Part of wisdom is knowing when to seek help. I don't claim any special store of knowledge apart from the common sort that arrives with age, but I do know when I need assistance.
I've come to a point in my life in which I feel overwhelmed by the very act of living. I'm working all the time -- I see my son off to preschool in the morning and I go to my First Job. I work at my Second and sometimes Third Jobs during my First Job, and then I come home to help take care of my son. Once he's off to sleep, I go back to working on my Second and Third jobs. I work until 2 or 3 AM, most days, and sleep (hopefully) until 5:45, when I have to get up to help my co-parent get up so she can get ready for her job. I go back to sleep until about 7:30, and start all over again.
I'm mired in the deepest debt of anyone I know, the result of years of poor decisions that have all come home to roost. Any one of my jobs could conceivably disappear tomorrow, and I have nothing concrete to fall back on. I have nothing in my savings, and no practical training in anything other than writing.
So I need help. I've needed help for quite a while now, and have been trying to tough it out, hoping it would get better.
Fortunately, I use Twitter. That's a phrase you don't often see in the media, but I've found Twitter to be an amazing resource for many things. I've made friends through Twitter, have found work through Twitter, and have expressed my humor, anger, fear, and hope through Twitter. And a few weeks ago, I found help through Twitter.
Jennifer Priest (http://www.jenniferpriest.com/) is a life coach. She's in the business of helping those who need help. She does this by telling you things that you may already know, but choose to ignore, or choose to avoid, for whatever reason. She makes complex issues plain. She sees clearly. She takes that journey of a thousand miles -- which feels unassailable -- and gets you to forget about all the steps it will take you to complete it, to focus instead upon the very first one.
Thanks to Jennifer, I have tasks. Concrete, simple, agreed-upon tasks with a deadline. These tasks are due by the end of the week, and I will accomplish them. Then Jennifer and I will talk, and she'll help me focus on the second step. Sooner or later, I'll come to the end of the thousand miles, and look forward to the next thousand -- but maybe by that point I won't need help anymore.
I'm going to keep this blog updated with my progress, in the hope that it will give me perspective. If I suffer setbacks, as I'm certain I will, you'll know about it. If I learn something important, I'll set it down here. And if, by the end of my journey, I've acquired wisdom, I'll share it with you.
And will this be
Our second chance
Our secret, better lives?
Adjusted freedom, somewhat less unsupervised?
-- "Where They Go Back To School But Get Depressed", The Loud Family
