It’s not really happened to me before at any point. I’m not an ‘at work sociopath,’ but I haven’t ever felt the stifling overwhelm that I do right now. Haven’t felt work related stress in a long time. It’s ‘uncoool’ or ‘non deterministic’ or something to feel like there is a lot to do, but there is a lot to do.
Some of it is in the new gig I took as finance director for Robert Owens For Ohio Attorney General http://owens2008.com. That is a massive job—raising money for a (really good) third party candidate. Some of it is doing stuff for HREU and some of it is doing stuff at http://loanofficersurvivaltraining.com. Some still is GenuineWife’s class schedule which has me one-on-one with the kids four evenings a week. My friend Jeremiah talked about overwhelm and at the time I couldn’t relate. It’s not happened to me—even though I’ve stared down some massive failure, I have never felt out of sorts about it.
Boy. That changes.
I feel like a computer that has just been asked to open all of its programs at once while updating its drivers. It’s not gonna run fast for a while, and progress is halting. I have to make some changes—pare some stuff down, and further renegotiate some commitments. I don’t know what to turn off and what to do, and I’ve never had the kind of withering indecision that I feel now.
I picked up Robert Greene’s ‘33 Strategies of War’ again the other day. Strategy #1: Declare War On Your Enemies: The Polarity Strategy is what I need right now. I am being gnawed by rats that I’ve created. I’ve put too many little tethers on myself and almost everything that I think is mandatory is really optional. My enemies are all that distracts me from what I want to do and be. The little unfinished tasks and the little daily and weekly commitments. Even GTD can’t help you if you’re ‘D’ ing the wrong ‘T’.
And so stress accumulates. I talked a little about it here, at Freelance Folder, how we need to fight a war on clutter—both mental and physical.
I not just DONE it, and pared down my roles to simple tasks, and gone to war. I’ve been…well…trying to keep things clean and level. I’ve been overly distractible.
Fighting a multi front war is tiring. Having to sustain income for my family while chasing dreams and muses is…not a joke. So I have to realize I’m in a war and throw myself into it.
I’m fighting a war for my soul.
I’m fighting a war. There are many battles to manage, but to get to the next part of my life with my soul intact, there is a ton that I have to do, know be, think. I have to be growing all the time and I have to challenge myself, but I have to also ensure that I get things done. Get it? I have to get ahead of the details, and master everything. Or else i get gnawed on by Winston’s rats.
Seriously. If I let the details chew me up, I’m toast. Useless to myself wife, kids. Not having I have to not let that happen, fight the battles that I’m in, and choose the projects that matter to me. I have to do it this way, because that’s who I am and what I do. Armies can get destroyed by their inability to manage sickness of bring food to the front lines. I can be killed by having the damn details get at me.
It’s time to go to war.
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