You may be the kind of person who loves themselves unconditionally, with appreciation and compassion. Forget you. This post is not for you.
This post is for those of us who have suffered great self-doubt, self-recrimination, self-loathing, and distinct lack of self-compassion.
We who fit this profile usually have some “negative” trait that seems to be our downfall, and that seems unconquerable. It runs so deep that we despair of ever overcoming it. I am here to say that I never conquered my biggest problem. Yet, it has guided my life into an existence of deeper satisfaction than I could have ever imagined.
My biggest “flaw” was my inability to be around people for extended periods of time. Ever since I was tiny, I desperately needed time by myself. I could be around other folks for a couple of hours, and then I felt totally overwhelmed with . . . what? I didn’t know at the time. I just felt overcome broken, beaten down. Now I realize it’s a sensory processing thing, where I take in so many sensory impressions (being a person with few filters) and my psyche is slow in processing, so I get filled up and bogged down until I become functionally comatose.
As you can imagine, that’s a major impediment to working a 9-to-5 job. If I show up at 9 a.m. and am compromised by noon, that’s a problem. Before I got into recovery from my addictions, I flitted from one job to another. I had more than 30 jobs before I was 28, mostly retail minimum wage jobs, but also some unusual jobs, such as in construction and dental supply sales (the latter for 4 hours). I worked in a factory that made air filters for Harley-Davidson motorcycles. And these were all disasters. The job would start out promising, but would eventually devolve into me acting out with insubordination.
There were many problems in addition to my sensory processing struggles. I also didn’t know how to deal with resentments. The job would start out with me liking the boss and the boss liking me. But then stuff would start to happen and I would start to build a stockade of resentments that I had no way of resolving or getting rid of. The stockade would reach from the floor to my eyeballs and then I would quit. My slogan about jobs became: “I love getting ‘em and I love quitting ‘em.”
After I quit a job, or forced the boss to fire me so I could get unemployment benefits, I would have the time in solitude to process all that bogged me down. I would emerge a few months later feeling like I could tackle another job. And then the same thing would happen. Rinse and repeat.
And that’s how and why I became a freelance writer. I got a job in a newsroom and lasted there for 2 years with full benefits. Toward the end, though, I found myself needing more and more naps and so I manipulated my workflow to allow me a one-hour nap in the restroom of the local courthouse, where I went each day to collect data. I was having all kinds of allergic reactions. I recall being horribly affected by dry cleaning chemicals. I couldn’t consume milk or dairy without a bad reaction. I felt depression coming on and it scared the heck out of me. I concluded that if I was to continue being alive on the planet, I needed to quit the newsroom and go freelance. Many of the staffers were shocked. “Really?” they said. Who would give up a good job with benefits for the unknown and low status world of freelancing? I had no choice.
From that moment on, my life improved. I moved to a less expensive place to live, an old trailer with no plumbing overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I got a bunch of jobs to supplement my slowly growing freelance career. I taught yoga. I worked at the front desk of a retreat center. I got freelance gigs from the newspaper I quit, and I found out I LOVE writing about remodeled homes. And isn’t that what I was doing for myself? Remodeling my life? I wrote more than 350 feature articles for my remodeling series. I also wrote a two-year series about local religious people, as I was curious about that whole topic.
Eventually I got a freelance gig with one of the top four newspapers in the country, writing about remodeled homes. That gig lasted for an astonishing 12 years. From that experience, I parlayed my skills into my current gig, which is creating online educational units for architects. The pay is great and I love the work. And I found out I can do it in camp, thanks to my 27-inch iMac!
I read a book called “The 4-Hour Work Week” and the author talked about slowly making the transition to a job where you can work remotely from anywhere on the planet. And at the end of the book, I thought: Oh wow, I accidentally already did that!
When I share about my travels with The Tiny, people are mystified that I can make a living on the road. On the full-time RVer sites, folks are always wondering how to start a business they can do from the road.
I got a head start on creating this life. It began in babyhood, with much misery and confusion. It progressed in toddlerhood and childhood and early adulthood. All along I feared my future and what would become of me. I felt the horror of one who knows they will never fit in.
My biggest fear was that I was weird and not normal. And that’s exactly how it turned out. I’m weird and not normal.
I live in campgrounds in a tiny trailer. How could I be so happy? How could this deep satisfaction of simple living and nature and being outside and visiting with loved ones radiate throughout my body on most days? How could I feel like I’m living inside my own private Disney movie?
This whole adventure was fueled by my inability to make it in “polite society.” If you have anything in common with my early struggles, I wish for you a similar fate.