In order to work in Singapore I need to become an entrepreneur. I am not an entrepreneur. I don't write business plans. I don't envision any direction for any company. I don't get giddy at growth opportunities. I just want to do my thing (see the next five paragraphs on how I don't even know what the hell that thing is supposed to be - but lets keep the whining nicely in order). Unfortunately, in order to do my thing however defined, I need to be able to have a work permit. Given that my employer remains in London and I am a de facto freelancer, (a concept that is lost on Singaporean bureaucracy), this means I need to create my own company; Little Me Incorporated so to speak. Before I dwell on why that is complicated lets get right to little me's dilemma.
I don't even like my job, why should I write up business plans and grander visions for the future? It seems sweet fate cracking itself up: Me, the person who thinks the whole damn exercise called my job is pointless, is supposed to write up ten pages on why it will help Singapore become even more awesome for businesses like Little Me Incorporated to move there and make more money so that more people can do it all over. Wow. I know. I do this to all my friends and even strangers on a plane about every three months. I need to shut up and either get a new job, one that I do like, or suck it up and realize that maybe I am not gutsy enough to do something scary, potentially exciting, potentially disastrous.
So here I am making to-do lists of all the things that need to be disconnected, re-routed, consumed, injected while getting excited about a new beginning because I always get excited about new beginnings. New beginnings are all about the potential, not so much the reality and that is exactly my problem. I stress about this work visa and Incorporated Little Me thing but really I am stressing about my inability to take a real huge fucking risk and go to Singapore or Timbuktu or wherever and ACTUALLY make a change. There is plenty of potential but how about the action?
I don't want to crunch numbers forever, not even for the world bank or the UN or fill in the blank fabulous organization that I have always dreamt of working for. I simply cannot see myself being anything but a number cruncher and report writer because I can't manage to get my heart rate up at even the most exciting number crunching. I really want to, but I just can't. And precisely because I just can't do it will I always stay a number cruncher and report writer, a true and earnest paper shuffler. That's kind of how it goes when you don't give an indirect sumproducts damn about what you do.
That's it on the self-pity front for today. Is it that my quarter life crisis is making it's way into a third life crisis? Will it continue into a midlife crisis at which point I will storm out on newly acquired husband and our nine precious children, take the leash off the golden retriever, piss on the picket fence and THEN do something ridiculous when I could have tried something now at least kept looking for something that really excites me - today, yesterday, last year?
4 comments:
A wise old man once told me that people who put their lives "on hold" (read: spend 10 or 20 years making money in a shitty job they hate) make for unhappy old people (and I would guess, unhappy people even when they're still young).
The moral of his story was: follow your heart and do it now.
Mind you, this is the same old man who recently convinced me to run the Chicago Marathon with him ...
dude, i hear ya. i wish i was super motivated to do something really cool and fantastic besides my decent-paying boring ass job. i want to do something... but what!?!? i have no tips... but traveling the world as a freelancer is way better than sitting in a cube in london! (though a cube in london is way better than a cube in the midwest)
Yeah - I do feel like a bit "on hold" - just don't know how and where to follow my heart to I guess. I do agree on being a shitty job holder in an interesting place is better than in a boring place but travel along cannot really be a substitute for purpose/happiness, no?
no, but it sure makes everything a bit more bearable i suppose.
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