Another pause. A couple of months at least. Maybe I’m just waiting for something positive to say. Is that what people wait there whole lives for? For that one moment when they can use the phrase ‘This is what it’s all been about’? Guess what? I quit my job again.
I can see the steam coming out of my parents ears even as I think about it. This was a classy exit. I worded my letter of resignation perfectly. I got thrown out that very afternoon. Got paid notice too. I must admit I was quite pleased. There’s something about office work that I don’t seem to be able to handle. It’s usually the tossers sitting in the boardroom working out how they can get away with not paying you any sick leave.
One positive thing I have managed to come up with is to motivate myself to think slightly differently. I don’t like offices. Ok, don’t work in one. Go and work in a florists or at a kennels. I’ll be taking a drop in wage, that’s a step down. Bollocks, if you don’t half mind it why is it a step down? Stop thinking that money is the 197
be all and end all, don’t forget, it’s what makes most people self-centred wankers. I won’t be able to pay the bills. Yes you will and who cares anyway, they’ve had enough money off me in the past. My friends think I’m a fool for leaving a job they seemed to envy.
These people are people you have a drink with, you’ve never had a meaningful conversation with them in your life so what do they know? The thing is, although I’m phasing it out, I do think about all the above and you know why? Because I’m stressed. It’s a state I think many of us live in most of the time.
Shoulders continually knotted, a persistent hunchback.
What are we doing to ourselves?
One hundred and sixty-nine
How must it feel to be all alone in a world full of so many people? I often feel lonely but I guess part of that is an illusion. What I really mean is that I feel misunderstood sometimes. If I really needed someone, I know I would always have somewhere to go albeit not my first choice. I have family, I have a few friends yet not as many as I would like but at least I would have somewhere to turn if ever reaching the depths of desperation. Many don’t have such privileges. Correct me if I am wrong but I heard there were 7,000 people commit suicide per year in the UK. That makes me feel so very humble. I didn’t see the other 6,999 die but I can imagine most followed a similar end. I’m sure you heard of someone’s train being cancelled or delayed after someone saw fit to throw themselves under it. Leaping off a motorway bridge. Hanging by a noose in their school uniform in their bedroom.
Slumped in a toilet with a needle in their arm. Lying 198
in bed with an empty bottle of vodka and a selection of pills. It’s not as uncommon as we would like to believe. Yet what do we do about it? What do you do?
Bystander apathy. Someone else will do it. The sad thing is, they don’t. I know that sounds preachy.
You’re right, one person won’t change the society we live in. I don’t have the answers. The least we can do is ask the question.