this isn’t new.  i have wrestled with existential crises throughout my life and for the most part i seem to get through them or shut up the thoughts in my brain without resolving them.

it seems i am there again.  i can think of the day that it started or the day façade that held the previous one (a.k.a. my on-going one) started breaking down.  i was at work and was sitting at my desk considering my career options.  i looked to the program manager and the work he was doing.  i looked to he other people and the work they were doing.  i looked at myself and the work i was doing and have done… and thought, “this is not the life i want to have in five or ten years.  if i am doing this [or a more advanced, greater responsibility, version of this] in five or ten years shoot me.  is this really how i want to spend my hours on earth?  is this really where i am headed?”

i started to freak out.  this cannot really be what it is all about.  this cannot be what i am really meant to do.

so, like i have become so adept at doing, i shoved those thoughts away into a nice little box.  in the meantime i was “happy” because i had challenging work and good people to work with.  even if this is not where i saw myself in five to ten years, i could worry about that later.

fast forward to today [not that far into the future] and i am there again.  in full freak out mode.  while i can see the value in the work i am doing.  [if you ignore all the b.s. associated with how the work gets done or the things that happen within the agency, there is value to humans in what we are trying to provide.]  i get that.  but still, all i can think about is the fact that there are people with real needs out there.

the people who have no food.  the people who have no homes.  the people who are facing incredible life challenges and have no help.  the people who are not getting an adequate education.  the people who… i could go on.

[and don't get me started about the environment either.]

all of it is such a mess.  and what are we doing about it?  what am i doing about it?  what can i do about it?  why am i wasting my time with the work i am doing?  why are we all wasting our time with it?  why are we ignoring our country, our fellow citizens, our neighbors?  why are we so stuck in a modicum of production that we have lost our basic human connections and our values.

we are in a country owned by corporations and politicians, where people are lost.  simple as that.

people are lost.

and what are doing about that?  what am i doing about that?  what can i do about that?

i’m trying to figure it out [and there is so much more associated with this], but i feel so lost.  so unsure as to how or if i could/can stop it/change it.  sometimes i think i just need to bury my head again, but then i am the very thing that drives me batty.

so i am here.  and no where at the same time.  but i am going to try to keep muddling through until i finally figure it out.