"Everything you want is just outside your comfort zone." A quote Jaime told me this morning.
Great opportunities often seem to come wrapped up in great risk. I've been offered a promotion to the job I really REALLY want. Have wanted for about a year now. The only thing is it's only a six week temporary position and if they don't want to hire me on full time after that I can't have my old job back because it will be filled. So I have to leave the comfort of my secure job to go to a temporary job in a state with almost 12% unemployment and rising.
I discussed this at length with various people that I love and trust (and that I knew would be awake at preposterous hours) and they all said this sounded too risky and unwise. I listened and then found myself convincing them of the reasons that I should do it. That's the wonderful thing about advice. It's not so much in following the advice given, as realizing what you are trying to convince the other person of, and from there understanding what you already know you want to do.
I might not have a job at the end of September. I didn't sleep at all last night. I took the offer. I like high risk-high gain situations. I could continue to wade around in the comfort and boredom of my job or I could jump in and see what happens. If I fail then at least I can move on to something else and not be shilly-shallying around.
I felt the same way when I moved in with Connor. I could continue the relationship along it's path or move in with him and figure out whether this was a potential lifelong commitment or right away that he wasn't. Since it didn't work, some people say that was a rash mistake. But for me, finding out anything faster and then making course changes from there is always better. If this job is not for me and I find myself jobless, on to the next.
This job requires 14-16 hour days seven days a week. I won't get hired unless I "make it my number one priority in my life and put my entire heart and soul into it" as my boss told me. The three other people in the position before have quit or been laid off because it was too much. Too much as in they were leaving at 10pm instead of 2 am like the senior planners, and hence were not "performing well" or "commited enough".
I emailed my parents to say I was going to stop wading around in the kiddy pool and jump in the big waves to see if I sink or swim.
My dad wrote back. "Sink or swim? You are a fish."
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About Me
- Lindsay
- "This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? ... And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple "I must," then build your life in accordance with this necessity;... Then come close to Nature." -Ranier Maria Rilke in Letters to a Young Poet
3 comments:
I may be being dramatic, but you gave me goosebumps, after knowing that you would want that position, and worrying that you weren't going to take it (after first few sentences) and then seeing that you already did!! I'm excited for you, (although I may never get to speak to you again..) either for this new thing to be great and stimulating, or for a change of course in a few weeks! I'm with you on the decision making theory. Always, something will work out either way. Win-win little fish!
Linds- some of your best writing...must have come from the heart! You have always been a fish. You will never sink.
I am way late on reading this and of course already know that you are going to knock their socks off. I love that you have balls and the willingness to take a risk and plunge in head first. I think your dad said it all...
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