I am a cynic and a pessimist. This I am highly aware of over many, many years and conversations, although I do have good reasons due to past experiences that most people never go through. I'm highly aware of how fragile life is and how little I truly care about mine, even though I do my best to help others.

It also makes it hard to go day to day, however. When you see the black side of life as the facts of life it interferes with motivation, desire, and simple joy that most people seem to hold. It's not about what you're looking forward to, it's what you're afraid is going to happen. So I live in fear. It took me a long time to realize this was the result of how I approach life but therapy has worked me towards looking at how badly this has impacted me.

The irony is that I'm actually very capable of dealing with unplanned changes and when pressure is on I actually am good at rising to the occasion. It's the anticipation, the uncertainty ahead of time, trying to plan for the worst always. Expecting the worst always.

Maybe that's what let me do what I did in high school working at the vets and assisting with euthanasia without any huge qualms. Even more so when I worked at the shelter in college and basically picked which cats lived or died due to overcrowding. Again when I was doing research and killing a hamster and removing its brain about once every two weeks. I've had so many people react with horror when I describe these jobs, but I just shrug. It was my job, so I did it. It's life, we saved the ones we could and killed the ones we couldn't in a humane fashion.

I guess what I'm saying is that this attitude prepares me much more for dealing with concrete decisions like euthanasia rather than working in a giant corporation where I feel like everything is out of my control. It's the stupid little stuff that gets to me, which makes me feel even more out of control and afraid. FML.