Maybe a job is just a job. Maybe you can give too much for nothing back at all. Maybe banging your head against barriers all day every day gets to everyone eventually.
So I think it's time to do something a bit different. Get involved with the Social Media Surgery crowd. Maybe stop feeling like an army of one, isolated and alone. Hook up with some inspiring people doing inspiring things for free and relax a little, pick it up and pass it on and help some people for no other reason than I can, and they need it and it's actually really that simple. Feel like I can make a difference to something, that words aren't disappearing into the wind.
Before I was an employed social media and CMS geek I was a GIS geek. Time to go back and dust off the old skills and take some data and do interesting things with it. Time to map out the current digital state so that people can see how far behind we actually are. Time to drop some reality into proceedings and start to ask the difficult questions. And then back off. Walk away. Leave the people who can actually make a difference to do their thing, if they want to, and if they don't? Still got something to hold on to. Still got something to work towards.
I never knew working with people you'd been chatting with on Twitter was going to be so difficult. Didn't realise the transition between people I could say anything to and people I can say nothing to would be so hard. Struggling with it so very much, crossing lines all over the place, struggling to know where the lines now are. Time to step back from that too. I'm done with being a one woman army. Time to get some support and remember that the tech is shiny and can do cool and funky things, but that it's pointless communicating if there is no one on the end to talk back.
I'm done with certain things, but there are other things to pick up. I'll go and see what people have to say, I'll accept invitations with appreciation, I'll go and ask some difficult questions and if I like the answers and other people like the questions, then maybe life will go in an entirely different direction for a while.
It doesn't matter, at the end of the day. Whatever will be, will be. But I'm switching off a part of me that cared too much because one women armies are not needed, not wanted and not liked. And while I don't want to be liked, have never really been bothered by such things, being disliked is not something anyone would ever want.
At the end of the day, you can care too much. Power: off.
And one human being can only do so much! you have done great. Don't think you haven't.
ReplyDeleteWhat we all have to 'try' to remember is to stay in our circle of influence for as much of the time as we can. It is difficult, I know only too well... sometimes these forays into the circles of others are very draining, but never doubt they do some good. We all have to do our bit, and having done it can, as you say, power off and recharge the batteries. Tomorrow is another day, and our lights can shine all the brighter for a break.
keep rockin
chris
The "circle of influence" comment above is spot on. Learning is cool; gaining inspiration is cool; being with new people is (usually) cool... but it's knowing the real differences you can make in your own environment which is key. Sometimes limiting the ambition is the only way to actually get closer to it.
ReplyDeleteKeep going, stay positive and tick off those baby steps.