Thanks for sharing your story. I think a lot of people can relate to your fear.

Now I have a question for you. If you were to make a mistake that someone used to “take you down” would you be able to rebuild? Perhaps not at the same company, but somewhere else? You sound like a very successful individual and I’m sure you could do it and start over if you had to.

Thanks again for being so open!

-Andrew

You see, I am a successful person (at least in my own mind). I have managed to obtain some of the most important things that I wanted in life, both in a professional and personal sense. I hold an administrative postion at work – I have the big corner office with the big window and fancy furniture – I have the multi-million dollar budget – I have my own staff – I get paid well – I drive the big and fancy car – I have a nice house that sits on a couple of acres of property – I have the loving wife and kids – I have a few but close personal friends – and I also my have my health to be grateful for.

Incidentally, I do realize that there are other people with much higher or different (and grander) aspirations than myself, that wouldn’t consider me a success at all. And that’s ok, as one noted earlier everyone has there own definition of success. And one more incidental note, I consider myself blessed and fortunate to have achieved and obtained some of most important things that I wanted out of life. I don’t flaunt what I have and I don’t put on an assuming facade; at times I make deliberate effort to humble myself, maybe to a fault.

But the one thing that I don’t have, that I believe is the most important thing of all for me is peace. I live in this constant state of fear; albeit, a “low-level” fear (or anxiety) that is not debilitating or paralyzing, but it is always present and accounted for, as they say in the military.

This low-lever fear stems from working in the “rat-race”. The rat-race can be just as ugly and vicious as a political race in the heat of an election, where the politicians maximize and capitalize on your mistakes and weakeness in a deliberate effort to undermine you, so that they can eventually be rid of you, while they completely ignore or mininize any of your strenghts or accomplishments. I feel like I’m under a constant state of attack. I’m not being paranoid here. I’ve had my share of confrontations, where I had to fend of attacks from a person or two who wanted my job, or where I had to fire an employee for openly undermining me.

Like I said, I’m not a paranoid (or naive) person. By far the overwhelming majority of people I work with, are good decent people, who just want to do their jobs and be happy. It’s just that within every organization, there exists a handful of people who for whatever reason, are going to be deadset on underming you.

I can take the heat, so I stay in the kitchen. But one day I fear I’m going to make a mistake, that will give them the ammunition to take me down.

That’s my fear.

-Andrew