The Expert

It wasn't even a phone call, it was a short email which would have been easy to ignore. No persuasive, human voice pleading with me to say yes to the offer which once again labels me as expert. Send is way too easy to hit and there it goes; I have agreed. On the surface it sounds easy enough. They want me to teach a short seminar around the topics of stress and anger management. Its short and it will be part of a community event sponsored by the foster parents association. All of that is valuable and well intended and will most likely work out fine but not without my going through a laboreous process of anxiety, doubt, and self imposed pressure as the date gets closer.

Parkinson's will not get the victory but it will slap me around for a while trying! When it starts to work on my thinking process I then take over and run with the ball and , in no time, I am crippled, mute and afraid I will most certainly fail or at best, come across as anything but an expert.. There is that word. Everyone knows that an expert is a 'washed up drip' ha,,,,get it; ex spurt washed up drip. What does it take to join the ranks of these experts? An advanced degree? that would certainly help. A book or two you have written; Excellent choice! I really think that if you have any of these or a reasonable substitute you might just qualify but even without the degree I just thought of another condition. If you know more about your topic then anyone in your audience you are close but even more important thna the knowledge is the belief that you know more. That attitude alone get many a professor through the day.

My primary thought in writing this down, however, was to explore just how much pressure one can put on themself by agreeing to speak on any topic in a format like this. There are many factors which modulate personal stress and one that comes to mind is control. Control over the stresser,( the event, task, demand, etc.) .........blah....blah......

Guess what, I had intended this to be funny and then lost my sense of humour. You will just have to come to the class next month if you want to actually learn anything else As for me, I am exercising my personal control and ending this thing now...........he spoke, and drank rapidl y a glass of water.

see ya

tom