Overwhelmed and Pressed for time

Yep!...That's me. I am feeling so overwhelmed lately with all the pressure of trying to make this venture work. It isn't easy because frankly I'm introverted which means that I have a very difficult time warming up to people that I meet for the first time. Sometimes I just freeze up. Other times I stumble over words and feel like an idiot. I try daily not to put myself down or let the pressure get to me. I feel it though. I struggle to be someone I'm not because that is the way the world wants it. No one likes someone who doesn't speak up for themselves or presses to be heard.

The job market and the people in it embrace the extrovert. The pressure to "network, network, network" is overwhelming. No one takes into account that the introvert isn't comfortable reaching out to others like that. I know that if I had been in this job market five years ago, I wouldn't have survived it. It has only been through a concentrated effort and the Lord's leading that I've managed to survive being in the situation I'm currently in with no funds coming in.

I, like most of my fellow colleagues in the non-profit sector, are scrambling for funds. All of us dream of that one donor/foundation that will provide our organizations with steady incomes. Some of us are pressed for time as savings dwindle without any "light at the end of the tunnel." This means that we have to be sales people and sell ourselves and our services and hope that people will fund us before we have to close up shop.

I have a feeling that things will get better. I have to believe that or throw in the towel...hide somewhere and wait to die. Yes, I have to admit there are days like that...days when I want to give up. I can't. I have to keep going for the young people who need to know their history and for the old people who have that wealth of information they need to pass on before it's too late.