of going nowhere. I was in a flop era, and not one I was willing to accept or embrace.*
I am still in this era, but I’m just about shaking off the worst of it. I am about to stop being still, and I am about to try and tread a path.
What I mean by this is I felt like my life was stuck on pause. I was there, desperately wanting to resume and fast forward my progression, scrolling mindlessly for dopamine, getting irate at every unimportant email that came through, not that I was putting much out into the world to get important emails back . I generally had no idea how to hit action again, how to even pick up this metaphorical remote I seem to have visualised instead of a crossroad for the moment. Then I went to hand in my notice.
I can’t be bothered to go on about the importance of purpose within work, even though I think it’s overlooked by many, even though I know it is one of the primary driving forces to my happiness. You’ve heard the ‘I quit my job and felt better’ stories before, and I’m technically not better yet, nor have I really stopped doing the work I am leaving, so let’s wrap up before it gets boring.
We’re back, nearly. Hopefully. The toe I am striding into insecurity (or dreams) is becoming a foot as I announce this, and hopefully a leg by this time next week. I don’t feel able to fully walk or run just yet. I am hoping to eventually get there, and will do all I can to allow that for myself.
Anyway, as part of me writing the things I want to write and edit** to find fulfilment and purpose, I’ll likely be publishing this letter more regularly (among other personal projects). Mediaocre is on all things media: critique of lazy shit, support of shit that tires, inspiration, rumination, other stuff. Hopefully with more realness, nerdiness, seriousness and personality than anyone actually gives it elsewhere.
It’s nice to have the strength to try again, at least until the bailiffs find me.
T’ra. x
* The idea of a working capacity is different for different people; you are reading my thoughts, if you don’t agree with the idea of holding down a ob and doing a bit more on the side as constituting a flop, that is very okay. But for me, I do. I will concede I put an abnormal level of self-worth into my work, which may be less than healthy, but I also know that for me, enjoying my work (and doing a lot of it) is essential to keeping mentally well. Glad that’s established.
** Features, non-fiction, fiction, branded content, content strategy, brand strategy, editorial consultation, creative copywriting, photography, lecturing, podcasting, etc. in no particular order.
Also, as I guess I am obliged to do, this small book I wrote fairly recently is out in February, there is a pre-order link here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-future-of-wales/rhys-thomas/9781911545637
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