I have spent the previous week taking a four day course to prepare myself for the Network + certification that I hope to get. It will go along with my A+ ceritification I just received. The test is going to be a real challenge, much harder than the A+ one. I m really nervous and stressing out about it. I have been studying a lot and looking over the practice tests, and I think I will pass. I say I think because there is a lot to digest that is needed for the exam. I hopefully will take this week to study and prepare to take the test sometime next week. After the test, I will have to spend time to spruce up my resume and start sending it out to try to make some cash. This is the last certifiation I'm going to get for a while. I'm hoping to get a job where the company would pay or at least chip in for part of the cost to get any further ceritifications.
I left my job in April, and since May I've felt like a scumbag. Not for leaving the job I left-I feel proud of that and have no desire to ever return to that rinky dink company-but I feel like I've not done what I am supposed to do. What I mean is that I dont have a job to support myself, or anyone else, I still live in the bedroom I grew up in, and I don't feel like I have fully utilized my potential. I feel like I cower whenever something big is about to happen in my life or something major I am about to do. Take these certifations for example. I am trying to move myself into an entirely different industry, one that though I know people in it I'm not near their level or going into their "world". It's partly exciting, partly terrifying. Do I know if I am doing it right, or if I'm even going in the right direction? Damned if I know. I do know this was a suggested path to take, and so far it has not been full of pitfalls or impassible mountains.
The fear of about to do something big is something I've always had in me, and I'm sure to a point everyone has had. My fear sometimes leads me to not do what I was about to do, and regret it in the end. THe fear I feel when these situation arise-whether to go for it or back off-is based on one thing: fear of letting myself and my family down. I've failed in the past, and as much as i accepted it and moved from it, it eats me up inside to see others around me when I fail. Sometimes doing simple things around the house and not completeing it how it was supposed to be gets at me, especially when I see hte dissappointment in others' eyes and they accept how things are. that's when I start to get frustrated and mad at myself. To me, what I did accomplish is a failure until what I really wanted done is achieved.
It's not an ego thing to get it doen myself, though the feeling of accomplishment does feel good. It's the fact that to me, I made a deal with someone to get something done to a certian result. If I do not meet that standard agreed on, then I feel like I did not live up to my end of the deal, and I hate not pulling my weight when it comes to deals. It sounds like a weird and dumb way to look at things, but that's how I do. For six months I've felt ike this in some form or another, and I feel an immense sense of pressure to finish off what I started and get the results I wanted, then move to the next and higer goal I expect myself to achieve and agreed to do for others as well as myself.
Finally, seeing the date this post is actually going up. Happy birthday Dad, where ever you are. He'd be 72 today