Phase 9: Twisted Sister & John Locke..."What Do I Want To Do With My Life?"

     There are quite moments, being unemployed, when I  have been too paralyzed to get out of the chair to refill my own coffee. One part of my brain screaming at me to get up and do SOMETHING, the other part of me seeing just how few muscles I can engage without putting my self into a coma. I have found that lowest number is about 3 I think. Not being a doctor I don't know how accurate that is, but they are the fewest muscles needed to change the channel on the remote. Today, it was stuck several times. The first time it stuck was on a channel running 1980's hair band videos.
     Somehow, in the near comatose state I was in at the time, I found myself analyzing the lyrics of Twisted Sisters' 'I Wanna Rock'. For those of you out there who are too young to remember, or who spent the '80's partaking of various experimental chemicals, or the rest of us who just want to forget that we have a pair of electric blue spandex pants hanging in our closet, the music video (remember those!) began with the Twisted Sister band members in a classroom and an overbearing teacher-type screaming into the fish-eye lens of the camera.... "WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE?!?!?" Their answer, "I wan-na Rock!!!" (42 times in the song - yes, I counted).
    Reclining there, that sentence and the screaming teacher/parent face bouncing around inside my head, I found my self asking the same question. "What DO I want to do with my life?" I'm unemployed, but not dead. So, what do I do NEXT? I've had the privilege of doing many things as an adult in the working world. Laying there, with Hershey (see my earlier post about our dogs) snoring happily in my lap, I began a mental review of the jobs I have had in the past and by the time I got to my late 20's section I came to a realization.
    Instead of 'rocking-out' (read, doing what I really WANT to do - pursuing what I am really GOOD at) I have spent most of my working time doing jobs that met my immediate needs, paid the bills, made me feel worthy in the eyes of others, but, really, quite honestly were rarely if ever what I really liked, or enjoyed doing.
    Now, I could delve into further psychological self-analysis, get all Freudian and such, but let's just say that it is fair to say that I, like most in my generation, spent our formative (high school and early college years) listening to others tell us.... "You can't do THAT for a living! Are you CRAZY?", "Why on EARTH would a NORMAL person want to do THAT! You'll never make any MONEY that way!!" and my personal favorite, "We all HATE our JOBS!! You're not SUPPOSED to be HAPPY! You're just supposed to make MONEY!! That's all that matters!!" (see previous post!).
    The more I sat there, thinking about all this, I found my self wondering - out loud, to the dog, who had shifted position and was now looking at me with his half-sleeping eyes, trying to will me further into a coma - 'Why? Why CAN'T I do something I like? Why do I HAVE to be miserable? Why can't I be happy?" Why?
    I need to get this dog off my lap, get up, refill the mug and start making a plan. So, with great Herculean effort, I pushed the 70# sleeping lump of labrador out of my lap and did just that. I took a walk around the house, with coffee cup in hand, trying to make sense of this latest revelation...
....nothing....no sun-bursting through the clouds moment. I think I will walk the dogs...

   Back from the dog walking I resumed the position in my chair,  and (as it seems now) apprapos, I popped in an episode of 'LOST'. For those of you not familiar with the show, John Locke begins his part of the story in a wheel chair, headed out for, of all things, a 'walk-about' adventure trip in Australia. At one point in the story he screams at the camera (like the teacher in the Twisted Sister video). "Don't TELL me what I CAN'T DO!!!!", "Don't TELL me what I CAN'T DO!!!!", "Don't TELL me what I CAN'T DO!!!!" That sentence now echos in my head. Pushing me... Challenging me to do what I WANT to do. What I LIKE to do, and to find a way to make MONEY to do that.
    Doing this will be probably the hardest thing for me to do...break with traditional expectations, traditional occupations, and listen to MYSELF for a change... I no longer believe that it is SELFISH to want to be HAPPY and ENJOY what we do for a LIVING.
    I'm 47, if I am REALLY lucky I have another 20 or so 'working' years left. I want to find a way to WORK and ENJOY it, and to make ends meet. I don't think it is impossible. It will require me to listen to my 'inner Locke'.