Drive By Wires

please Lord take away this beautiful nightmare

This apartment is a mess….
And I am mess too… a mental mess… a wreck…

The situation is grim.

Among all the usual scatter and small fires, I have a glowing piece of metal in front of me threatening to start another blaze. It doesn’t matter who’s at fault at this point, even though I am really to blame, we don’t have to play the blame game. It’s simple: I must take control of the situation.

The situation is: yet another beautiful nightmare.
What is a beautiful nightmare? What could be beautiful yet a nightmare?
A baby.

That is right…. there is a possibility I have impregnated a off/on friend of mine.

As you can tell, I come back from a Drive By Wires hiatus to report on this so I must have some very moving feelings about the situation. Yes I do.

I am afraid. Having a child will derail my plans like nothing else in this world short of God himself (if he were to so choose). You cannot overcome the responsibility of raising a newborn to fast-track your career. Parenting is a full-time job. If I bring a child into this world, that is really the only career I’ll ever have anymore. So it deeply sadens me to think that this is a possibility. My friend and I feel the same way about a child: no no no.

I had no had any sex or masturbated within at least 12hrs prior to us meeting up. I used a condom but it broke during intercourse: I had not came when it broke so I put on a new one, checked it, and resumed activity. When I eventually came the new condom was still in-place. However about 1.5 weeks later my friend informed me she had menstrual cramps but no bleeding (obviously concerned about possible pregnancy). A good 48 hours later she had bleeding and informed me her period had started. Her “period” apparently only lasted about 36hrs (1.5 days) whereas it usually lasts 5-6 days (120-144hrs). Fast forward about 3 days later and she had a pregnancy test performed at the hospital and it was Negative.

So here I stand. Among all my other problems I now have this weighing down my mind tremendously. It’s a burden on my thinking processes, morale, and motivation. It’s hard to go on under these conditions. I wish I could go back in time. So tonight I will pray to my creator, my Lord, my almighty God, The Lord for forgiveness for the things which I have done. I will ask for his mercy up on my life. “He knows me better than I know myself”, is what I say. I mean no harm to anyone but he knows my struggles and my problems and this possible pregnancy is the result of one of them. He knows I was beginning to plan a new life for myself… but now that is all on the line. I will pray and do what I can to stay on top of the situation as a man. But I pray to God he gives me his hand and helps me out of this hole I am in.

a lot

i have a lot of hard decisions to make and work to do this week…

man…… i’m just a straight fck up……

iish sucks

i quit

i quit

i quit

i quit

i cant quit

help me figure myself out

i am loosing my mind tonight…

i am distraught, confused, vexed about my future. finding a job primarily. and when i turn to look for friends or partners to confide in, i am reminded of my dysfunctional social life also because there very few people to turn to….

nothing feels like its going well right now. everything feels so sideways it might as well be considered upside down too….

mental rot is the term i use to describe this state.

i want to cry out for help but i have no one to cry to.

its even more imperative now than ever that i have a future after school… that i have a job. I was told I need to think about the financial gamble I am taking by chasing birds in the bush but i felt like i had time to figure it all out. now i am a month from graduation and i am in the dark in every respect.

new way

1. Sex
2. Food
3. Sugar
4. Sleep
5. Music
6. Orange Juice
7. Tea

these are the key elements involved in a refresh.

now where to find #1?

adverb

Using people you do not know,
To gain leverage you do not have,
To get somewhere you are unsure you should be.

Do you continue to wonder why I question doing this?

But these people are not just any Joe Sixpack and Mary Jane…
No, we are talking about the crème de la crème.
They are busy established professionals, who are already within the renowned organization, providing renowned results, that you wish to also have the chance to  produce.

So, when you approach them, you have no wiggle room. You must be tact, precise, well-educated, and most of all — basically — you must come “come correct”. Otherwise… things don’t just not go anywhere…. they go south. With your name all over it. Which can make it even harder to get where you are trying to go.

So…. with so much at stake, limited understanding, and zero experience in doing it…. you have to ask… not “is it worth the risk”…. but… “how in the world is this even suppose to work?… this is crazy!”… and if you have any type of social anxiety…. grab your Xanax …. for real.

this leads to the idea of why i am depressed..

it has to do with me being obsessed with bad things….

it’s not that I am unduely obsessed on pre-occupied with the negative things in my life but it’s more like this….

