If I weren't me

Last Friday while not being able to concentrate at all at work (which seems to be happening a lot lately) I started to make a list. It was titled "Top 5 Careers," and one column was subtitled "Top 5 If I Were Not Me," and the second column was subtitled "Top 5 If I Were Me." I didn't make it to 5 choices, though - seemed to get stuck at four for each column. Here, I'll let you see the list:
You'll likely notice something that I didn't notice at first - all of the top five career options for if I weren't me are actually things that I'd like to do but am simply too scared/anxious/nervous/conservative/introverted/unwilling/uptight to do. If I were listing things that I'd do if I really weren't me, the list would have more options along the lines of astrophysicist, leader of communist nation, Navy Seal, or butcher. How far out of the realm is writer for me? Or artist? Granted it would take a lot of guts to quit my job and start writing full time. A lot of guts and a lot of cash reserves. But it's not something that's impossible to do as me. Perhaps I should have qualified the list even further and subtitled it "Top 5 If I Were the Version of Me That I Want To and Know I Can Be." That doesn't have quite the same ring to it, though, does it.

Anyway, this exercise really wasn't all that helpful. It did allow me to waste plenty of time on Friday checking out how to become a guidance counselor, and looking up possible job options for registered dieticians. All of these things require further schooling, though, and as much as I love and adore school I just can't bring myself to take that leap and spend the money on more education. As it is I'm paying a pretty penny to Sallie Mae each month for my most recent bout of education - I can only imagine how difficult it would be to pay for further schooling, especially when I'd most certainly be going back to school to learn how to become something that gets paid just about as much as a librarian. I can't rule out some form of schooling entirely, but I just can't take that plunge into another master's degree just yet. Not quite yet.

No, in the meantime I'll just think of more things that I might want to do and then come up with a million and one reasons why I can't do those things. Guidance counselor - can't do it because it seems one has to already be a teacher to be accepted into a guidance counselor program, and maybe I don't want to be a teacher. Besides, if some hooligan kid gets into a fight in class am I going to be the one who calms the kid down, who reasons with the kid and gets him to rationally talk through his anger? I don't see me doing that. And I also don't see myself counseling people in proper nutrition all day only to go home and have a dinner of graham crackers and chocolate soy milk (yesterday) or a couple of bags of single serving trail mix courtesy of Pain Capital (tonight). However, here's the rub - I can do those things, and I might actually enjoy them. Imagine helping people be healthy, to eat right, to choose proper foods, to outline health and wellness programs for schools or universities or other organizations. Imagine that! That seems so worthwhile, so gratifying. It's no more out of the realm for me to be a dietician/nutritionist than it is for me to be a writer, or director of research services for a top global alternative investment company. Seriously. I mean, if I really wanted to start analyzing this, being what I am now is probably more off the mark for "me" than being any of those things on either column of my list. So if I can do this, then how come I can't be a pilates instructor? Or a professional tennis player (age and ability aside for the latter option)? Again, the thing is that I can be these things. Any of these things. It's just a matter of how outside of my comfort zone I want to roam. Because as much as it's a struggle to be who I am each day and to do what I do, I know it. I know the environment now, I know the people, I know the process, I know the basics, and so it's a lot easier for me to face those evils than to learn to face new ones. Does this make me a creature of habit, or worse yet, a worthless excuse for a human being? It probably makes me somewhere in between the two, a very capable and talented person who's paralyzed by fear and anxiety. Is there a cure for this? Therapy doesn't seem to be helping much. I'm old now. I can't afford much more of this time-sink thinking, this obsessive thinking. Action. I need action! I need to learn to live by Nike's rules.