Slow Motion

I have adjusted to the idea of my new role, having attended a few meetings and speaking about the change to several people in the office. I overcame my initial feeling of fear and shame. My therapist said that I should not use the word 'fear' but more of 'discomfort'. So my feeling are not really fear and anxiety but discomfort. It makes sense I should NOT fear getting fired since that should have happened already; instead of announcing the department change, as compared to our contractors were several people were let go. My new boss said the employees will be protected but the contractor will be adversely impacted.

There is another emotion that I feel which is losing out on an opportunity to work in another department (though one is not really sure if one will get the position). I guess it is having no options left if I do not apply; getting stuck with nowhere to go. I guess the overriding 'fear' is that my management does not really need me and are just waiting to let me go, despite all the things that I have done. This is when the doubts creep in the early morning, as I lie in bed staring out into the dark room. Where did I make the wrong turn? What point in time was I heading in the wrong direction, or when did I miss the signs? Did my career really mean nothing.?

Of course, this is useless rumination as my therapist said in our session last week. To keep regurgitating the same thoughts over and over again like a broken record. But it is hard waiting for the transition to happen, seeing the signs that tell my mind to look for other work as I head down into a place where there is nothing left for me to do. Obviously, this is the intended course: to offload your present duties so you can work on your new ones. The fear is realizing that you do not have the skills to function adequately in your new role.

I bought cheap online courses to start learning: JAVA programming and SQL. I have an image of myself being a student again; putting my notebooks into school bag where I can write notes as I learn from the internet.This is the best way forward, to dig in and get the skills that one needs. This was the original intention of this blog anyway, to learn new things as the new world gets underway. But things are moving at a glacial pace, like I am watching myself in slow motion as we hurl into the abyss of the new, where everyone is trying to get a sense of what to do next while the boss is just 'winging' it just like everyone else.

Morning Darkness

I fear I am going to get released soon. These thoughts come out in the morning, as I lay in bed, waking from sleep. The mind not yet in it's rational state, still emerging from dreams. The dark does not help, some light filters in from the windows, coming from the street lamp across the street. I have outlived my usefulness, my middle age made me  paranoid and feeble despite my attempts to be  relevant; joining public speaking clubs, learning to hunt, riding my scooter along the back roads of the countryside. All for naught.

Perhaps my transgressions have come to roost; my internet surfing at work; checking CNN, Bloomberg, BBC, Reuters, New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, FiveThirthyEight, Independent, Telegraph, Mother Jones; to be in touch of the madness gripping national politics. Perhaps this has driven my overwrought mental state, of the coming apocalypse; maybe nukes from North Korea or Russia. It's a good thing I enrolled in the company counselling package where I get to see a therapist for free for a couple of sessions. My second session is coming next week which is just in time.

I have not done bad I think; still engaged in monthly reports and getting things done. Increasing my communication during the monthly reviews and accomplishing some good stuff for the company in the previous year. All these efforts should mean something or so one would think. On balance, I think my positives should more than equal my shortcomings or at least cancel out the bad which should make me even. In the company books, I should be breaking even.

How would gauge someone career? To look back at more than 20 years of service and wonder if this journey really meant something. It has been thrilling ride; living in several countries in the world. Now is the time of reckoning; when the kind wizards would gaze at a person's life before giving judgement. But really, it is up to me on how one would react; it is the individual who decides one's fate; not some dark omniscient machine deciding the fate of man.