I have meandered around about pursuing a career forever. All I ever wanted to do since I was a kid ripped away from my mom was come home to my mom. Here I am, and very happy about it. It won't last forever, though, I know. I need to prepare for the future somehow. In high school, I was voted Most Artistic, and we all thought I would do that for a living. I totally missed the boat on that. When the time came for college, I was preoccuppied with escaping from an angry screaming banshee woman I lived with, was just so happy I got accepted to college, and wasn't aware there was an entirely separate admissions process for the Art/Design department. I had also made the mistake of listening to a friend from high school tell me that I needed to get a real career, and that graphic artists starve, etc. I believe plenty of them probably do, but I allowed that to create doubt about myself, and have been at a loss ever since. I went on to my first year of college, just taking general ed courses and glad to have escaped that miserable home. My former foster mom was so pissed that I didn't stay there and pay rent to her. I went on a church mission for a couple of years, which I count as a good thing, a strengthener in my life. When I came back, I got lost in search of some profound meaningful quest about what I should do with my life to cultivate the attribute of charity, which is the greatest of all, and renders all others worthless. I didn't know what the hell to do. I studied Chinese for a few years, then switched over to Psychology. I tried out for Police and Fire Departments, passed the physical and I think the written exams just fine, but those verbal interviews--weird! I taught English as a Second Language part-time, which was a lot of fun, but I'd go broke. I went back to a little trade school to study multimedia, and enjoyed that, and then the school closed down abruptly about three weeks before I was to graduate. I stayed on with the job I had selling Apple computers in a retail store. I was good at it, but really did not like having to endure abuse from customers who were "always right," and happened to walk through the door in a bad mood. To this day, I try to be nice to people who work in retail. I tried selling computers on a corporate basis, and hated all the cold-calling. The boss kept track of how many calls we made and how long the calls were. There in that cubicle, I asked myself what I enjoy doing. I remembered enjoying road trips between Utah and California when I was in school, driving long stretches, enjoying the natural landscapes, rocking out to whatever music I wanted, and stopping at little outpost truck stops which I like so much for some reason. Don't know why, really.
So, I quit my sales job and tried driving limousines. I worked all night most of the time, taking bachelors to strip clubs and bars, with insane irregular hours, uncertain pay, got in trouble for taking a nap in a restaraunt parking lot after no sleep the night before, and got in dangerous drowsy-driving situation, endangering an entire family once because the other chauffeur was a drunk jackass and couldn't cover his shift. I quit. I landed myself in the hospital for a few weeks, so depressed I wanted to kill myself. I got a commercial drivers license, and over the course of a few jobs, have been hauling Hazardous Materials--chemicals, and compressed gases like oxygen, etc., to this day. I do enjoy delivering things people need and who are happy to see me. That's much better than sales, where people didn't want to talk with me. I enjoy the physical exercise and fresh air, and not having to deal with office politics so much, which would really drive me batty. Overall, in regard to career, I feel like the devil's got his foot on my neck, keeping me down hard. I'd really like to cast him off far away, and emerge. Am I having some kind of a mid-life crisis?
So, I quit my sales job and tried driving limousines. I worked all night most of the time, taking bachelors to strip clubs and bars, with insane irregular hours, uncertain pay, got in trouble for taking a nap in a restaraunt parking lot after no sleep the night before, and got in dangerous drowsy-driving situation, endangering an entire family once because the other chauffeur was a drunk jackass and couldn't cover his shift. I quit. I landed myself in the hospital for a few weeks, so depressed I wanted to kill myself. I got a commercial drivers license, and over the course of a few jobs, have been hauling Hazardous Materials--chemicals, and compressed gases like oxygen, etc., to this day. I do enjoy delivering things people need and who are happy to see me. That's much better than sales, where people didn't want to talk with me. I enjoy the physical exercise and fresh air, and not having to deal with office politics so much, which would really drive me batty. Overall, in regard to career, I feel like the devil's got his foot on my neck, keeping me down hard. I'd really like to cast him off far away, and emerge. Am I having some kind of a mid-life crisis?
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