I am irritable when I arrive home. I am impatient and intolerant. Things are not put away. I go to the butter plate and find it empty. This is the tipping point for me and I become furious. Why didn't you refill the plate? Am I the one who always has to do this? Isn't this important to you? I pack an overnight bag and storm out of the house. I don't want the children to see us fighting.
I knew this was coming a month before. I had opened another checking account in my name. I had changed my Direct Deposit. I start taking strategic items out of the house. I take the filing box with the billing receipts. I take the tax records. With them I have financial control.
I return home but my heart isn't in it. We try to be intimate.
I feel exhausted from my marriage. I am Cinderella no more. I tried so hard. I can't carry this marriage. I couldn't work it out. It isn't what I thought it is. I pack my things.
I begin living at work, sleeping on my couch and showering in the locker room in the morning. I haunt the facility at night. In the sky I can see a spotlight for "XBOX 360". It is November 22, 2005. I spend Thanksgiving in my office. I cannot attend our mutual friend's invitation for dinner.
* * *
It is 1999. I am working as a software engineer. I am naïve and fanatical about my product. I value making it right above all. I think I am important. I make a software correction just like many others. I don't know that it will cost my company millions of dollars. I am rushing through my work. I am not putting in the time and effort to do a thorough job.
Working on this software correction, I can't explain the problem of why an item is missing from the database. The loss occurs over and over. Rather than make the effort to fully understand the loss of the item, I tell the computer to have a new policy to recreate item when it is found missing. When this happens, the item is then shared with other computers on the network; these computers previously had thought that copy of the item is deleted. However, due to the recreated item being sent to them, the other computers restore the item to their databases. I did not know that my change causes the records of old employees to come back to life to their employers, causing our customers great confusion.
I feel responsible. I feel ashamed.
* * *
It is 2004. The company is in litigation with regulatory authorities over licensing and patents for my software product. I am righteously indigent and protective that the product could be threatened and its intellectual property set at naught. I volunteer to work with the legal department, much at the detriment of my career, to evaluate licensing models. I later volunteer as an expert witness and write an exhibit essay on the team's sacrifice and the merits of our invention. The prosecution says our production is of no intrinsic value.
Our defensive is not effective and we are fined. I see that all our efforts are fruitless and a waste of time. The deck is stacked against us. They didn't give us a fair hearing and they weren't going to let us win. I tried so hard. I take the verdict personally. This was our child, brought to market through blood, sweat and tears.
What is worse is that I see the writing on the wall: our product production will be restricted and the days of aggressive development are over.
I take the loss personally. I am defeated.
* * *
In October 2005 I walked away from my church after eighteen years. Looking back, I can see that the reason I joined this church and served extremely diligently was compulsion toward fearful obedience. I literally felt that my marriage and service in the church was a matter of life or death. As in other facets of my life, I was a fanatic and passionate to succeed through shear effort of will.
By now, my mental façade was crumbling. My image of myself as savior of my marriage, my work and my church was self-delusion. My life had been carrying these institutions, killing myself in the process. I was realizing that the battle times were over and that the objects of my obsession had grown up to their limits in the current frame.
In October of that year, I was serving as a pastoral assistant. I had been chosen by the pastor personally and it was token of high spirituality. I was to give a sermon honoring the church and personal worship. No one expected that I would indirectly denounce the church for coercion and manipulation of the truth.
My words were taken from Isaiah 1:10-15.
The church practices and mode of worship were false. The church was an abomination, an iniquity, a thing hated, disrespected and ignored. The church had become a imperfection that was changing its way.
When I was done speaking, I don't think the pastoral leadership knew what I had done. There is only one person in the congregation who was heard to say "I don't think that's church doctrine". After the meeting was over, I went to the pastor and resigned. He had not long called me to the position. I threw away my leadership position and all that I had worked for.
* * *
I have been compelled to do everything in my life. I felt trapped in my choices, and being caught, worked as hard as I can to save myself by serving everyone around me.
