Feelings i can’t stop daily.
I was angry that what i was doing repeatedly was just not enough, it’s like i was going round in unending spiraling circles, whatever i did i found a few minutes later that someone had voluntarily trashed my efforts, it felt like a deliberate choice to just wait for me to turn my back and just trash any progress or effort i’d made.
I was angry as it seemed that i was kinda in a loop that just dint seem to have an ending in sight, one that roped me in with its cycling circle of repetitive tasks that made me mad as each second ticked by.
I wasnt looking for appreciation or validation i was just angered to distraction by the fact that i had to do this.
I had started the day chirpy, cheery, smiling, accepting, resigned happily to this fate, looking forward for the challenges ahead, but as the day wore on so did my resolve and positive spirit. I just felt them glide off me faster than melting butter.
My spirit faded, my smile turned into a grimace, my cheerful cheery self just deflated to a beaten pulp of anger, a closed off face, no easy smile, a forced fake unrealistic smile that looked like i was grimacing, my lips dried, chapped felt the strain of trying to stretch into a smile as torture and the forced smile looked like a pitiful sad, ugly unnecessary plastic smile.
To those whom i tried to smile at, they looked at me strange, of course misinterpreting the smile and just turned their faces away to avoid meet my gaze.
I quickly learned not everyone, or every situation required me to smile even if i was in a hospitality setting.
Back to my reasons of being angered it just seemed that whatever i was doing was like running on a treadmill, or just a never-ending marathon that got me worked up, whipped up by circumstances that turned me into this unrelatable unlikable person.
I have actually been doing the same thing for a while now, maybe six years or more, and yes there has been many moments that av felt to be on the verge of just throwing in the towel caused by the never ending exhaustive annoying nature of my work.
There were instances of quiet acceptance that i showed zeal and applied myself wholeheartedly but now anger seems to surface, bubble forth and spill over me quite fast.
Am just annoyed beyond explanation by the fact that i literally need to do this. It’s not like am above doing whatever is required of me or i feel too good or too sweet about myself to work the job, it’s just the sheer overwhelmingness of it, the magnitude with which am supposed to function and cover a perimeter that could easily bring me to my knees in unrestrained loud desperate weeping, the fact that i haven’t yet, shows pure grit, maximum restrain and resilience on my part.
It’s possible to self-manage and prioritize but am just repeating here the exhaustive repetition of it, the surface area expected results and the fact that nothing gets quite done satisfactorily is exasperating leaving me languishing in this excruciating anger that just doesn’t let me be.
I feel am easily angered by things that shouldn’t, but in the real sense these are situations that make me see red, make me feel like my blood is boiling and my head is throbbing with the increased temperature within, i feel it’s swelling in size and turning me into this creature with a red-hot head steam rising off its scalp with deep set sunken eyes accentuated by my oversized huge glasses.
I could easily love my work i know i should i think sometimes i do and it’s not just when it’s not busy but despite the business i still like the challenge sometimes but not to the point of driving me to the edge of my sanity or sapping all my energy dry to the very bones and still in this state of utter exhaustion and zero percent energy level is when it gets thickly busy and the work pile is enough to compare me to the slavery error.
This is when my anger feels like it’s just rising bubbling and settles within me palpitating pulsating as one with my heartbeat, it cloaks me with a vice like iron grip, tightening its iron hold on me and wrapping its gnarly tentacles about my neck.
It seems like at a blink my mood changes, i feel the gradual rise of anger within me as i look at the time and calculate whatever am supposed to accomplish, which isn’t assured as the only final complete accomplishment, as an influx of more tasks are bound to happen and arise almost simultaneously one after the other in quick succession, which is a real daily guarantee, that’s when this warm to boiling anger grips me and i just accept the pull and it engulfs me.
I can’t pretend to refuse or deny its existence, neither do i feel like fighting it off and feigning positivity or being so energized, empowered and full of zest all ready and just too enthusiastically happy, ecstatically excited to be doing whatever needs done.
There is no need to pretend because it just isn’t even realistically possible if am a normal person with all faculties functioning. That could be likened to a misplaced lost emotion wondering about and showing up in conflicting situations.
There is nothing to make one jump up and down with excitement about work, nothing to make one smile for eleven working hours doing hard labor unless you’re demented, nothing enjoyable just tolerable and working mechanically robotically to accomplish the necessary tasks. And please just don’t ask me for help when you can just do what you need yourself or it isn’t a life and death matter.
I know this doesn’t make me a better or good human, but it is what it is. How do you expect a person who has been running on the negative on their feet for eleven hours barely taking meaningful breaks even bathroom breaks, who has been putting out fires, is near fires, singed off all hairs and is literally covered in soot smelling of smoke hands blackened, chaffed, roughened, dried sweat clinging on every spot and fresh sweat caking over, to just put up with every other little upcoming incident with a golden heart and an open toothy cheery demeanor? Maybe someone else but as for me i well know thyself i sure as hell can’t play that pretentious game i’d better be flogged to death than pretend hypocritically to be in such an accommodating mood.
And at the end of the day what do i do? What do i have to do to with my anger caused by just work? for the sake of work? channel towards me and maybe others who are innocent? Swallow it and keep wallowing in this emotion pit?
