I’ve held this belief for the last few years, that it made sense for me to deliberately restrict myself to relatively low level jobs. The idea was that the level of stress and challenge was low enough to allow me to expend the saved energy on my ‘real’ jobs – the entrepreneurial projects, the writing, the general dreaming of a life where my talents would actually be acknowledged.
I’ve held and practised this belief for about four or five years I think. And now I’ve begun letting it go. It served me, and now I don’t think it does. So, I’ve dived into the world of work. Is the belief gone now? No, it hasn’t, but something seems to fundamentally relax when I realise that I was the one who was exerting the grip in the first place.
It’s probably fair to say that I’m a bit of an idealist and dreamer by nature, and I’m starting to realise that while this part of me gives me some wonderful gifts of creativity and visioning, it has some pretty deep pitfalls too. And one of those is my inclination to hide out on the fringes, not engaging in the messy froth of the mainstream in the belief that it is limiting, and fundamentally restrictive.
I guess there’s probably some truth to that, but it is in that disengagement that I allow my dreams and ideals to remain exactly that, and never test them or engage them in the unfair and imperfect muddiness of life. It allows me to remain the dreamer, never having those dreams threatened by the brutality of reality, never having my fragile and ‘special’ ego rocked by the brawls of ‘how things really are in the world’.
So, I’ve dived into the mainstream. I asked for, and was granted a promotion at my job at a university: a job where I knew there was no way my idealism could remain unchallenged. It was a position where I set myself the task of doing the best job I possibly could, despite the difficult circumstances, and inherent imperfection. No matter how effective I was, I knew I was going to fall a long way short of perfect.
Despite all my spiritual practices and ‘conscious’ projects outside of the institution, in a way, that decision felt like an incredibly spiritual one. It was a challenge to the dreamer, to give all he could, in the world of the wakeful.