My favorite part of marriage has been the rearing of my children.
When people ask the reason for my divorce, I say:
My children grew up.
I knew this was coming a month before. I had opened another checking account in my name. I had changed my Direct Deposit. I start taking strategic items out of the house. I take the filing box with the billing receipts. I take the tax records. With them I have financial control.
I return home but my heart isn't in it. We try to be intimate.
I feel exhausted from my marriage. I am Cinderella no more. I tried so hard. I can't carry this marriage. I couldn't work it out. It isn't what I thought it is. I pack my things.
I begin living at work, sleeping on my couch and showering in the locker room in the morning. I haunt the facility at night. In the sky I can see a spotlight for "XBOX 360". It is November 22, 2005. I spend Thanksgiving in my office. I cannot attend our mutual friend's invitation for dinner.
* * *
It is 1999. I am working as a software engineer. I am naïve and fanatical about my product. I value making it right above all. I think I am important. I make a software correction just like many others. I don't know that it will cost my company millions of dollars. I am rushing through my work. I am not putting in the time and effort to do a thorough job.
Working on this software correction, I can't explain the problem of why an item is missing from the database. The loss occurs over and over. Rather than make the effort to fully understand the loss of the item, I tell the computer to have a new policy to recreate item when it is found missing. When this happens, the item is then shared with other computers on the network; these computers previously had thought that copy of the item is deleted. However, due to the recreated item being sent to them, the other computers restore the item to their databases. I did not know that my change causes the records of old employees to come back to life to their employers, causing our customers great confusion.
I feel responsible. I feel ashamed.
* * *
It is 2004. The company is in litigation with regulatory authorities over licensing and patents for my software product. I am righteously indigent and protective that the product could be threatened and its intellectual property set at naught. I volunteer to work with the legal department, much at the detriment of my career, to evaluate licensing models. I later volunteer as an expert witness and write an exhibit essay on the team's sacrifice and the merits of our invention. The prosecution says our production is of no intrinsic value.
Our defensive is not effective and we are fined. I see that all our efforts are fruitless and a waste of time. The deck is stacked against us. They didn't give us a fair hearing and they weren't going to let us win. I tried so hard. I take the verdict personally. This was our child, brought to market through blood, sweat and tears.
What is worse is that I see the writing on the wall: our product production will be restricted and the days of aggressive development are over.
I take the loss personally. I am defeated.
* * *
In October 2005 I walked away from my church after eighteen years. Looking back, I can see that the reason I joined this church and served extremely diligently was compulsion toward fearful obedience. I literally felt that my marriage and service in the church was a matter of life or death. As in other facets of my life, I was a fanatic and passionate to succeed through shear effort of will.
By now, my mental façade was crumbling. My image of myself as savior of my marriage, my work and my church was self-delusion. My life had been carrying these institutions, killing myself in the process. I was realizing that the battle times were over and that the objects of my obsession had grown up to their limits in the current frame.
In October of that year, I was serving as a pastoral assistant. I had been chosen by the pastor personally and it was token of high spirituality. I was to give a sermon honoring the church and personal worship. No one expected that I would indirectly denounce the church for coercion and manipulation of the truth.
My words were taken from Isaiah 1:10-15.
The church practices and mode of worship were false. The church was an abomination, an iniquity, a thing hated, disrespected and ignored. The church had become a imperfection that was changing its way.
When I was done speaking, I don't think the pastoral leadership knew what I had done. There is only one person in the congregation who was heard to say "I don't think that's church doctrine". After the meeting was over, I went to the pastor and resigned. He had not long called me to the position. I threw away my leadership position and all that I had worked for.
* * *
I have been compelled to do everything in my life. I felt trapped in my choices, and being caught, worked as hard as I can to save myself by serving everyone around me.
My favorite part of marriage has been the rearing of my children.
When people ask the reason for my divorce, I say:
My children grew up.
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