It's as if I'd triggered a switch. A switch that couldn't be reset, like the proverbial big red button which triggers a nuclear explosion, meaning that nothing can ever be the same again. No going back.

Probably around three years ago, I got to the stage in my "career" where I realised that what I was doing was completely and utterly futile. That I could just stop doing what I had been doing for most of my waking hours and no-one would notice any discernible difference. Not even within the blinkered confines of the "corporation". What seems strange to me now is that, up until then, this idea had never occurred to me at all. I had bumbled along for years quite happily going through the corporate motions, pocketing the corporate cash and getting on with corporate things - like millions of corporate people do.

I'm trying to identify the point at which I'd decided that this just wasn't good enough for me any more. It wasn't an epiphany, there was no sudden event which made everything click into its current alignment, it was a gradual realisation, a coming together of a collection of tiny cog wheels which, when finally aligned, set something else in motion.

It's this "something else" which I find so hard to define. But it's this "something else" which lies in wait deep inside, reminding me every so often of its existence, bubbling up like a volcano and bringing tears to my eyes as I drive home from work after another meaningless day wondering when, just when, I will look forward to going to work again. It's the "something else" which brings on the regular, uncontrollable sobbing in Big's arms as I contemplate how little I have progressed, how I am no clearer about my direction now than I was then, how the only thing I'm clear on is the negative assertion: "I can't do this kind of work any more".

If I could just switch off this knot of anxiety, this rumble of discontent, this nagging fear that I'll still be doing this in another five years. Just keep it at bay until the "something else" is clear to me, both tangible and achievable. Just keep it together until then...