Be Careful What You Settle For

Because maybe that’s what you actually wanted all along

Sometimes the bottle is just empty. Photo by Souro Souvik on Unsplash

I have a pattern of self-sabotage, the kind of impulsive self-sabotage that hope tricks you into. Hope has always precipitated some kind of emotional spiral, making me find logic and reason in whatever dumb idea is currently rattling about in my brain. It leads me to carry through with that dumb decision even though I know I’m going to look back and regret it.

I fall apart like clockwork. Powerless to stop the clock, I usually brace myself for impact. Afterward, I gather the pieces as quickly as possible with help from the handful of people from whom I’ve learned to accept assistance.

A year and a half ago I was an assistant supervisor in a small corporate business. While I performed excellently on the outside, I was a complainer on the inside.

I hated:

• having a job that was both customer-facing and disciplinary,
• having to know more than the supervisor without getting paid for it (being the brain behind the curtain)
• having to commute
• having to physically show up at a specific time (odd how struggling to get out of bed interferes with getting places on time)
• having breaks and lunches strictly…