I didn’t take a job. I took a hiding spot.
I could have started a business. I could have been a 1099 cowboy, riding the range, eating what I killed. But I had a predator on my tail. The mother of my children. A woman who had turned the family court system into her own personal ATM. If I started a business, she’d sue for a piece of the equity. She’d have her lawyers dissecting my books before the ink was dry.
So, out of pure, unadulterated fear, I took the W-2. I put on the collar. I entered the employee rat race not because I wanted to run, but because it was the only place I could hide in the crowd.
I remember the President of that company in Hawaii. A smug, honest bastard. He hired me eight years ago and said it right to my face: “We will train you, because you’re too old to go anywhere else, but young enough to figure this out.”
It was an insult wrapped in a paycheck. A leash. He was telling me, “You’re trapped, buddy. And we both know it.”
And now? Eight years later. I’m a Senior Project Manager. I make $160,000 a year. Full benefits. They don’t ask much of me. I sit in a chair, I send some emails, I nod in meetings.
And I hate it.
I hate my life. I watch myself throwing away my time, my energy, my very nature, just out of fear of that last legal string of the divorce. It has twisted me. Being a “working man,” a corporate drone, it is not my nature. It’s like putting a tuxedo on a grizzly bear and asking him to serve tea.
I am bitter. I am depressed.
I have that look. You’ve seen it. The worn-out male lion at the zoo. The one who isn’t sleeping; he’s pacing. Back and forth. Back and forth. Staring at the concrete wall. He remembers the savannah. He remembers the hunt. But he’s been in the box so long, his muscles have forgotten how to sprint.
I’m the orca at SeaWorld with the floppy dorsal fin. Performing tricks. Dancing for fish. “Jump, James. Write the report, James.” And I do it. I jump. I catch the fish. And a little piece of my soul dies with every splash.
After years of this, you forget. The lion forgets he has claws. The whale forgets the ocean. The monkey forgets the trees. You just become the “Special Forces” of sitting still and dying slowly.
It consumes 60% of my day. It consumes 90% of my spirit.
But here is the news. The bulletin from the front lines.
Child support has ended.
The ransom has been paid. The hostage is free.
I am ready to escape. I am done dancing for fish. I am done pacing the wall. The gate is open. The fear that put me in this chair is gone, which means the chair is no longer a bunker; it’s just furniture.
I’m done working for fear.
It’s time to start working for love. Or at least, for the beautiful, quiet, and completely honest freedom of never having to ask permission to take a piss again.
