A Decision Made
WHEN YOU stop caring and worrying and basically stop ‘giving a shit’, it is time to move on.
This was a realisation that stayed with her ever since that day…
Carla Halley trudged from her desk and sat down on the bench outside her office. “My office,” she laughed cynically.
The place she had once loved had become a grinder, squeezing the life and morality out of her slowly, day by day, minute by excruciating minute.
At just 23, Carla had accomplished many things.

She had a canny way with words, which made her an excellent journalist with
‘The Times’, and since she started young, she had many accomplishments tucked under her belt.
But lately, things weren’t working out, and the delicate balance she maintained in her life seemed to be going awry.
She had always balanced home, work and study; ‘HAD’ being the operative term.
Of late, she was too focused on one and not enough on the other, or not enough on any, and, added to her stress, progress with her studies seemed to be coming to a halt.
“Studies,” she sighed.
That was what had brought her to the bench in the first place.  It was the spot her colleagues used when they wanted to smoke or relax or get away.  For her, it was the latter; she needed to breathe.
She was just hit by the results of her latest exams.  She had failed one, and passed only two.
“Damn it! This is ridiculous! How could I fail!” she murmured.
Passing just then was her friend, Leah Isaacs, who heard the obvious complaint.
“Chalk it up to carelessness, and don’t bitch about it,” Leah commanded.
“Yeah, sure,” Carla replied.
In time, she did ‘chalk it up’ to just that, but that aside, inside her was perpetual gnawing certainty that things were going wrong.
Having already seen how she messed up a third of the important things in her life (home and work being the other two), was just the beginning.
That day was just the beginning, and after then, she had begun to notice things more clearly.
Her boss, Mr. Bernie Murray, was an egotistical idiot who believed the world revolved around him, and to complicate things, he turned over ‘tales’ to everyone, completely ignoring the morality in truth and sincerity. It made it hard to work, as it was a very confusing milieu to endure.
“I am surprised that he hasn’t hung himself with all the webs of dishonesty that he’s already spun,” Carla said to herself one day, staring at the clear skies.
“Hmm,” she sighed, a long weary sigh.
She thought of home then. It was the only place where things had a semblance of rightness, and Carla was trying desperately to hold on to that.
“If I can’t have it all, I might as well have the one thing that truly matters,” she said.
But as she continued to stare at the vast skies above her, she knew that she would never be satisfied with just one part.
She would want more; she’d always wanted more.
Carla gazed as she got lost in reminiscence.
“My soul yearns for more, yet it is locked into the humdrum of everydayness of an ordinary life…The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation… Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life.”
All the words spun in her mind; words she’d made a study in the last few weeks.    Carla pondered, the frown on her forehead deepening.
“What am I going to do,” she screamed inside.
She wanted more, her studies seem to be falling apart, she was stuck at a job that she once loved, which was now draining the life out of her, and she was almost sure that her home situation was on a precarious precipice.
She was stuck, not knowing what to do, much less how to do it.
“Whatever I have to do, I got to do it soon,” Carla admitted to herself.
After that, the following days rolled into each other, and Carla was acutely aware that her job was becoming less and less fulfilling; that it was more of a struggle each day to get out of bed.
“C’est la vie!” she would mumble offhandedly, repeating the popular French cliché for ‘that’s life!’
Yes! That’s life! But apathy was becoming increasingly impossible as she fought with herself each day to face her problems head-on and make a decision.
Yet still, she hesitated as she knew the calibration of her words, her explanation, her reasons, all had to be right.
“The relief of a decision made should be better than wrestling with the alternatives,” Carla reasoned.
With that in mind, she laid down her options and charted possible courses of action. At the end of the exercise, she was halfway there, or rather there, since all she had to do was voice her decision.
At work the next day, there was the usual race with time, and it was one of those days where you had no choice but to count your losses.
“It doesn’t make sense!” her boss had yelled at her, referring to an article she did.  Of course, the article made perfect sense but, being afflicted with a subjective mentality, her boss didn’t think so.  He was angry about something and, as was expected, he lashed out at whoever was there.
She felt the spasm of dread wash over her as his words reached her ears.
Carla knew she could write, and took criticism well, but this kind of unfair berating was not a pill she would swallow.
That did it! And for the next week, Carla did what was required of her, and nothing more.
It dawned on her then that she had stopped caring, as she knew that in order to move forward, she’d have to get out.
She thought about everyone at the office and saw the lack of ambition there.  Not a single one of them wanted anything more than the everydayness of reporting on day-to- day happenings.

She decided she needed to get out and move on, as it was the only way she would get what she wanted, and pushing her towards her decision was the fact that her job was killing her slowly rather than adding anything to her life.
One of her friends had said during a conversation that whatever the profession, one has got to take steps to ‘make it’.
And that was just what she intended to do.
Her decision made, she handed in her resignation.
When you stop caring and worrying and basically stop ‘giving a shit’, it is time to move on.
This was a realisation that stayed with her ever since that day…