Everything we do on a daily basis revolves around moving foward in life. Moving to the next step. Getting things done and going to the next. Everything we actively DO revolves around our to do list — wither it be in our conscious mind, on a piece of paper, on the computer, or even in our sub-concsious. We all work to progress through life, to hit mile stones, make accomplishments, get to the places we want to be. Right? Ok.

We can’t stand around for too long smiling and celebrating our accomplishments forever, right? We must eventually get back to work for the next thing, right? … I mean unless you’re totally retired from life. I mean completely retired as in DEAD. Otherwise there is ALWAYS something to do next, wither it be walk to the store, pick up the kids, clean the house, go to bed, etc..

SO… in my life, what happens is that among all the different things I have to deal with at any given moment, I tend to have one of the BIG and important/imperative things going sideways…maybe either in my life personally or in the life of one of my nuclear family members (mother or sister) and since that item/activity/task must be completed… that is bad. When that is the case I am usually generally unhappy/down about it or because of it until I can resolve the issue because I cannot move forward in the lineage of that part of my life until I get past that gate. As long as I do not change my intended path or final goal/status for that lineage/part/section of my life or existence, I still must get over that hurdle. and if it’s a very important area of life (job, health, social interaction, mood, to name a few) then the importance of that area multiplied by the difficulty of the hurdle is proportional to a negative force against my mood. Put hurdles in two or more of those areas and have them such that I am unsure of how to solve them or how long it will take, and you have a pretty unhappy lad because key areas of my life are in jeopardy/suspension/unsatisfactory state and no confidence on the resolution of those situations.

So if we go back to the idea that everything we do is to move forward in some part of our life, you can see how every day when I wake up, all that I have to do today is deal with the hurdles that exist in whatever parts of my life they are present in at that time … if at all.

The unfortunate reality of my life is that I do not readily know of any time within the past six years when I didn’t have any hurdles to worry about.

thats it but it moved

that’s not the exact issue.

the real issue is bigger than my hesistance… reluctance… to bang at the door.

the problem is rooted in a type of social anxiety that i have. i thought i had grown out of my social anxiety but it may be rather that it sort of shifted from one part of my life to another, in the sense that I seen it’s effects very clearly in a High School/Middle School environment but in college it didn’t really affect my interaction with my peers as much because there were so few candidates to really interact with. Instead, it may now be manifesting itself in my more professional and procedural interactions with people. In that sense, I am nervous cold-calling people who do not expect to hear from me or have no prior relationship with me. I am also nervous about the percision of my communications when I am interacting with those who may render judgement on me based on how I commuicate. So my “perfectionist” tendencies also kick-in and I am critiquing a single email for 10 or 15 minutes sometimes longer depending on the length of the message.

as far as banging on the doors, i’m a little afraid i find a path to go down and who knows what’ll happen when I go down that path. my friend said the worse that could happen is being denied. but being denied in this type of venture, for me, is a bigger shock than a simple answer to the negative. it’s a grade on my decision to even come down that road. so if i am told no, for all i know, i probably should have never even approached that point from the direction i did.

additionally, I am a afraid of what I am getting myself into. I am afraid things will be harder than i expected and depending on the route I take I may have less technical/developmental support than I may have otherwise. Additionally, things could turn out how another guy I know explained a similar company’s demographic, which although not the end_of_the_world, doesn’t help me too much either. I don’t know.. this is a big step, this is a bigger step than I can imagine anyone else in my graduating class is having to take. I am literally making leaps of faith to try to make it into this place. Jumping from rock to rock, searching for an inroad, and possibly (but not for sure) running away from what I know.

I will bang on the door but damn is this going to be a sickening ride if I ever were on one.

OK WAIT, SOMETHING TO ADD (MY THOUGHTS DON’T ALWAYS FLOW IMMEDIATELY):

Another big fear of mine is that: Maybe this is not working out how one would expect because I shouldn’t be headed in this direction. My fear is that maybe God is (trying to?… can I even put try and God in the same sentence???) holding me back from going toward this place for my own good. Maybe I don’t belong there? So my fear is, if I keep banging on the door and something randomly opens and I fall inside… I could get myself in to the wrong place at the wrong time?…

—————————————————————————————————

As I do more research on the company I realize, or rather it is reinforced even more, that I really may not know who I am dealing with… I am dealing with the crème de la crème FOR SURE. I mean the lovely people I’ve worked with across my past six years can’t even see the level these folks are on. I have no idea how they interact, how they behave, who they are like, how they communicate…. nope… not at all sure. 

what’s even scarier, thinking that “if I am really good enough, of the best there are, then they would have seen me by now” …. 

