I need to make a schedule. I need to set some goals, measurable goals. I can’t just be a dreamer; I have to also be a doer.
But what do I do?
Today I learned that my sister has to go back to work tomorrow. She works for a nonprofit, has her own office and has minimal contact with others, as such, her employer wants to open for business.
When I found that out, it kind of scared me. I wondered will my employer soon be calling me telling me the same thing. While that’s highly unlikely given that I work at a place where it’s pretty much impossible for the business to run successfully while social-distancing, you just never know, so I have to prepare myself.
Still, going back to work scares me for several reasons. Here’s why:
- I make more than twice as much on unemployment than I did when I was working. And the sad part about that is it’s not like I’m rolling in the dough with these unemployment checks. It’s still not enough money to comfortably take care of myself if I lived on my own, but thankfully I don’t.
- I’m not so fond of my job to begin with. I work that job because I need the money not because I particularly enjoy it.
- Going back to work would give me less time and energy to focus on my true goal of having a writing career. Working at that job is just an extra stressor that I don’t need right now.
- Then, of course, there’s the whole health factor.
So yeah, that’s why I’m scared.
But even if I don’t go back to work anytime soon, that extra $600 a month is only going to last for four months, then it will be back down to what I’m actually supposed to be getting, which of course is much less than I would be getting if I went back to work.
What does all this mean, you might ask? It means I have about three months (possibly less) to find another stream of income – and I want that stream to be a writing one.
Ask me what kind of writing I want to do, and I can rattle off a whole list of things, I just don’t know where to begin. I feel like I’ve already said that several times in this post – that’s how much it confounds me.
Nevertheless, I gotta start setting some goals. I gotta start picking some dates to get shit done by. And I don’t even know what a realistic goal is. Like I don’t want to aim too high and set myself up for disappointment. But I don’t want to aim too low either and have minimal progress when I could have gone further. I guess it really doesn’t matter as long as I do something.
Lately my prayer has been Father, give me this day my daily bread – and I’m not just talking about food. Big dreams can be so overwhelming, with the roadmap between my now and that dream so obscured. This often causes me to get ahead of myself. I get so focused on the endgame that I can’t even tell what I can do in the present moment to help me get there. So when I say give me this day my daily bread, I’m saying help me see what I can do today to get one step closer to my ultimate goal.
If I do that – use what I have right now, focus on these measurable goals – I have a feeling that even that I’m not sure how to get there, it’ll come to me along the way.
Leave a Reply