Yin-Yang Coffee

I can’t even begin to go into all the things stressing me right now. But I feel the above photo is a great starting point to explain just a little of what’s going on. I’m having a hard time finding balance in my life between work and personal, between things that are good for me, and things that are obviously destroying me. While the yin yang represents balance to many of us westerners, it also means a great many things: balance, opposition, connection, and transformation. All of which seem to be bothering me right now.

At work they’ve decided to increase my responsibilities for fear that once a coworker leaves, they’ll not be allowed to hire someone to replace them. So they want me prepared to cover their responsibilities should that situation arise. Part of that involves trying to find time to complete my already insane workload and keep my clients and relationships happy, while training on another job. And then once this person leaves for vacation in a few days, I’m expected to assume both jobs while they are gone. And when they leave for good in a month, I’ll possibly be required to cover both jobs indefinitely.

This should be the point at which I’m completely destroyed, and work may win or lose, but ultimately one thing is ensured, I’ll be destroyed. It’s at that point I’ll have to either rise up as a phoenix, or just live with it. And of course that’s part of the weight I’m currently carrying. And while it’s not a definite outcome as we do not know whether the company will hire a replacement (or if they even want to), it is definite that my destruction will ultimately happen, whether in the immediate or distant future.

Work opposes my personal life, whereas before here work was my personal life. And to some extent now, since most of the people I knew as friends have finally given up on this city, work still is part of my personal life. While away from here I rarely want to deal with anyone. And when I do, there’s really nobody around. So I’ve turned into a bit of a recluse while away from the job, rarely interacting with people except through occasional online conversations with people that no longer, or have never, live in Los Angeles. Or small talk in line at the grocery store. So the most social you’ll see me, is while I’m at work. So while work and personal are in opposition, when work is becoming my personal life, work is winning the fight, and personal life is doing nothing to counter.

While they are in opposition currently, they’ve always been connected, in that they share a commonality in me. For just about as long as I can remember I’ve had a job outside of the house. I’m sure my mom would challenge it, because she never seems to think I do a damn thing, but I’ve been employed in some fashion since around age 12. I think back then it was less about getting extra spending money and more about escaping the shit that was going on at home.

Home life was pretty rough growing up, at least in one way. And the older I get, the more I realize that it was not something exclusive to our family. So work became the escape, and perhaps that’s part of the problem now. Work is the escape from personal life, and my personal life is an escape from work. So in that I guess they are the same and perhaps my trying to keep them separate is part of the problem I’m experiencing right now. Perhaps I should just give in and let them merge completely.

Once I allow that, what will my escape be? Occasional vacation time? I’m unable to take vacation now, at least in my mind. If I could stop being the hero, I’d just tell the office to pretty much fuck off, and go on vacation. All the work that everyone has done, all the work I’ve done, will get put on hold, and nothing will be produced while I’m gone. See, everything we do funnels through me before reaching the end. If I leave, it stops until I get back. In order to not feel like I’m screwing over all my coworkers, since there is nobody to cover for me, I have to wait until such a time comes up that it won’t completely stop the machine.

And perhaps that’s part of my problem, perhaps I shouldn’t care, but I do. I’m the hero character I guess. And much like Superman would probably get tired of saving the day when people come to rely on him saving the day (wasn’t that Superman III?), I’m growing tired of it. Which brings us back to them wanting me to train to cover a position that’s being vacated. And I think now, having typed through all this, that THAT is the real issue here.

It’s not about how I’m the hero. It’s not about how my personal life is being invaded by my professional life. It’s because the citizens of this Metropolis we call work have not only come to rely on their hero to constantly save the day, they’ve become so lazy about so much that they are setting our hero up to fail. And while our hero never fails, is never afraid of anything, truly he is afraid of something. Failure.

And that’s not how it’s supposed to work is it? Heroes can’t fail, it goes against everything we’ve learned from reading comics, watching cartoons, or watching movies all these years. The hero always saves the day. Even when it looks like our hero will be defeated, he overcomes evil and saves the day. He’ll always be there to do so, so you start to rely on that notion.

Ultimately the transformation will come. A time will come when our hero will fail to save the day. We can only hope that the citizens of Metropolis aren’t disappointed when the hero finally loses. Hopefully they’ll still look up to him. But when this happens our hero will now know one thing for sure. He isn’t a hero afterall, he’s just human. And perhaps this is when the true balance is acheived.