Discomfort

I'm posting this essay I did for my English Comp class (yes, I'm going back to school after all these years), because it fits with everything that's been going on for the last week.

It's hard sometimes to just let go of your comfortable life, even if it's not so comfortable.

It's happened to me on more than one occasion, and I keep wondering why I fall into those same habits, despite the warning signs, despite the urging of friends and colleagues, and despite the gnawing in my own gut that says it's past time to do something.

You would think that the self-knowledge alone would motivate a person, but there is something to be said for safety, even when it's hanging by nothing more than the proverbial thread. I saw the warnings and just had that gut feeling that something was about to be terribly wrong. And yet I still sat and did nothing.

There's not really a lot you can do when a company decides to downsize, and I've been through two of them now. It's not any easier the second time around, because it still means that you're jobless. When you're the only breadwinner in the family, it's even harder, because the pressure is there to regain employment immediately, often at the expense of the rest of your life.

But what about when the job was the thing that was stealing your life away? When two long years of what could very easily be termed slavery because of the way it strips away every free moment, every bit of enjoyment of life and family, suddenly comes to an end, the emotions are surprisingly mixed. There is a feeling of betrayal, for all the work that you've done, for all the dedication and hard work that you did put in... when it's stripped away, there is anger and frustration as well as the shock. But there is also relief. Relief at not spending week after week of fourteen hour days, relief at finally getting to spend time with your son and watch him grow up, relief at not having to spend two weeks away from home in order to work eighteen hour days instead. And there is relief that the nightmare is finally over.

Breaking out of those annoyances, the things that drive you absolutely out of your mind and make you snap at your co-workers and your family, is the real challenge. To escape from that familiarity before it drives you to illness or worse. Sometimes to pursue the thing that will make us better and stronger and not simply break us is the hardest thing of all.

Sometimes it takes something drastic to break us out of our comfort zones, no matter how uncomfortable it may be.