WillSpirit!

When younger, I never worried about success. If I applied myself, my grades stayed high. Scholastic achievements translated into acceptance to the next stage of training. Through a series of steps, education led to good jobs. Nothing to it.

Times have changed. A decade of unemployment and mental illness has stripped me of possibilities and confidence. How can someone with a medical degree from a top university worry about work? Easily. It boils down to the stock Hollywood question, “what have you done, lately?” I’ve been out of work for most of ten years. And how many ophthalmic plastic surgery skills can be used in other jobs? Not many.

Better than before, I understand the plight of the poor. Childhood abuse convinced me I’m nothing special, so it’s not like I was an arrogant surgeon who thought lowly of those ‘beneath’ me. But it’s one thing to understand that underachievement is not a reflection on worth when you look at it from the outside, and another when you have to face it in yourself. I find it impossible to separate my unemployment from my self-esteem.

Neck problems ended my surgical career at age forty-two. As I’ve said elsewhere, losing my job, status, and pay landed me in psychiatric wards. Afterwards, an incompetent psychiatrist pushed me to accept ‘retirement.’ There are few things worse for a middle-aged man than to be told he is too mentally ill to work. That message undermined the attempts I made at employment. I now see that my doctor was wrong, but it is hard to reconstruct a working life after years of inactivity.

I’ve been driving myself (even more) crazy with this problem. How will I support my wife? What can I possibly do to earn an income? How will we survive? Creative writing will not feed us. Maybe technical writing? But can get into that field at this age, without experience? Do I even want to? Should I teach biology in high school instead? Could I stand it? Would I be any good? Where do I begin? What should I do? There are hundreds of demoralizing questions.

The confusion tires me so much I can hardly imagine doing anything productive. I feel fury at myself for wasting youthful time and energy learning medicine, when I knew it wasn’t right for me. Trying to build a career in my fifties, after ten years of failure and sickness, feels overwhelming and impossible.

It must be worse for those who’ve never achieved at a high level. Success must look like a pipe dream. For those burdened with depression, failure snowballs into despair all-too-easily. How many people out there feel hopeless and uncertain about what to do?

The solution must be to do a little at a time. For me, it meant starting this blog. I know my writing is too wordy, my topics inconsistent. I know my promotion skills are poor, and the product amateurish. But it keeps me writing. I remain busy while I work things out. It’s a small step, but it’s a step. If I can write 150,000 words in six months, then I should be able to make an income as a writer. Maybe not with a memoir or spiritual text, but perhaps writing science articles or even medical editing. Who knows? At least I’ve proven that I like to sit at the computer, and fashion language.