Not-so-funny blogging at work.

If blogging at work were illegal, and it might be, there are definitely a lot more people that would be in more trouble than I would be.

Once again I reside in self-doubt: Am I good enough to get into advertising and stay there? Once I'm in, if I get in, will I be as successful as I want to be? Am I too lazy to do it? Do I lack the self-discipline and work ethic to make it? Is it possible for me to actually develop an idea that really takes off and impresses the people in a position to hire me? Do I even write that well to begin with?

Then from another angle: Why am I so hell-bent on doing my best work as spec comps in my "student book" so that I can spend the rest of my career being told to "tone it down" or make it less "controversial" by some guy (or girl) whose balls (or ovaries) shriveled up a long time ago and refuses to take any sort of risk whatsoever? Why am I so driven to dive headfirst into a shallow business full of demented politics, a bleak present and an uncertain future? What is really driving me to put myself through all of this? What drives me to become part of a business that most people despise and are considered bizarre if they spend more than 30 seconds a day thinking about?

Maybe all these questions mean I don't belong. Maybe it means I'm normal. I don't really know.

What I do know is that I seem to be a hilarious person (according to several sources), but am an absolute failure when it comes to taking that hilarity and applying it to advertising. I can draw funny pictures. I can tell funny stories. I can make my friends, family and people I barely know laugh out loud. I've even, on occasion, made people laugh so hard they've cried. But for the life of me, I can't bring my funny into advertising. And I don't know why.

Suffice to say, I feel a bit lost. Should I stop all of my "woe is me" bullshit? Yeah, probably. But for right now my heart is a little heavy as I contemplate "giving up the dream," as I have so wonderfully dubbed it. Of course, my dreams still fluctuate like I'm eight years-old, so who really knows what it is I'm giving up. I just hate being called a quitter.