Because i have noticed that we live for the sake of others. This is an unwelcome brutal truth. We’d like to think we live for ourselves and what we consider as important and vital for us but shock on us, we just live to serve others. We are at work to serve others, we work for the sake of others, we suffer for other’s sake, we exist for others, we exhaust and run ourselves to the ground for others, we tire and wear out for others, whether we like them or not, whether we like it or not, whether we accept it or not, all our servitude and doing good is all for others, when we wake up and prepare to leave our abodes is because we rush to serve others, and if others weren’t existing then we’d be sad quarantined creatures which we know we aint islands and we abhor the idea of just being alone and secluded off, as social people whether introverts or not at some point others need to show up in our lives as much as we don’t want to be that interactive or find others annoying, the greater part or smaller part of our lives need others interaction.
You don’t open a business and serve yourself, you don’t go to work and seclude yourself in your office without any human interaction, from the time you step out of your house, even if you don’t necessarily talk converse chat or carry out a conversation that runs for minutes or seconds, at a point for sure you meet others and are forced to interact with them in one way or another physically or virtually.
It’s a sobering realization and easy to accept concept hence our lives won’t be riddled with any surprises nor regrets. Does this make it easier? Maybe now that i know i need to meet and serve others i won’t be angered to shreds? No i will be still annoyed because one’s devil is another person. As much as others make the bulk of our lives through interactions they, also bring grief, sadness and deep sorrow. Yes, all brought about by our fellow people.
It gives others a kick to see one in the trenches, caused by their actions or inactions, it gives others great satisfaction only to have you as their little or big slave, modestly dressed in employees’ clothes and aptly named as servant and applauded for being and exemplary worker or the best or just ‘irreplaceable’. What you are is simply a servant who is very good at serving others and has mastered skills to continue in that servitude, amassed so called certificates to serve better in a capability viewed as very highly sophisticated proving intelligence by being so good at serving.
The certificates just act as a mark of distinguishing who is better placed to handle service at what level, all labelled named and categorized by others who decide which one goes where, which fits where, which is highly priced and more valued all in the name of service for others.
And when we beat our chest as being very highly certified this means we are better at service of others, when we amass experience or years of servitude in a field, we are just better and pros at serving, period.
It’s a mark of distinguished learnedness, washed off ignorance of quality serving to certified in serving and growing to a higher different level of continuous serving that induces jealousy in others seeing as your level of servitude brought about by amassed certificates has greatly improved which means a bounty salary.
Others also follow suit in better servitude only recognized by the label and stamp on the certificate which bumps you higher the serving ladder, which is winding up and infinite, because in getting of a better servitude certificate is a continuous chase labelled as a recognized feat making one very marketable and a force to reckon with.
Sometimes it’s not about the certificate for servitude and having it doesn’t mean one is good in serving either,
It could be who you know, how influential your network is, which service of those you know hold most water and weight to connect you to a desirable service.
Is it now any comforting that all our lives we live to serve others? Never will be! There’s no joy! as each day is riddled with putting out fires continuously, which is what we have come to accept as normal.
This is work, it’s how it is, how it’s always been, any anger arising we attend anger management classes, we bottle it, we channel it creatively because this is the life of servitude whether we agree to it or not.
As much as others will love to say maybe it gets easier at the top management or there is not much hustle the more you earn your servitude papers and the experiences you push under your belt, it’s all servitude and yes, it’s easier, maybe, better paying and not that manually labor induced serving when the papers demand a different criterion of being viewed with accomplishments and society rewards and applauds such.
So, we are all clawing towards this ladder to the top, the ever-shifting mirage peak that’s enticing and the rewards and view that’s very mouthwatering, but funny thing is how it isn’t very easy to serve at the top table is.
Should i then assume those before me closed off the doors when they gained access? Made their predecessors walk on glass shards before earning the badge of another sophisticated corporate serving? No!
That’s a limited mindset and yes in servitude continuously till death is what we all strive. Let’s not sugarcoat matters that you’re running your own business or are self employed, its all servitude whatever angle you’d like to look at it and its glorified at its best.
We admire those before us, those who seem to have it all together and yearn to be like them in so many ways. This is a set path of our lives and its society’s medium of operations, no changing it as we were made to serve and be served.
It’s also a cute cycle as only the serving is in tiers and closed off and barricaded if you don’t fit a certain category or if your class is considered “not there yet” nor worthy of said service.
We have learned to segregate services according to the most deserving and the quality or quantity measured out differs. It’s also not a secret that the top dollar is paid to the class, that’s considered and measured to the standards in place and that we all strive to attain or get a taste of. In reaching that standard we expect preferential treatment that’s advertised and promised as a world away from the norm, a slice of paradise, heaven for a price, service you can trust.
With a quiet resignation and acceptance of our lot in servitude and where our current status firmly places us, we endure in quiet suppressed anger or contentment. Why anger? Because it’s not easy, because i’d rather do something else which for the moment isn’t even ready to make me a living or pay my bills, as i said its far from ecstatically exciting to serve at my level, so if other levels are cruises and walks in the park believe me am striving with all my might to be counted in, to reach that level of serving with gleeful bountiful endless joy. Or it’s just a smokescreen?
I take a deep sigh and wish me well, for serving is our call it’s indiscriminate in nature and befalls one as per your level of preparedness measured and standardized by society’s and nature’s way of life. We found it existing we modified it and here we are still serving.
Maybe now i should make peace with myself and just accept this as i well know how the mechanisms work, does that mean i will paste a smile throughout my workday? no i can’t even plasticize one let alone fake it, i will look the way av always been, my face at that rested mode of- as it is.
And this is the quiet acceptance of life we know what’s there and what’s acceptably required for better service, so we strive each day to deal with the annoyance inconveniences and intolerable mishaps that arise. Maybe they’re not mishaps just what it is as it is, not normal but the norm at whichever place we befall.