Career ADD – Surely This is Normal…

An early morning conversation with my daughter this week went a little something like this:

A: Mommy, I NEEEEEED something.

Me: Adelynn, what do you need? Use your words and communicate with me.

A: Mommy, can I have a donut?….Wait, no can I have a cold waffle? Do we have any cold pancakes? Can I have some orange juice? Mommy, nevermind, I don’t want a donut, I want my paci. I want to paint. Can I paint my toy car? No, I don’t want to paint my car. Mommy, don’t burn your finger on your coffee. Mommy, may I please have a donut…(Deep breath).

Me: Sure…….

This whole exchange fueled by pure, bonafide 3-year old attention deficit disorder is a regular occurrence in my house and is normally how I start every morning, the list of NEEEEEDS just changes daily. This kid bops around with so much enthusiasm for life she barely has time to process her own appetite.

Even though I stare at my child blankly during these daily exchanges, sipping my productivity fuel, trying to get my brain to catch up, I secretly adore this ADD characteristic of my offspring.

Why? Well not only does it keep me on my toes and somewhat entertained, but it also makes me feel a little bit more normal about where I am in life right this second.

Ok, I’ve been a little down in the dumps lately. Not to the point I can’t get out of bed or can’t motivate myself, but I’ve managed to convince myself that if we just had about 36 hours in each day instead of 24, I might actually be able to be a little bit of everything when I grow up. This 24-hour day thing is seriously cramping my style.

When it comes to careers, I’m just a little ADD. Clinically, I’ve been diagnosed as OCD, but because I get my kicks out of never going to the doctor and just diagnosing myself through Google symptom searches, I’ve now titled myself a walking acronym-Life OCD plus Career ADD equals ME. My internal dialogue sounds a little something like this:

Self: Gosh, all I really want to do in life is be a writer.  Oooo, I love politics, I would be an awesome press secretary. I wonder if Dana Perino could tell me how it’s done. Oh, we might get orders to Korea, I want to teach English in a foreign country so bad. That would be such an awesome job. Oh, I need to work on my real estate class. I can’t wait to start showing houses. Oh yea, I have like 4 clients I need to do some grant research for, better get on that. I wish I could buy a zoo like the movie. How do people just do that? I should write a book about the guy who bought a zoo in Alabama. Can’t I be done with a PhD already? When will I ever find the time to write a book? Maybe I should consider being a life coach. I could be such a great professor, I’m going to check out the adjunct instructor jobs. Hmmmm, I’m hungry. I can’t wait til I can have my own restaurant. I think I need more coffee…….

And then it’s 9am and I’m ticked off at the clock for continuing to tick tock the day away.

Because ultimately, there are certain things I HAVE to do in a day. I have to work on my business because right now it pays the bills. I have to constantly clean because the OCD side of me is much more dangerous than the ADD part when neglected. And then at some point the dog, the kid, and the husband must be fed and watered.

I’m trying to decide if there is anything fundamentally wrong with wanting to do it all. And if it’s as weird as it feels. Surely the world is full of other motivated, successful, high-powered women having the same early morning coffee chats with themselves…

The ultimate buzz-kill for women like us is knowing we are not going to get those extra hours in a day that we know will make the difference in our crusade. We want to take on the world and the world just won’t cooperate…

So what’s a girl to do? Apparently this girl is going to hash it out on paper and try to cross writer off the ADD list.

Oh, and maybe I’ll have a donut. Yea, a donut sounds good…

Image from: http://activedabawenya.blogspot.com/2012/03/multitasking-in-workplace.html

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