Colin Coleman

I work from home. My team is really just me. I answer to a boss who I talk to every two weeks and once in a while via email. Everyday I struggle with anxiety from work. I can’t quite explain it, but I do know I don’t like working from home. I don’t like no being apart of a team. And the lack of relationship with my boss mirrors an uncertain childhood in which I did my best to be a perfect kid out of fear of punishment from my father. Now that I’m an adult I know that everything is fine. Failure leads to growth and the worst case scenario is never that bad, but I can’t help my emotions from not knowing that. On a bad day I work as long as I can with a hole in my heart and fog in my brain. It’s like I’ve been dumped by my crush everyday and have to go to school and spend classes with her while she sits next to her knew boyfriend. I can’t escape the feeling and the more I feel it the harder it is to work and the less I do and the more work piles up the more anxiety I feel. I sense a breaking point coming but I don’t know what to do about it. I know I want relief from the pain which leans towards quitting. But I also know that I’m not a quitter and don’t want to live with the shame I will put on myself for quitting. A rock and a hard place. I just want to have a week of life that feels normal, no stress, joy, I don’t have to force a smile at my dog. I can’t even think of next steps because my brain is so foggy. Anyway, Thanks for Listening.

Blog #2 – 4.30.24

Have you ever heard of Tim Ferriss? Most of my friends haven’t. It’s funny that I’m the only one in my circles who’s into self-improvement. I try to get them interested but I guess it’s the sort of thing they have to discover on their own. Tim Ferriss is kind of the life hack king. Famous for his book “4-Hour” (insert thing here) work, chef, body. He was one of the first people ever to do a TED talk and his first Ted talk was on this Stoicism based concept called “Fear Setting”, kind of meant to be the opposite of goal setting. Setting a goal is about what you want to achieve, fear setting is about what’s the worst that can happen in any decision. One thing I really struggle with is the fear of failing at my job. The irony is that the worst case scenario isn’t losing my job. I would honestly be relieved if I got fired. My greatest fear is the self-imposed shame. I have always been simultaneously self-condemned but afraid of the small-minded beliefs and opinions of others and not being enough. I have very little proof of being enough. Dumped by all my girlfriends. I’m a  failed musician, I struggle to achieve the attention of women I like. Nobody is chasing me. I believe I am capable of anything, I  know that to be true, but I become immensely sad and frustrated when I can’t or don’t succeed. Fear Setting, I’m going to try it.

Who am I? Who am I to write this, I’m no one special, but then again no one is special. And simultaneously everyone is special, or at least everyone has the potential to be special. I’ve been thinking about writing a book in the last few years. I have a few topics in mind, but I think to myself “I’m only in my 30’s I’m no expert” at least I felt that way. Now, I’m 39. I don’t mentally feel 39, but everything hurts and the pains are not going away. Lately I’ve been having these revelations that many of the characters that I loved as a child and a teenager I am now older than they were. In 1999 I was 14 and I consider it to be the best year in movies ever. Click here for proof . Fight Club, The Matrix, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (not the best movie but definitely a cultural moment) all came out that year, and when I look at Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. It’s hard to believe that these men feel like men to me and I am now older than they are. Which, funny enough, is a topic they cover in fight club. “I’m not man, I’m a 30 year old boy” Edward Norton says. I’m not a kid anymore whether I accept it or not, I am a man. So part 1 of answering the question of Who am I? Well I guess I’m a man (reads Adult). But I definitely don’t feel like an expert on anything. I can’t be writing a book, that’s for accomplished smart people. But perhaps I may be wrong about that, or from a different point of view, it doesn’t matter if I am or not. Tony Robbins wrote his first self-help book Awake the Power Within at 30. Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic) has written a ton of books and he’s 3 years younger than me. Now there are many books I’ve read that were written by people older than me who wrote them at age 40 and beyond. The point is the saying “fake it till you make it” is true, because in reality no one is “faking it”, they are just not certain of their expertise.

So why haven’t I been faking it ’til I make it? I guess because truth and authenticity are strong values to me. I don’t want to be a false important somebody. But one thing I need to practice is putting my own needs first, or at least recognizing that. I think a lot. I have a lot of discussions in my head. I have a lot of ideas (mostly bad). Instead of keeping these thoughts to myself or sharing them with my friends who often don’t care, I’ve decided to put them out into the world. Maybe I’ll find my tribe, my community of like minded people. 

Being vulnerable, fighting perfectionism everyday. The ability to be okay with things being good enough and not being perfect is such a powerful tool to move things forward.

I have so many half-finished projects because the first half come from pure divine inspiration, but that inspiration only gives me one piece of the puzzle. It’s probably God’s way of teaching me something I’ve yet to learn. I hope writing and vlogging (wanna start that too)  like this is consistently something that can add joy to my life. I enjoy creating entertainment-art as I call it. Content always feels like a word for cheap filler. My mind races a million miles a minute and there are so many things I want to talk about and instead of doing nothing I will fake it til I make it, or at least I will Attempt it, til I make it.