I spent the past twenty years working and developing toward what I thought was a correct expression of my Self and my dreams. In the recent few years, after a series of very life-jarring events, I began to see a new perspective: the life I’m now living is a shadow life…it is almost the life that I want to live, but not quite.

I traced this back farther and realized that from early on in my youth, given my need to be validated by others, I took everything that I was either good at or valued and squeezed it into a framework that was already socially validated. Like to write? Go into communications. Like to work with people? Go into education.

Now, I do value the skills, theory and methods I’ve gained and put into practice thus far…but the application of my work in education and public health is frankly not what I want to continue doing. The recent life events and the new awareness gained as a result have basically lit the fire under my ass to move forward and create the life I want to live.

The half-assing part of it is this: I have never really (aside from when I either teach or work with students or work with clients in substance abuse prevention) been a hundred percent into my work…and that is because I am not working out of my own vision, but for someone else…primarily the ivory tower by which I am employed.

What I’ve been working toward now is two-fold: (1) to go into development work for individuals and organizations on my own on a consultancy basis; and (2) to write in my own way and publish via the outlets I want for the social jurisdiction (as opposed to the academic work I’ve been doing for years—which frankly doesn’t make the impact I want it to make through the professional jurisdiction).

What I’m afraid of is: (1) not working for an established place like a university and (2) being afraid that the version of myself that I value the most will fail. However, not embracing that self and pursuing the life I want is going to kill me slowly. I find it hard to be the guy who goes into work every day and sit at my desk…I really don’t work well on that schedule. I’m also afraid that taking this kind of step at this age when we are financially committed to so many different things in life, etc…well…that could all change in a number of ways too. The best thing is that my partner thinks this way…she is frankly one of only two or three people in my entire life that don’t think this is either crazy or just Syraj with his “head in the clouds”.

I wish I had had the courage to just tell the people around me to fuck off after college and taken the necessary risks then when it was best to do so.  But that is not really relevant, is it?