Waiting...

"Dad had a really boring day today. He had to answer a few calls, then he had to make two calls and then he had to unbox some equipment that came in. He said that he thinks that he may become a writer, but he doesn't know what he is going to write. Maybe I can help him"

Those were the last words I heard before I went to sleep last night. It was Trevor, one of my sons giving my wife a recap of an earlier conversation I had with him. I have three boys and I love them all so much. For me, the hardest part of having kids is seeing myself in them. It's not that I hate myself, but I'm pretty good at beating myself up. I recently attended Trevor's school conference. He had given himself a review and was much harder on himself than he should have been. I felt his pain as his teacher explained that he struggles with writing assignments. I have some pretty vivid memories of my second grade teacher pulling me out of class during a writing assignment because I was so upset that I couldn't think of anything to write that I had started silently crying.

I don't really know if writing is a good choice for me. As a student, I struggled with writing assignments. In college, I stopped attending my composition class my first semester. I enjoyed the class and had a great teacher. I bumped into him in a stairwell and he stopped me to tell me that he missed seeing me in class and asked why I wasn't attending. "Can you do me a favor?" I asked, "Can you be harder on me when grading my stories, like be brutal?" I hadn't really put the finger on it until that point, but that was it, I stopped attending class because I felt like I was getting better grades than I deserved.

I've always been hard on myself. I rarely feel like I fit in and think often think that I am much different than others. I'm almost 37 years old and I feel like I've never become the adult I should have. I lack ambition and am easily distracted. The company I work for is a successful business, but our location seems to be on life support. If it wasn't for some of our other locations keeping us afloat, I think our doors would have been closed over a year ago.

But the doors are still open, and I do receive a paycheck every other week, so I stay, but it can get to me. It can be depressing and scary, and sometimes aggravating. The truth is, I don't care about this company. I am grateful that I am employed, but there is nothing keeping me here other than that steady paycheck. I have decided to get dirty and uncomfortable and start exploring some options.

I've taken some online career planning tests, only to find that none of the careers they were trying to match me with would be ideal for me. I've ordered a could of books to try and help me. I've already received one, but I seem to be stuck on it. I need to do some activities and I seem to be doing a much better job avoiding them than doing them. Too bad I haven't found a career that can utilize my stalling tactics... yet