It has been a couple of days of paralysis. I spent the entire day yesterday first in Starbucks and then in Barnes and Noble just staring at the computer screen, unable to make a decision. I mean all day, like from nine-five just weighing the possibilities in my head. I tried to do a little work on the query for the book. But really, I was able to get nothing done. Amazing. It is Friday. I made the decision on Monday and thought that was the end of it but the entire week has been consumed with the decision. Let's not say I took this thing lightly. So by this morning it had been more than 24 hours without communication from either side. I knew it was time for a decision. So I went back to Starbucks , stared at the computer screen some more, and decided to pull the trigger and agree to the terminal sabbatical without the condition of the on line course, which was a crazy addendum anyway in retrospect. The alternative I was considerring right until the very end (that is, until about two minutes ago) was simply staying for three years and then having a real sabattical and either coming or not coming back for a year and then retiring. Even as I write it, it sounds appealing. Again, it would be so easy and comfortable to stay here. I could have saved money for three years and added to the nest egg, taught extra courses and then did what I had said, moved to China for one semester a year and lived cheaply back in the states the rest of the time. It still seems like a prett good way to go, although it also seems a little like waiting to die. Who knows if I have those years left anyway, from 50-55. My sister didn't. And if God forbid something happened, would I have wanted my last couple of years to be sitting here doing a job I don't like or spending one year in Indonesia and one in China and then trying to start it off again somehow?
At the end of the day, I can't say what caused me to make the final decision (or the decision finally). It certainly wasn't the Wayne Dyer special that happened to be on PBS on the t.v. that was in the flophouse I stayed in last night. It was called something like "No More Excuses" and I one point he went over excuses people give to stop them from changing a life they find unsatisfying. True, several of those excuses were on my list: impact on others, financial concerns, fear of failure. It was stuff I already knew anyway. Besides, I kept dropping in and out of sleep anyway so didn't find out how to change my life. And that's what it was about
But now that I have sent it in, it seems I'm o.k. with it, it strikes me as the right thing to do, alhough that might be the xanax speaking.
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