Don't Waste My Time (Pt. 1)

Some people don’t understand the concept of time. Time is like sand slipping through your fingers (cliché, I know, but try to catch the sand as it’s slipping through with one hand, impossible). You can’t stop it, you can’t pause it; heck, there’s no rewind button on that shit! Time is precious. You will never gain time again, you are just losing time, constantly losing time, it’s just slowly slipping away and, that, to me, is a very scary thought.

Like most young adults, I didn’t care about all this “time is slipping away” ordeal. I figured I was young, cool, and hip, and had the world ahead of me… until I found my passion. My boyfriend and I had a lengthy conversation about my future and trying to find a field of work that interested me (read “Becoming a Loser" parts one and two on my blog). I have a Masters in Art History, but we all know that I can’t go very far with that so, I began to think. What do I love to do? What do I want to do with my life (at this point, my life had been wrapped up in stressed of student debt, living in crummy apartments and eating one meal a day…)?

Write. I love to write, and I love to read, so, why not become a freelance writer?

It had been decided, I wanted to be a freelancer! Great, now what?

I bought all the books on freelancing and began to write every day and, to get back to my point on time, writing 1,000 word articles every day, reading a few chapters in my books, and teaching English as a second language class, I didn’t have much time. It seemed that, over time, I would sit down to write, and after a few paragraphs I’d notice that an hour had passed! So I began to plan my days carefully, writing from 9 AM to 12 PM, showering, eating, getting ready (1 hour max!), leaving for work, reading on the commute to work (45 minutes), working (7 hours), reading on the commute home (45 minutes), eating something small when I got home, showering before bed and lastly, sleep. Those were most of my days. It didn’t help that my boss was a slave-driver (this is an expression, no offence is meant by it) and made me work seven days a week. So, time to do what I actually enjoyed was very limited. But I knew that I needed to write. I felt sick and cranky if I didn’t.

I loved to write. I loved the feeling of having verbal diarrhea and just letting everything out of your system. I felt cleansed. Some people need to go on detox diets, others need to go spend 50 hours at the gym; I just need to sit in front of my computer and let my fingers and mind work some magic. But, I was running out of time. Working seven days a week and trying to balance a social life and attempting not to neglect my boyfriend too much was becoming very challenging!

And then, it happened. My precious time began to get wasted. I would come to work and some students would forget they had class or just wouldn’t come at all, and if my students don’t attend class, I don’t get paid, AND I come to work for nothing, wasting my time. I hate having my time wasted. I HATE HAVING MY TIME WASTED!

I would sit there with my writing material at home (figuring I wouldn't have time at work to write), fuming because I just wasted two fucking hours of my day due to some lazy kid who just didn't want to walk to class. I would get so upset. Sometimes I would call my boyfriend crying asking him to remind me why I needed this godforsaken job. He would always calmly reply “because you need money.” I would hate that answer, but it was true. Freelancing wasn't paying yet, and I needed to keep the lights on... It made me feel so powerless, like I was a slave to my boss. I hated that feeling. As if he owned me. As if he owned my time. That feeling... URGH! I began to think that I was basically paying for this guy's vacations, car, and other expenses that I couldn't even pay for myself. I got so pissed for lack of better words! I was just discouraged. I NEEDED my situation to change.

(Part 2 coming soon.)