Er...hello

Hello. This is my first attempt at a Blog. I thought I would create a blog to express my oh so interesting musings and flashes of creativity. Also my notes on what is going on in the world, as a soap box for my opinions and profound (naturally) reflections upon my spirituality (or the lack of thereof). They say never start a discussion at a dinner party about politics or religion... leave that to a blog. I know that it is very unlikely anyone will read my blog, less likely still they will care. But do you know how much private therapy costs these days? So its therapy for me...(sticks tongue out)

Anyway...some limited personal info. I am 39 years old. Straight but also equal opportunities. Married to a lovely lady with two bonnie daughters age 3.5 and 13 weeks. I work for a well known insurance company. (no, I won't say...it is rumoured that there is a whole team in my company who's job it is to find defamatory comments about the company on the internet, then discipline and sack offenders.) I am quite recently qualified as a solicitor. Which professional status takes many years and lots of exams i.e much deliberate and sustained effort plus some luck. It is all the stranger then that I did not want to be a solicitor...not really, indeed I still don't. And (like most people in most jobs I'm sure) I would in fact like to be doing something else. What though?. Thats the problem. I don't know. Actually its not that I don't know what I want, only that what I want is next to impossible to obtain in 2010. You see, I can't imagine that anyone is going to pay me to be a full time Keen Observer of Life, or a philosopher-mystic, able to spend my days flatulating on the meaning of life (or lack of it) like some toga wearing member of the Ancient Greek Academy. Nor is there (as yet) popular clamour for me to become Galactic Emperor or even El Duce UK. And as for business leader, well unfortunately I'm not entrepreneurial. Merely organising a picnic fills me with enough anxiety. A booze up in a brewery would be well beyond my gift unless there was a book of rules and precedents I could refer to. Actually thats not entirely true as I do my job well enough (just in case you were concerned!)

In fact due to my high anxiety, high pessimism, high expectation, low patience character, I am currently having a mental breakdown at work. I suffer these mini breakdowns quite frequently. But I keep working. How about that for the 'stiff upper lip' approach? I should of course go off work with 'stress' . As do a fair proportion of the modern nation or at least the ones I deal with en route to their 'constructive dismissal' claim in the Employment Tribunal. No really I should throw a sickie. But its such a career damaging admission, that one is 'stress prone' and 'burnt out'. Instead i just manifest my breakdown by acting strangely. My time targets slip, I arrive late and stay late. I don't talk as much or talk too much. I get annoyed quickly. I forget to shave or do up my shoe laces or wear odd socks. Fortunately I don't have to see clients, I only listen to my customers on the telephone. [ Despite these querks I do ultimately remember  to do my job properly - i am a not so young recently qualified professional after all] and its just the rest of my life that goes to pot (not literally, at least not since I qualified and that incident in  Amsterdam).

There are various factors contributing to my current breakdown situation, mostly job related but i'm also having a bit of a 'spiritual crisis'. At the moment I must work through the issues though, includng my job. Until I find something else. Or until this cheap as chips Blog-therapy works. signing off for now.