I’m trapping myself once more in the unnecessary needs of my own suburban life. I’m self-employed and I continually expect the business to grow which means I tend to put more in, feel stressed if I have a low week/month and feel guilt if I’m not doing the marketing and admin aspects of it that I don’t really see as necessary to the day to day activities. As it grows, I then buy unnecessary shit like a summer house or new windows. This adds more pressure to fund this which means that I don’t take enough time off which stresses me which means I want to ‘treat myself’ with unnecessary shit to soothe my noodle, which creates a further need to earn more and therefore not take time off. And so the fucked up hamster wheel continues.
Part of the desire to run my own business, beyond doing something of purpose that had solid ethical roots and was run to a very high standard, was to have the freedom it gives. It does give a whole heap of freedom such as doing very little on Thursdays, being able to do most of the schools runs (although that doesn’t always feel like a privilege at times when we’re looking for the lost shoe once-a-fucking-gain when we need to be leaving the house) and spending more time with my children. It does come with the restrictions that are ultimately self-imposed restrictions. Most of our pressures are self-induced pressures anyway and evidently I like squeezing the absolute fuck out of myself.
It’s like I’ve lost touch with my former more philosophical self. That Self was making decisions where finance and money were in the background. The decisions were driven about doing something of value and purpose that had a positive impact on society as a whole. The income was secondary and I was willing to have a lower income in place of a greater sense of fulfilment. This was fuelled from being sick of the spirit-crushing corporate world which seemed half-full of misdirected people who couldn’t find a vocation and were convincing themselves that the business world was for them. The other half seemed to be sociopathic twats who were out to boost themselves from a status and financial perspective by taking from anything and anyone in their path. It was a place of pointless paper pushing, despair and disgust for me.
This despair helped lay the foundations of what I do now and why I do this. Over the years I’ve lost focus on the ethical and philosophical foundations of what I do. Writing this serves as a decent reminder to reconnect with that part of me. Over time, I’ve grown and I’ve taken on new responsibilities which has added pressures to provide. My vocation remains strong and wonderfully fulfilling and maybe it’s time to let go of some of my self-induced needless pressures.
The frustrations of an overthinker 