Her Internal Conflict

The florescent orange numbers, 4:56, glowed on the digital clock. She had another twenty–four minutes to sleep before she had to get up, but she hated the obnoxious electronic blast so much, she didn’t dare fall back asleep. She flipped off the alarm and crawled out of bed for another day at a job she absolutely hated. It was her first thought every day. It wasn’t that she wanted to sleep more—quite the opposite actually. What she wanted to do was to pull on an old pair of blue jeans and head straight for her workshop. The thought of spending the day covered in saw dust, smelling the sweet scent of freshly cut oak and hearing the buzz of power tools made her feel alive and truly happy.

The shop, a converted two-car garage, had all the equipment she needed to build any beautiful custom furniture. She even had a fully functional business website and all the tedious paperwork to establish the LLC was complete. She hung on to the dream. It was always there, and every weekend she worked hard on a customer project—perfecting her skills and building a small client base.

Her government job was secure with great benefits and a generous salary. Because of those reasons, she couldn’t quit. As much as she hated the boring work that she was bogged down in, she was scared to just leave. Over twenty-five years of getting a paycheck every two weeks whether she wanted one or not instilled a dependence on that guarantee. She didn’t have the courage to take a risk and start her own small business. She hated the fear, and whenever she realized the only real reason she didn’t take the risk was because of that fear, she also hated herself. Being nearly fifty years old and feeling tied to the security of the government paycheck caused a recurring depression. She could sometimes push it aside temporarily with excuses about needing to provide for the well-being of her boys or by convincing herself how lucky she was to have such a well-paying job. There were times she could even make herself feel guilty and ungrateful for complaining so much.

When she told the story of how important it was to provide a nice home and resources for the three people she agreed to be responsible for, she could persuade anyone that it was the right thing to do. She was justified, right? But who was she really trying to convince? She wasn’t scared to quit; she shouldn’t quite, right? No responsible person would leave such a “great” job. You can’t be miserable in a job like that—a comfortable climate-controlled, desk job.

Tomorrow would be another day, and those bright orange numbers would greet her all over again. With them would be the dread of spending another nine hours surrounded by the four plain white walls of her tiny office. Also there would be the desire to quit and the hope that one day she actually would.