Working To Exhaustion

Let me start out with a little gratitude by saying that I really do appreciate your taking this journey with me. I do appreciate the messages and the “likes” on the links to the blog on social media. I can see that there are quite a few of you who are consistently reading and it this bizarre sort of way it really does feel like I’m not taking the journey alone. I’m feeling pretty dang good today but I’m determined not to make this about “feeling good” necessarily even though I have no doubt that feeling good will come as a byproduct of progress in the areas where I need to make progress.

On the list of the “Symptoms of Underearning” that my friend sent me, symptom #5 is:

Exertion/Exhaustion. We habitually overwork, become exhausted, then under-work of cease work completely. 

Those of you who’ve been on board since September will remember the several blogs where I talked about my employment history and, to a greater degree, my relationship with work and money. Without going through that whole story again, I can easily say “yes” to this symptom too. I’m not only becoming more and more sure that I qualify as an official underearner, I’m also experiencing a lot of hope that I can recover from it by only taking a few simple (but not necessarily easy) directions and by being as relentlessly determined to recover from this as I was to get into recovery from alcoholism and as determined and willing as I am to continue to do everything I need to do to stay in recovery.

I’ve just come home from the fifth of five Sundance screening in two days. I’m learning from the movies. I watch them from a creative artists point of view— what works and what doesn’t. I ask questions during the panels and listen closely to what these artists have to say. They are, after all, people who are doing what I aspire to do.

I’ll leave it at that for tonight. I need to get some good rest tonight. I’m speaking at the University of Utah tomorrow to a Writing About War class. Many of the students are also veterans and I want to give them the very best I have. Speaking in front of a group is one of my favorite things to do. Perhaps if I stick with this recovery from underearning path (and I completely intend to) I can figure out how to let speaking engagements generate income.

I pray for your goals and dreams to come to fruition as well— even without really knowing what they are. If you’d like to tell me specifically what it is you’re working towards, drop me a line and let me hear it. If you don’t have my email or phone, you can always hit me up on Facebook. In this moment, acknowledge that you are worthy of having all the good things you’ve always wanted. And know that I’m pulling for you.

See y’all tomo