Great Moments in Self-Sabotage

I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure I should be famous right now.

I don’t know why, but growing up, I kind of assumed I’d be some sort of famous writer/baseball player/actor/comedian/professional wrestler/cowboy/etc. by the time I hit 30.

Instead, I’m working in a library and doing basically the exact same job that I’ve been doing since I was assigned to a work-study job my freshman year of college.

Once August rolls around, I’ll have been working in libraries for ten years. A decade. More than one-third of my life.

In that time I’ve made a few concerted attempts to sorta “move forward,” but they’ve all come up short.

Roughly four years back, I applied for a better job at work, but didn’t take it seriously enough and was beat out by a decidedly better candidate.

About two years ago, I was the top-ranked baseball writer on the world’s fourth largest sports website. Then, for really no good reason, I just sorta quit writing about baseball.

I’ve had my writing featured on a ton of major websites (ex: Fox Sports, Sports Illustrated, CBS Sports, Houston Chronicle, USA Today, Cageside Seats, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer) but I’ve never done anything to follow up on it.

My Faithful Readers, there’s one reason and one reason only that I’m not famous—or at the very least “more successful”—and it’s that I’m a self-saboteur.

I’m a productive dude, but if I could convert half the time I spend procrastinating into something more meaningful like my writing or working harder or professional development or graduate school or something, anything…I think I’d be in charge of the world by now (or—at the very least—Paraguay, Iceland, and Galveston, Texas).

Anyway, the reason I’m ranting about my self-sabotaging ways is because there’s a position open at work that I’m very interested in and, although it won’t make me famous, it would be a legit step up to a big boy job.

The job has been open for applications for a couple of weeks now and we’ve known about its forthcoming availability for a couple of months.

That having been said, I haven’t started updating my resume. I haven’t written my cover letter. I keep contemplating the merits of not applying.

Why?

I have no freakin’ clue.

There is absolutely ZERO reason for me to not apply for this job. There is no reason for me to have dicked around this long when my resume and cover letter should have been ready to roll a month ago.

It’s just another case of vintage Gravesian self-sabotage and it sucks, because I want this job somethin’ fierce.

I may not be the most qualified person for this job, but I can do this job. In fact, I think I could do it pretty danged well, yet here I sit, with just six and a half days left until the application period closes and I’ve managed to open my resume and nothing more.

Don’t worry, I’m not looking for any sage advice or words of encouragement here, I’m just hoping that if I publicly acknowledge my self-sabotage I can get beyond it and get my ass in gear.

Here’s hoping it works.