Something I wrote after I was fired from my job in 2012. Enjoy.
I am afraid of fucking things up. I have done it all my life. I ruined my mother’s chances of ever being a virgin and my dad’s chances of ever having hair. And I lost my job. I fucked up.
A day in my life is like a day spent on a roller coaster, full of ups and downs. There are mornings where I feel like I can take on the world, afternoons where I feel like hiding from the judgemental glare of the world and nights where I feel like an invisible outsider observing the rest of mankind while they hustle and bustle around like busy ants. Some maybe on their way home to watch reality television where abuse and ruin is the entertainment of choice, others maybe on their way to catch up with old chumps whom they have not met since Facebook took over social interactions.
It is hard to be normal. What is normal? Is it having a degree and a career? To me, normal is this well-worn safe path, this ideology that society has inadvertently imposed on us. Get a paper qualification, get a job, get married and wait for death. Follow these four steps religiously and you are on your way to financial ruin. There is nothing like the burden of debt and mortgage to fill your day with happiness. I am being ironic here.
What happens when you realize that somehow, somewhere along this path that you made a mistake, a mistake that you can’t ignore? Well that happened to me. All my life, I have taken the safe path. I went to university, graduated with a degree and started working. But there was this nagging question that kept bothering me, “Is this it?”. Am I supposed to die happy with this vision of me in a cubicle, sporadically dragging the trash bin on my desktop around?
I came to Brisbane for its sunny weather and nice beaches. And I was, for a moment, enjoying the sun from the comfort of my cubicle. I was living the dream … from a safe distance. I needn’t worry about skin cancer or jellyfishes as I slaved away at my cubicle, hoping for work to end, only to engage in after work activities that included an hourly check in on Facebook followed by regular dosages of “Master Chef” with cheap takeaway pizza.
In a way, I am glad that I lost my job. I managed to break out of this mundane robotic emotionless bubble. Financial ruin might be on the cards, yet again when is it never? I work all my life to avoid financial ruin and it is this fear that has made me a slave to my job and a connoisseur of my tremendous disdain for life.
Yea so I fucked up. I lost my job and any form of financial security. But it has been the best fuck up that has happened to me. At least now, I feel liberated and free from the shackles of this horrid definition of normal. I can breathe again. And it’s feels good.
Big Issue, anyone?