Here's a funny thing that happens whenever I say I am not going to do something that is an automatic or programmed response: I do exactly what I said I wasn't going to do. Today I am chanting "I Will not freak out. I will not freak out. I will not freak out."
Why would I freak out? I had a plan that banked on me refund slipping through the cracks and landing in my bank account. Fix my car. Get minutes for my phone. Pay back some small but pernicious debts. Pay for rent in a new place and have about 300.00 cushion for the inevitablly diabolical hitch in the giddy-up. Part of my plan included being able to get into a training program for something that I already do but don't make any money doing. And now?
Well duh! I'm freaking out. I freak out and then I breathe and I breathe for as long as it takes to get calm. I keep telling myself that there is a way out of everything, that there are always options. That's easy for Captain Picard to say, he has a bridge full of seasoned officers and a smart ass Wunderkind for when he runs out of ideas. Me? I've got me. Sure... I'm cute, witty, a bit smart and a lot smart-assy. But where will that get me?
To Freakville. I listed all of my marketable skills and realized that I don't really know how to market them. Why? Because self marketting is not a skill I have acquired. I've always thought of it as tooting my own horn, Self-aggrandizement R Us and that of all the things that I have done that I am not happy to count against me I don't want to add the sin of pride. Yet I will never get anywhere if I don't market. and thus we've arrived at Freakville.
Truth be told that was probably the biggest reason that I didn't finish college. The only part that I couldn't hack was the presentation and I was always presenting me. My work. My idea. My research. See a novel writer writes, someone else says why you should read the book and then the writer can bask in the glory. Over simplified I know. But when you do the work and have to present it you are saying My idea is that best and this is why you are going to use it. A novel writer finds following by the reader's choice. A marketting exec finds a following by hook, crook or an old fashioned horse whipping. I can't do that. I grew up believing that seeking fame is wrong. That announcing your skills is wrong. And that pride is the trap to end all traps.
I hate resumes for the same reason. But if I keep freaking out I can;t think straight. So I breathe, then I rationalize and point out that no one thinks my friend Michelle is arrogant. Click on the link to her work next door. She lives and breathes what she does and people are attracted to the work's ENERGY, her energy not her ego. Same with Sting, Castle, and anyone else that I am into. I'm just not objective about my work. I can't tell you why you should want my stuff because it seems like pride. It seems like an ego trap. Yes, I meant trap. But I have to do something. There has to be more to my work than folding laundry and cleaning up after people. There has to be more than this one thing.
But the only thing that I do consistantly is blog. And there is a way to make money blogging. Will it get me out of debt? No. But it will relieve the guilt I feel taking the time to journal these thoughts for general consumption. So how do I do that? How do I market this skill?
I have no idea. I said I never wanted to put AdSense on my blog. But the way things are... I may have to. I may also have to cannibalise my own work to add to another site. Hrmmmm.... that is wrong on so many levels.
Oh crap.
Freak out again.
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