growing

a lot of things are frightening right now. tense muscles and nightmares about screwing up at work are proof of how worried i am about failing there. people know that i've never been punctual, but now i'll go out of my way to arrive 10 minutes early for work just to make sure everything will be perfect for the people i work with.

[ funny that i never did that for myself when i was in school...how i was rarely prepared when i went to class, how i was more nervous than delightful at my professors' office hours, how i could have gotten so much more if i had put that extra bit of effort into my studies. funny how that reflects on my inability to do anything well unless it's for someone else. but that's another story. ]

money's such a big issue now too, now that i have some. where to invest, how much, how to spend, what to buy, how to make more - i think my life revolves quite a bit around money recently. i dislike putting so much focus on it, but hopefully the novelty factor will wear off soon. it's just money. i'm just worried i won't invest it properly and i'll either lose it or not maximize the profits 50 yrs from now. oh horrors. jennifer asked why i'm not more impulsive. maybe i'm just too much of a boring worrywart to be spontaneous. why DO i feel obligated to plan? ha, it's the fear of failure, the fear of making mistakes, the fear of losing something great. a couple times, i've lost opportunites because i didn't plan ahead and i guess they scarred me for life. now i can't do anything on the spur of the moment. =P how terrible to be so restricted. oh, pathetic me. =P to feel sorry for myself is even more ridiculous. lame.

the biggest issue is what it means to change my habits, change my lifestyle, to live in alignment with my spirit. it means letting go of cultural customs, questioning deeply engrained values, envisioning and creating a life i want to live, growing forward and, perhaps, out of allies and friends along the way. now that's a scary thought. i can't let someone else's opinion weaken my resolve, no matter how much they mean to me. it means finally doing something for myself without fear or regard for "the right way." i find myself every night, stuck in the same rut, going through the same routines, wondering, "there must be more..." but being too tired to do anything about it.

baby steps, baby steps. that's how we all grew up.