————————————————————————————————

1. Nervous and unsure about what I am pursuing
2. Hard to get into where I’m heading
3. Anxious about pushing the limits of people, institutions, rules, standards, etc. to be heard.
4. Fear of tarnishing my barely made image in an attempt to muscle my way in

The biggest and best thing I could use right now is happy in my life. The happier I am the better I do. The more confident I am. The more I am willing to push.

When I am sad/depressed/upset as I am right now… well, then I don’t want to step outside my circle. I don’t want to push any limits for my dreams. I want things handed to me based who I am and all I’ve already done, etc. so I don’t have to whale, scream, cry, and bang on doors to be noticed. I need someone to step out of their way whom I actually can believe and sincerely tell me I’ve done a good job, that I have a good future, that I am worth it, that I deserve the job I dream of everyday…. Or to at least support me in me supporting myself. But I don’t have any of that. So I sit here depressed futzing/putzing around the issues on my mind… hard-pressed to act quickly in fear of rejection or failure.

yeah some of fools are evil but take their tools and runnn

Music:

• Slum Village -  Where Do We Go From here
• Jay-Z - As Real As It Gets (Feat. Young Jeezy)
• Wale - BASEhead
• Charles Hamilton - The Warmth, Hamiltonized
• N.E.R.D. - Love Bomb

Very fitting song for the moment….

Is it too little too late for me? Can I still make a name for myself? Leave a mark?

I am asking that question today, Sunday April 10, 2011 as I sit facing the week ahead now precharged with the damnation dropped upon me by my friend last week.

In hind sight I am angry. But I need an explanation for other for my performance record. I know I didn’t sandbag my academics, but then again I didn’t push myself either. I know it was a lack of interest in a lot of the raw material and subject matter we done day-in-and-out, and no motivation to the best in grades…. nah, I was not directly interested in that. I was interested in making a change, doing something, being active, putting my skills to use… hence why the things that I DID do are now done.

So whats bad in the present is how I look on paper. My resume cannot hold all the details of the actions and thinking I execute on a daily basis. My resume cannot explain my passion or potential. But I am continuously graded on paper, so I am the underdog.

Lets refer to my friend from last week as Don. I’m feeling pretty upset I didn’t get this idea like Don did, as strongly, with the imperative importance Don had from Day 1. I knew I had a mission to complete my degree program and get a great job to help support my family. But I did not have the desire to be great just because. Anything I go for and/or achieve has a damn good reason if not for not only my own sanity, then for the well-being of my family, or a greater impact on society/world. And that is still how it stands today but what is different today is that I am nearly sick and tired of being under rated on paper. The world has the facts on me backwards and now I will be spending five years correcting it. But thats okay, as long as my family is still cool and moving up the ladder, the world can wait because it was their mistake.

So yeah with all the prospects for post-graduation employment not looking so hot, and a sharp need to leave my footprint on the world, overshadowing my new nemesis Don, I guess my work load increased. But I believe in myself just as strongly as I ever did, and I have no doubts in my ABILITIES, but at the mercy of the those who do not know how to see these things in me…. I loose some control. So my challenge is taking that control back and making my brand indisputable… so much so I can spit on the shoes of those who doubted in my past.

stress and fatigue of strain

Hi, I’m back. Please excuse me if my writing style does not seem coherent or flow very well… I’ve lost my edge recently due to stress and fatigue.

I feel like… all this (work, effort, endurance) has been culminating up to this very point. The point of getting a job that launches my career. If I fall short of attaining that… If I end up in a position that is outside one of my target companies or not in product development…. then I have basically given up and, really honestly, if I were to do anything outside product development or outside of my target company, there is very little chance any added value would come from the chosen job.

I’ve done enough things right now that all I really can add to my portfolio is experience in they very company or exact role (product development) that I intend to go after. So it would be a waste of time to be elsewhere…. hence I will haven given up on my dream by allowing myself to do so.

• Average grades
• Good work experience
• Excellent initiative
• Unmatched passion
• Unbounded desire to impact lives