#10 - "Do the things that scare you the most."

That quote in its' entirety; "Don't do what you want. Don't do what you don't want. Do what you're trained not to want. Do the things that scare you the most." - Chuck Palahniuk

Ok so, I've already admitted to have a slight (and by slight I mean insanely overreacting lose my mind) fear of losing my toe or fingernails. Seriously, I wasn't kidding about getting shot somewhere that won't kill me, instead of losing a nail. In horror movies, I can deal with all sorts of blood and gore, but the minute someone loses a fingernail or it is even mentioned (say in The Ring where it shows that the little girl tried to climb up the well and lost them) is when I really cringe. Almost as much as my fiancee does throughout every horror film from beginning to end. Then again, I'm pretty sure she closed her eyes at some point in Transformers during the action scenes, because she didn't want to see them get hurt. Not a joke.

But I am fairly certain this prompt requires me to delve further inside my maniacal mind in order to bring to light some thing that which may or may not be unknown to the majority of my peers.

I would have to say that I'm afraid of letting people down more than anything, which is why my current professional position, or lack thereof, gets to me so much. There is a certain sense of pride my family holds in me not only for graduating from The Ohio State University (as I said would do since I was like four and didn't even know what college was), but for pulling the grades I did while at Otterbein College (now University) while doing things concerning teaching. I guess I just had this expectation that with all the hard work I went through, during my stint at the college where I focused on my actual profession, that I would have a great chance at finding something. Somebody would see my resume and jump at the chance to employ me as a young and enthusiastic teacher. They would see that I had a 3.9 GPA, that I had been inducted into a educational honor society for teachers, that I had experience working with at-risk students, and so on. The problem is that either schools are letting teachers go due to failed levies or that my resume gets lost within the thousands floating around Columbus. So, here I am debating my future in education, because I want to continue with my life. You know, get a house, dog, have some kids. Pretty much, I'm tired of the apartment life. Meg was able to land a job at the hospital she worked at while in school, so now we're just waiting for the second half of this relationship to land something. She's been great. Very supportive, especially considering the immense amount of pressure I put upon myself, which often leads to high anxiety, which sometimes leads to mild panic attacks. I think all of those are brought on by the aforementioned fear I have of letting people down.

So, I try to listen to the optimism dished out by Meg and my family. All the "things will work out's" and "something good will happen's," while the pessimist inside my mind yells, "Things don't have to work out and who requires them to." So, my faithful blogophiles, hope for me, pray for me, or even just think, "Damn, someone cut this man a break." Maybe, someone will hear it.