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January, 2023
8I am in a caseworker job, doing disability examiner adjudications in a setting similar to my state worker position before retirement, yet amped up to an overwhelming level of challenge in terms of numbers and complexity of pending cases and with supervisors expecting their employees to come in early, stay late, and apply themselves conscientiously in every moment while they’re doing their shifts. Most other workers are, in spite of the difficulties, competently doing the job and lowering their caseloads efficiently with well considered reasoning about all the mental, physical, vocational, and age-related variables involved. I, on the other hand, feel like the job is stressful, that it takes too much time and attention to detail for each case to be done right and to complete it well, given the large backlog number of cases, even, and especially, with the long hours per day involved. I am carrying on with it and doing it with good quality, though, but feel I am falling behind and need relief, preferably with a way to at least leave after only 8-10 hours per daily shift (sooner than other workers are normally finishing their shifts) or to switch careers to one less taxing, ideally even to change to a successful retirement, yet do not see a practical means of realizing any of these more favorable choices.
[My last position with the State of Texas was such a caseworker job, yet not as overwhelming as this dream one seems to be. The situation and setting suggest at least one aspect of my actual retirement – and perhaps the whole of my retirement circumstances - is less like a time of rest and relaxation, more like drudgery.
The emphasis in the dream on job, work, load, and a big backlog, one that is felt to be so onerous that one can never really catch up and feel satisfied with one’s accomplishments, again suggests ways in which I am in my waking life perhaps putting too much focus on things I have to do and too little on enjoying what it is to simply be, to savor the moments.
8-10 in the I Ching suggests, on the one hand, a spirit of unity, connection with others, teamwork, having the time to build relationships, harmony, success when things are being done in the right way, but with a weakening if things are not done well or good bonds with others are not maintained and so there is disunity. On the other, it suggests even when beginning in a weakened or inferior position, making progress in a difficult situation through competency and carefully, courageously moving forward while aware of the dangers.
I believe there is symbolism in the repeated word "case," as in "caseworker" and "caseloads," yet at this time do not have insight about that part of the dream.
The references to "examiner," "adjudication," and "well-considered reasoning" suggest dispassionate analysis is required.
The whole dream is about the ego or small-self identity doing dis-ability work, i.e. work in which he is without sufficient ability, though, more optimistically, his shadow characters or energies are competent and getting the job done. Maybe a lesson here is to let the small-self identity step aside and allow things to happen more organically, spontaneously, with less attempt at egocentric control.
"all the mental, physical, vocational, and age-related variables involved" perhaps is about the advantage, instead, of "letting go," not trying to figure it all out.
I wonder if the dream, my first remembered one near the start of a new year, is pointing to the futility of treating life as a project I must master and conscientiously complete, in what time is left to me, rather than a pageant to simply appreciate one instant at a time.]
