Phase 24: Square Pegs & Round Holes

     I am nearly two months deep into my new job. Admittedly some of the pain and agony of being unemployed dims with each paycheck, each day I wake drearily to the alarm, each day I don the new uniform, each day I head out in the dark to tackle new challenges.
    I am the peg. 
    Unsure of what lies beyond the hole into which I must try to fit myself to. There is more to the circular opportunity that this job offers than meets the eye. So, there I stand, a square-pegged, fledgling trainee kicked out of the nest and on my own.
     The job is the hole.
     I don't seem to have a grasp on all the elements required to complete the tasks at hand. I seem to take for ever to do the simplest task. I feel I have to call for help far to often for me (which has ALWAYS been an issue). The days seem to stretch on forever, few are the days that don't stretch to twelve hours. And then I go home.
     I am still the peg, my home has become the circle.
     Being home is not very rewarding either. I am suddenly conscious of all the things that have been left un-done, or half completed when I switched from 'unemployed' to 'employed. My goal of finishing another quarter of house painting -- no time for that now. My goal of better tended gardens -- my roses are taken over by ivy, my lawn choked by weeds. The list goes on.
    Strive to  keep my square shape...
     More importantly my vision of advancing my art work to the point where it can sustain my economic needs seems also to be fading, I can see the edges of my block chipping away. The fire I had for the handful of artistic pursuits seems to be waning... Falling back into the 'crazy-old-idea' part of my mind, back to the the point where all crazy place go...
     The economic realities I face seem bent on making me quit trying to figure out how to put the square-peg of my creative and artistic desire into the circular hole of the world of work in which we live. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to make it happen. The more I think about it, what really keeps me back from this is fear. Plain and simple fear that I may be even LESS employable-at the personal level as an artist than as a 'normal' employee at my new job. Fear - almost as bad as the first few weeks of joblessness - despite having a 'job' how will I get out from under some bills and old debts...
      Some days I dread the mail delivery. Most days I don't check the answering machine. It seems no matter how hard I work, the pile of bills never shrinks. I know my situation is not as dire as many, and that for the most part my situation is of my own doing.
      The Circle begins to wear down the Square.
 I go to work. I work to pay the bills. Not to be happy, not because I like what I do, not because the job takes advantage of my skills, not because it offers wonderful benefits to myself and my family. No. I work to pay the bills. Personally, I am sick of it. If the Gods grace me with good fortune I still have a good 20 years of work-life yet, before I get to pack it in for retirement. I am DETERMIND that I will not spend these years angry, pissed off, or unhappy. I don't have all the answers to be sure, but I intend to sort out how to get there, AND figure out how to stay above the economic waterline - it seems that is how I have always spent my working life to this point -  an inch or two in front of the 8-ball.
     How to keep being the peg I want to be?  
      Maybe part of my state of mind relates to the fact that at this point of my 'work-life' I had always imagined I would be comfortably working - somewhere - doing what I like, building the proverbial nest-egg for the golden years - well thanks to the events of this year, the nest is empty of eggs, and has been refilled with a fresh brood of fear-birds, waiting to push all the good out of the nest. I, with the obvious help of my wife, have sent our first kid off to college - a private one no less. For his part, he has done the academic work, put in the hours for his artistic auditions, but in the end my employment situation has aided him with financial aid... aid that will be lessened next year if I maintain this current job.
        Round holes and Circular struggles.
        Do you see the dilemma? Do you see the cycle that we live with, put up with in this work-world? I know that I for one, am really tired of it. Just so you don't think I want to lie around and to nothing (trust me, I was forced to do too much if that over the past 6 months). No, I just want my work life to be meaningful and fulfilling. Is that too much to ask? I have posed this question to other people and they look at me with a mixture of confusion and anger. "Why do YOU get to do something that make you HAPPY when the rest of us have to go to jobs we HATE?" Not wanting to be condescending, I just look back at them and say. "I don't know. Maybe the question should be, 'Why do you continue to work a job that makes you unhappy, that you don't like, that you hate.' " I don't claim to have the answers for anyone else (let alone myself) but I do know that while day-to-day I have too keep my eye on my immediate economic needs, it is just as vital that I keep my eye to what I would RATHER be doing and work towards that end.
      To do this will take as much work, time and energy as any other 'job' I have had over the years. To do this will take the support and love of family and friends.
     Finally, the legacy that I leave behind will -  in my case - not be a pile of money for my kids to fight over, but rather, I want my legacy to be an example of a man who works hard to meet the needs of his family, and does so while doing the things that he loves doing. I want the next 40 years (hopefylly) to be more about reshaping the hole to fit the peg, not the other way around!