My Big Reveal Never Came

 As we all know by now, the weekends especially Sunday nights are when I get the most contemplative about my life. Right now my life = work. 

Saturdays I usually spend ruminating on how to get to FIRE faster, and on Sundays it's as though I'm tacitly choosing to continue with my life, i.e. work. 

Yesterday I think I was just hit with the realization (again) that I never really got to achieve greatness. I think back to previous dreams- I always wanted to be a child star. 

I thought about how I so wanted to be a tennis star. I took a few lessons and was just waiting for some coach to spot me and lead me to greatness.

I remember actually being approached by the track coach in high school after I'd done well in a long jump in P.E. But I hated running and the girls on the track team were not girls I saw myself associating with.

So then I wonder, was that my great chance? 

I'm so bad at reading signs because I expect them to present a certain way. 

So I think back to my job. I think I was hoping this was my chance at greatness. I literally have done Call Center for 5 years and this is a call center job. I have worked 2 call centers and supported 5 or 6 clients. Why aren't I better at this.

I even prayed for good measure.

One of the other blogs I read frequently are the Millionaire Interviews on ESI Money. So many of them talk about achieving really great things at work - turning around a program after x months and y hours.

I definitely put in the hours and was a willing participant. I was hoping this was my moment. I mean COVID was the perfect time to put in the hours and affect some change. 

It just didn't happen. I put in a lot of meaningless hours. I didn't affect any meaningful change. I think that's really the driver of my push for work-life balance. 

I'm tired of feeling like my efforts are futile. I'm working toward nothing. So, I don't necessarily have a life that I'm trying to balance. I just don't want to face the reality anymore that I'm not that great and I have little capacity to affect change.

It was my last little hope that my moment was coming. My parade was just around the corner. 

I have been crying out for my life to matter, but it really doesn't. 

So this dread I feel is really my dread to bear. It's not my job or my coworkers or my boss. I think my negative feelings about my coworkers is that I'm just like them. I'm not special. My boss chose all of us as her team because we're more similar than different. 

And I think that's what's a little hard to bear. Maybe it's the track team all over again. Hmm, never thought about that before. I'll have to think some more on that.

But yeah, I've been trying to figure out what exactly my problem is with My Buddy. I think it's because in the end we're more similar than I'd hoped. We're just ordinary people with no lasting impact. I couldn't outshine her. I couldn't outperform her because we're at the same level.

And she got there on a crooked path - single mom, late-in-life bachelor's degree holder. 

I'm not special after all. She can accomplish in 40 hour weeks what I'm accomplishing in 60-80 hour weeks - nothing of any significant impact or value.