Moments of Truth - How priorities are honored

I've had an intriguing history with jobs.

It all started at a bulk food store in Rochester Hills, Michigan, where I was a cashier and all-around kind of guy. My coworkers were mostly friends and acquaintances from high school, and we had a blast for the most part. Customers were nice, the food we sold was good (I know this because not every case of gummi bears or Snickers ice cream bars made it unbroken to the aisle shelf), the managers were cool, interesting, and tolerable, and I usually got a bear hug from the freezer stocker guy when I came back to visit.

Since then, jobs have almost seemed like a necessary evil for my life; they've brought money, friendships, stability, and other things, but there have been some bumps, such as:

-The Summer job window washing, where I fell off a ladder, ticked my boss off for not moving across a steep roof fast enough, and got unceremoniously "let go" amidst false accusations that I enlisted a little kid's help while distributing my company's flyers across the neighborhood.

-The job I took at a reputable restaurant, where as a server I was surrounded by people who didn't care, and a fun guy who made good sandwiches and asked if I wanted weed.

-Working custodial at my college, which was markedly better, but there was the one time a coworker was caught taking a bin of empty pop cans from the gym...while I was walking with him (I'm a criminal)...

-The gig I had before and after my grad school stint, where I hung out with good people, again braved heights, got down and dirty with maintenance work, and earned money to get me through the first year out here.

Yet as I've gone from job to job, something strange has continued to happen to a greater and greater degree: it seems no matter the quality of job, I am finding it harder to be satisfied.

It's not merely a conscious decision to like a job less; it is a feeling of restlessness, as if my true calling and vocation was far away from what I had been doing. It's only intensified since I've lived in California, and I find myself at the point where I must stop and evaluate what to do.

Despite some ups and downs, I do like my current job. It has opportunity for me, and I get to work with my brother. Since Shelley learned that she was losing her job in July of this year, however, her and I have begun a bit of a soul-searching process: what is it that we want to do with our lives, and are we content doing something else in the meantime? SHOULD we be doing something else at all, or should we finally get down to business and identify the one thing we're meant to do?

It's very much a shaky situation, even more so than when I fell off the ladder in the Summer of '02.

For the first time, I am definitively forming an idea of what I want to do: I want to write. Whether it's a novel, copywriting for a company, for fun, or otherwise, I am definitely coming to understand that my gift of writing should not be something to be afraid of.

Have you ever felt that you had a great talent, but you were hesitant to share it? That perhaps if you used it to express yourself, it would be poorly received or misunderstood? Or maybe not appreciated? Even still, what if you were simply scared off at the prospect of making your talent your actual career?

It's not unheard of for someone to decline working at something they love because they fear that their talent/passion will be spoiled once it becomes a 9-5 job. For me, perhaps it was having talent, but no discipline.

Well, I think it's safe to say that discipline is there, after having written a novel and revised it extensively. Perhaps this should be my sole focus. And yet, if Shell and I find ourselves moving in the near future, how do we pay the bills if I'm writing science fiction and poetry?

This is the crux of the entire issue...I can keep some security by working at jobs I'm not passionate about, or I can trade it off and do what I AM passionate about. People in the writing business often say, "don't quit your day job", because being an author almost never brings a steady paycheck. However, I get the feeling that it should be easier than this.

It comes to it now...what is most important? Am I willing to elevate an uncertain thing (writing with no clear promise of a profit or reward), possibly at the expense of a certain thing (a job I do well, but have little passion for)?

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