OMG I’m a commitment phobic!

breaking pointBut unlike most commitment phobics, I have no fear of relationships. I have a fear of carreer choises. As you know, I’ve been doing this start up with my bridal fashion design business for some time now, until suddenly I shut down. I simply could not even think about wedding dresses without feeling trapped by them. I am a very creative person, and I get excited about a lot of things, and I want to achieve a lot of things. The thought of commiting myself to one task, or one pursuit, no matter how appealing it is, simply terrifies me. I am afraid, that one day I wake up so married to my carreer that I cannot take the day off to do what is inspiring me that day, or that there are appointments lined up for weeks to come and I will know exactly what I’m going to HAVE TO do tomorrow…

I hate dates. I hate meeting people on a set time. I don’t know what I will want to do at the time that I should be meeting friends. I might be completely blown away by a new web app I just discovered, and want to learn everything there is about it right then. (I usually end up enjoying hanging out with friends anyway, but I might get really annoyed before hand.) A carreer is full of dates and dead lines and schedules. I hate all of it, and don’t want any part of it. I hate forcing my attention onto something that it isn’t naturally focussed on at any given time.

The trouble is, that when I get excited about one thing, it might feel to me like the most important thing on the planet at the time. Then something happens, that catches my attention and sifts it away from what ever that important thing was, and I can’t even remember why it was so important before. The time span between these intense periods of focus varies from few hours to weeks, but rarely any longer than that. There are things that I will always return to at my own time, like field spaniel related things, Barbie stuff, web, internet and writing, but you can’t restrict me to a schedule. I always need someone to pull my attention to the matter at hand, like take fieldie newsletter for example. I used to write one for a club in Finland, but if I hadn’t had my friend Marjaana talk to me for a few days kind of warning me that the dead line is coming up and gently sift my focus toward it, I would have been in a big trouble. Now that I gave myself a task to do a smiliar newsletter by myself, I am completely lost. It’s not going to happen.

And, like the relationship phobia, mine too stems from my parents. I watched my mother come home completely wiped out after the day at work, so tired, agitated and wound up to the breaking point and after shouting at us for what ever we did wrong during the day (mostly me because my brother is very reliable) she just fell asleep in front of the telly only to repeat it again the following day. Why on earth would I want any part of that shit? Yet she claims she enjoys her work. Bloody hell if that’s enjoyment, I wonder what a crappy job feels like…

So I wonder… How common is it to have a fear of carreer? Can I cure my phobia by following advice for relationship phobics? I have some googling to do, I guess. Unless I get distracted. There’s a Barbie forum to fix.

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  • Lilith
    My first reaction was: boo-hoo.
    So you don't know what you wanna do?
    You are not sure if youre current choice will bring you happiness, joy, success, fame while making you compete with Bill Gates when it comes to fortune?
    You can't be bothered by if something includes tiniest bit of uncomfortable things?
    Boo-fucking-hoo, join the club, that's the situation for the most of us!

    (are you still reading? Hope you are)
    But, I do respect and admire your point of view.
    If it's not fun, why do it?
    We should take more care about things that are utterly pointless, and just enjoyable.

    Your writing made me wonder this:
    while you are happy of your ability to be swept away by something, you are also afraid of it.
    You are terrified by the thought that you would actually enjoy something so much that nothing would come between you and that "thing" (except exhaustion).

    As an answer to your question: lots of people are so afraid of life that they spend most of it avoiding everything included.

    I sometimes wonder, that when I finally will be "ready" with my choice of carreer (or more with my current job) it will be either
    a) the day before I retire
    b) sign that it's time to seek something new to do

    I try to think that work is something I have to do to be able to do what I WANT to do (when I'm not at work).
    If I enjoy it and if I'm good at it, even better.
  • Lilith
    Darn that I can't edit! I feel like most was lost in translation.
  • It must have been, because it didn't sound like you got my point at all. It's not that I'm afraid of enjoying one thing, it's that I'm afraid that if I choose to enjoy this one thing, I can't ever find time to enjoy that other thing, but I'm forced to enjoy this one thing for the rest of my life. Like a person who fears a relationship would say: "I love her, but I love other women, too. How can I choose just one woman and know I won't want to be with someone else?" Or what the said commitment phobic would say to explain this: "It's like having to choose one meal for the rest of your life."
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