Back to that theme. I have been in Southern California nine years. I started my tenth year the end of last week. I am looking for my tenth job in that span of time. I lament things that are negative or that I am not. I look like a fool that can’t keep a job. I have no stability and jeopardize the place my daughter calls home. I chastise myself for the personality traits, thoughts and emotions that have led me to this perception I believe others have of me and the circumstances I have put those that rely on me in.

But I am resilient. I get back up every time I am knocked down. I figure it out.

I believe in myself and my abilities. Nothing scares me. There is not a situation that I haven’t seems from multiple angles.

I am intrigued by the possibility that my next position my have more responsibility, a better title and a larger income.

I might stay or I might move. I might travel to multiple sites. I thrive on the adventure and the unknown.

In the end I am what I am and I ain’t what I ain’t

The chorus to the song “Dear Abby” by John Prine goes:

(A different name for each) You have no complaint.

You are what you are and you ain’t what you ain’t.

So listen up buster and listen up good

Stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood.”

Like so many John Prine songs what sounds like a simple almost childish rhyme has layers of context.

Much of what Prine espouses in his lyrics in the Midwestern sensibility of anger, sadness and frustration stems from trying to control what you can’t control or change why can’t be changed.

Trying to become better or more evolved is a valuable endeavor. Focusing so much on what you are NOT is a painfully futile past time.

That song has been going through my head today. I woke up and realized how much my personal sense of image has changed since November. I was the boss. I was running a 10 million dollar a year business. Controlling all aspects. I felt strong and driven. Two months later I feel small and lost. My circumstances changed but I don’t need to change. I am just as much November Mike as I am today. I have been in a syrupy blue funk. Those places I have been interviewing with need me as much as I need them. I am the boss.

I usually check my email, texts and the newspapers after I have walked and exercised in the morning. I then check them again, and again, and again repeatedly during the day.

My days have a rhythm. Wake up early (3:42am this morning) go for an hour walk up the hill, do body weight or resistance training. Watch the news or late show monologues from the previous night then check my phone.

I go for another walk, head out, and start the job securing process. After lunch and a nap I start to fade at 2pm. Afternoons are hardest for me. I can’t th inn if anything to do except eat fast food, candy and desserts. If I don’t do that i drink alcohol and get drunk.

If I want to connect with people I don’t reach out to family or friends, I check out hook up sites.

Last night I went to bed at 6:30pm. I wasn’t hungry because I ate a big lunch. I had some desserts and candy and watched a show on Netflix. I am going to change my routine so my energy is more spaced out during the day.

The vp job hiring person accepted my LinkedIn request. I sent him a note saying I know the market and we should connect if he hasn’t made a decision yet.

I have a call in 15 minutes about the executive job in phoenix.

I have interviewed for four different VP level jobs higher than the one I am pursuing. This is my fourth executive job pursuit. I got two of the first three

I have done this before. I realize after 20 years I have forgotten a lot of what I have done or experienced. I treat the interviews like a nuisance rather than chance to shine. I need to slow down, be in the moment.

I have to admit what I truly am at this point in life.

A broke, job hopping, unfaithful, home wrecking perv

What do I truly want?

Regarding a job: A job to make money? A job I feel fulfilled in?

Place: Do I want to stay? Do I want to go?

Relationship: Do I want to stay married? Find a new love? Close off my heart and be thankful for what I have experienced?

“It is very hard to keep bringing all of our past under the light of gratitude. There are so many things about which we feel guilt and shame, so many things we simply wish had never happened.”

Page 109, Hear and Now, Henri J.M. Nouwen

By the time I was thirty I wanted more. I quit my job in Wyoming and moved with my wife to Los Angeles County. We moved again a year later to utah. I had another respectable job and still married. Even more, I loved my job. If things were good in my mid twenties they were great in my early thirties. I took a risk, shook things up and came out even better

I met the WIL. Even though it disrupted the ideal of faithful devotion to my spouse it was worth it. The feelings of love, completion compatibility filled me entirely

How could something that felt so perfect ever be wrong?

I became a father

I dreamed for more accomplishment.

I believed I was destined for greatness. Money, prestige, power

I quit my job as a chaplain. I started working in sales, then operation. I moved my family to California

I never again loved my job or felt fulfilled by my daily activities. I was chasing things outside internal resonance.

I love the weather in California. The sunrises and the sunsets. I love the memories I have with my daughter.

Otherwise it has kicked my ass. Nine jobs in nine years. Multiple periods of unemployment. Years of underemployment. $67,000 in debt.

Add on the WIL’s husband finding out about us.

My wife already knew. We had endured that fall from grace a while ago.

The WIL disappeared from my life entirely. I doubt i will ever see or hear from her again.

When he first found out the husband threatened to come out and make a scene. Ruin my life.

He had every right. He probably should have. He could have punched me. Hell he could have killed me. I think in his choice not to he hurt me more. She chose him, not me.

I want to be (or perceived to be?) a unquestioned charismatic leader that inspires observers. I want to be perceived as a person that gives purpose to those that work with and for me.

My actions provide value to as many people as possible and make the world better.

I want to be attractive to everyone. I want to be monogamous. I want to be fulfilled by one relationship.

Why do I long for that? Is that a generally strived for male ideal? It feels like the top rung of accomplishment. The apex. 100 on a scale of one to ten and what I and everyone else agrees is best.

Then my personal cosmic score is tallied in early development (was it my teens? Even third/fourth grade? Striving for school “popularity”?)

In landed somewhere in the average. I was decent looking, had some good attributes and talent. A decent work ethic.

I set out in the world. Got some education. Dated a few girls. Got a job. Got married. Started trying to raise a family. I maybe wasn’t rich or powerful but I was a decent small time example of the ideal.

I had a good relationship. Had a good education. A respected place in society.

I was contacts for an executive job I apply for last night in montana. But they wanted to talk to me about a CLINICAL job in Sacramento. I am totally not qualified but they seem really eager for me to fill it. It is a Director of Patient Care Services job!! It is nice to be wanted but it is too absurd to entertain. I don’t even think regulations wise a non licensed person can fill it…