But I’m not a workaholic. I don’t need to work.  It’s not something I can’t help.  Oh, no.  I have a different problem: fear of letting people down.

I get my ya-yas off being the hero.  I mean, who doesn’t? I don’t like to be the only guy that can do XYZ — infact, I think that’s a recipe for disaster — but I love being the best of 10 that can do XYZ, or the most efficient, or the most reliable…I love it.  I’ll put my own health on the line with too much adrenaline and too little sleep in order to be that guy.

(Yes, I use masculine pronouns when referring to myself, me, a female. Get over it.)

Recently I worked myself into a nice little frenzy over a deadline I was afraid I was going to miss.  So I rallied the troops (I have great friends) and I spent the night biting nails and slamming RedBull. I wasn’t worried about how my missing a deadline was going to affect the client’s business, I was sick over what my client was going to think of me. I can’t say I was worried about anything else.  I’m not in the business of saving babies, afterall.

This neurosis takes a toll on the rest of my life, of course.  If you’re familiar with my medical history, you know stress is  exceedingly bad for me.  Things and people can end up neglected when I’m “in the zone”.  People (family, mostly) look at me like I’m crazy.  ”She works too much,” they say, “her brain never rests.”

But I hardly listen to these things except to think of ways to make them understand.  That, yeah, I have a problem:  I feel compelled to outperform my word, I’m too optimistic about the time I need, and I’d rather die than let people down…but those are problems I can live with.

What’s your problem?