(…and so not wanting to start). This happens when:
– I do not have a strong enough sense of authority in the project AND I do not realize this
– I do not think of myself as the person in charge, but as a worker on the line
– I do not think of myself as the person with expertise, but as the implementer
It is like having the wind knocked out of one already, the result of so many years of hearing you cannot this, you cannot that, you must defer.
What I keep saying in real life is: one must act to live, but the problem is that if one acts, one will be killed; that is why I stand in a frozen pirouette, waiting for the day it is relatively safe to step off one’s shelf or emerge from one’s foxhole.
It is as though this entire language teaching crisis I am having were … is … a concrete instance of that abstract issue, and as though, if I really decide to get serious (and not do as I was told, ignore the problem and write), it will not be because I have become obedient and renounced other things but because I have seen one more thing in the right scale at last.
It will be because I have stepped out of a cage, and am walking on ahead.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
I’m having this problem with a writing thing, but at a loss for how to fix it even though I recognize the problem. When I tell myself that yes I do have the authority it feels like a lie.