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March 23, 2006

great, something thrilling to dwell on at the airport tomorrow...

I promised a more meaningful entry when I got home tomorrow, but it turns out that this really IS the time for introspection and I feel like getting some of it out right now.

First of all, I would like to point out that try very hard to avoid any sort of melodramatic, emotional, soul-searching stuff on this site. I occasionally get into some mental health related business and I sometimes allude to things I'm dealing with, but usually, I try to stay away from spilling my guts to everyone. After all, that's why I have a psychologist in Minnesota who charges me $120 an hour (she's worth every penny, I swear).

It's time, however, that I share with you one of my Very Big Issues. It's such a big issue, in fact, that I've managed to completely avoid bringing it up in therapy. This could be because I rarely get to see my therapist, what with her being in another state and all, or it could be because it's Just That Big and I'm scared to tackle it. It's the kind of issue that, by its very nature, prevents me from dealing with it. A vicious circle. So what is this issue?

I'm terrified of success.

I know that sounds ridiculous. Who's terrified of success? Failure, of course, but success?? And isn't fear of success the same as the fear of failure, but disguised? Valid questions, I suppose, but you'll just have to trust me. It's different than a fear of failure. And of course it's crazy and convoluted. I'm not the type of person to go for a simple thing like fear of failure. I've been crazy since I was at least 7; I've had time to perfect my craziness and find things to torture me that most people would consider reasons to lock a person away.

Anyway. Fear of success. This has been an ongoing issue for quite some time now, but in the last year, I've managed to completely avoid any situations where I might either fail OR succeed, thereby dulling my awareness that this issue plagues me. So I was completely blown out of the water earlier this week when I was offered an interview for a job that I really really want. Actually, it didn't even take being offered the interview for me to panic -- I began to panic several days before that, when someone from the search committee called to confirm that they had gotten my application and would be contacting me in the next week.

It took approximately 24 hours after that phone call for me to decide that maybe I don't really want to work with Jewish youth, or Judaism at all. Maybe what I actually want to do is go to law school. Or maybe I should consider counseling psychology after all. Or maybe I should get that masters in social justice education.

I've been doing well lately, so after a brief freak out in front of my mom, I put all that aside and reminded myself that I've been interested in the rabbinate for a full year now, and that I need to give this a chance. However, that afternoon I got the interview offer, and the next thing I knew, I was on the LSAT website trying to find out what kind of things I'd need to learn to take the test and looking at the websites of law programs in the Twin Cities.

Um, what?

Since then, I've managed to calm down. The interview came with, essentially, a homework assignment, and I've been plugging away at that. It's reenergized me about this career option, and I'm much more excited about it than I even was when I initially applied. In fact, I'm having a blast and dusting off my old RA skills. Even a conversation with Carly last night about this fear of success wasn't able to derail me. And this afternoon, I finished two of the four "assignments" I needed to get done to send to them. I'm proud of that.

But if you think I didn't also go check out Princeton Review's a Day in the Life of an Attorney page tonight, you don't know me at all.

Posted to Hardly Working & Mental Health at March 23, 2006 12:23 AM

Comments

Posted by: deena at March 23, 2006 08:40 AM

Posted by: Rebecca at March 23, 2006 12:05 PM

Posted by: Jenny at March 23, 2006 03:50 PM