I had a lot of bad dreams last night
Jun 1, 2008 work work work
They had to do with anxiety. Work anxiety (because I’m going on-site again next week and am having my usual stagefright); marketing anxiety (because I’ve got a speaking engagment in a week and again with the stagefright); friendship anxiety (because I haven’t resolved what is likely to be an unresolvable issue); time anxiety (because I have a lot to do and my ability to get it all done is somewhat hampered by other people’s schedule constraints).
I woke up and stared at the ceiling and worried.
Sometimes I feel like I’m getting away with something and am about to get caught around my work stuff. I like it so much and yet it pays me well so I keep thinking that I’m somehow doing it wrong and the other shoe is about to drop squarely on my head. Then I think that the trade-off is the endless chaos since every day is unpredictable and I’m entirely dependent on my own small self. I mean, working on commission can be scary (and that’s what freelancing is really — making a living by commission).
I met this guy who works for himself and he referred to his past few years of making his own living as a time of “unemployment” because he likes it so much even though he works pretty dang hard. That’s how I feel. How am I paying the bills when I’m unemployed? But then I have a night full of nightmares and say, Oh yeah, this is a fair wage. I forget that the anxiety of freelancing is a downside of the work because I think it’s a problem with me. I wouldn’t do that if I had a “real” job; I’d be able to identify the bad parts as being part of the gig because work is segregated from the rest of life.
Does that confusion make sense?
Like when a client doesn’t pay me it’s pretty easy to say, “Oh that’s a downside of being a freelancer.” But when it’s free-floating anxiety related to work I can’t always shrug it off as going with the territory. And I need to do that because part of my anxiety is that I feel like life is too good and I’m going to be punished for it.
I love my lifestyle so much that it scares me. Why is this? I suppose it’s some neuroses rooted in my childhood or something. I guess I don’t care about the why so much as I hope that I can get better about handling it with practice. I don’t exactly want to take contentment for granted but I’d like to enjoy it more without feeling like I ought to punish myself to balance my happiness and stave off disaster.
June 1st, 2008 at 10:22 am
Boy oh boy, you really hit it on the head with this one. I constantly feel like I am kind of getting away with something and someone will take it away from me. I guess I never thought about it but that anxiety is the exact same anxiety I felt when I had human boss.
June 1st, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Man! You aren’t kidding. It’s that free floating anxiety that shows up at night that makes it the hardest sometimes being your own boss/income provider. It’s subtle enough to just seem temporary but large enough to chip at sanity sometimes. Keep on fighting the good fight!
T
June 1st, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Enjoying contentment is my biggest struggle. Even though I know it may be well earned, when contentment sets in I start to hear that nagging voice telling me I should be doing MORE.
Allowing ourselves to be happy may just be the most difficult lesson of life. Probably worth the effort though!
June 2nd, 2008 at 5:52 am
I know when I have those anxiety-filled nights, it’s always helpful for me to compartmentalize with the hope that some of the angsty stuff can be minimized. Once you’re clear about the direction of your material for the speaking engagement maybe it will seem more manageable–I think it might help to remember that they called you (quite a while ago, right?) for this engagement, so they must be really interested in what you have to add.
You’ve mentioned the friendship issue pretty frequently lately, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any easier to manage. Maybe it would be a good idea to talk to the person? It might not make things “better” but it may make things clearer and easier to deal with in the long run.
As for the rest, I think a lot of times it’s hard to believe we’ve made our dreams a reality. Maybe you just need more practice.
Good luck managing various anxieties–try to take comfort in knowing that most people think you’re fabulous.
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:45 am
I also experience the impulse to voluntarily attenuate my happiness in the hopes of avoiding punishment. It runs deep in me, and I’d like to share one of the strategies I use to defuse it. I try to cultivate the attitude that suffering needn’t be sought, it will come because it’s part of life. Still, if this moment happens to be the last of contentment before whatever misfortune might come next, isn’t it better to enjoy it?
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:03 am
Naomi, you know what I kinda love about this? It’s got that ingrained pessimism that feels so dang familiar to me! Yeah, guess I ought to enjoy things while they last, right?