I’ve been thinking a lot about careers, as is my wont of late. There are so many questions and so few answers. Is this really what I want to do for the rest of my life? I’ve only done it for four years now, and most of that was part time, and there were plenty of stretches in there when I was very frustrated with my work in one way or another. I think these have come from my purple desire to want everything perfect—it can easily become frustrating when things are not perfect.

Frustrating. There’s a word that I’ve been using entirely too much over the last five and a half months. I really wish that I could excise it from my vocabulary and never feel the need to use it again. It connotes obstacles that shouldn’t be there, and impediments to progress, and decisions that are taken out of my hands. It is a crushing feeling that eventually kills the soul.

I do not like worry; I find it to be generally unhelpful and unproductive. Decision making and action are productive. But what do you do when none of the options look good, or when all the good options are out of your reach? Well, you start to worry, even though you’re purple and you hate worrying, so you sit and spin your wheels and hate yourself for it.

I’ve spent far too much of the last five and a half months hating myself and hating the unfairness of it all. It’s not a state of mind that I enjoy being in. It’s a state of mind that I’m trying very hard to leave behind. No good comes from being angry with God and resenting the fact that he hasn’t come down and made things easier for me. It can be hard to let go of those worries and that frustration, but starting to do so has made things much easier, and I think it’s the only way I’ll get through this.