3 posts tagged “career”
I went to karate tonight. I'm glad. Daily I look at my life and expect that I will see bigger changes in all the aspects I think I am working on. When I don't I am not disappointed so much as surprised. Some days I feel like I have expended a great deal of effort towards this personal improvement or that way of thinking but when I measure I find I have only moved an inch or a centimeter. Forward is forward no matter the distance.
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I ask myself a lot what life is about, for. I don't know of course. I am actually just trying to figure out what my life is about, for. I just don't want to miss anything, you know? Since I have not been able to define life I have instead been trying to define myself. Streamline me. Make me the best me I can be (ouch! that phrasing is so tacky I cut my hand on it). I think I am making headway.
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I ramble on endlessly about my next job, but I want to get it right. I don't want there to be too many more jobs for me. I still don't know exactly what it is I want to do but I am getting clearer and clearer about what I want in a workplace. If only that was how job searches were written.
I want to be down the hall. I want people who work with me to know who I am because we actually work together but I want to have a separate work space because I need some privacy to be at my best in a work situation. I want to have some task or aspect of whatever the work is that I am the point person for and so if someone needed help with that aspect they might stick their head in a colleague's office and that colleague would direct that person to me saying "She's down the hall."
I have always wanted to work in a relatively quiet place where people are thinking and working all day and then they come together and share their thoughts, both formally and informally.
I want my colleagues in my office to be international. I would like to have to use another language at work. Maybe even two or three other languages. I think I would like to work at a more or less flat company.
I think that's enough. Good night.
138.4 - Everyday I am surprised at how much my clothes weigh. I lose two pounds every time I get naked. I don't care much long as numbers in either condition are pretty consistent.
It's a beautiful day. Low 60s I'm guessing from my comfort level out here in the sun with a thin cotton sweater and corduroys on. Which might tell you immediately that I am almost surely part lizard. I would barely crest a sweat in the same outfit if it was 72. It takes a long time for the heat to set up in my body. But the point is I'm outside. Though I am pausing from work to write this post. I am working outside. As I enjoy working and adore worshiping whatever blessed presence brings us the sun and blue skies and leafing trees and singing birds, I am approximately in heaven.
I guess I have a lot in my head. Every email I have written today has been a bit long, wandering topically, determinedly optimistic, nostalgic (at least as it rings in my soul) and spontaneous. The words are not coming out as I would have ordered them but they are coming out and for that I am grateful.
I want to do an internship this summer but I am not sure exactly in what. I may want to buy a place to live this summer as well but again I do not have the details in mind. I am a big believer in the power of imagination, visualization, and positive thinking. I wanted to write this post (and maybe many others) to get clear on what I want for the summer so I can actualize it.
I think I may have finally been bitten by my passion. Some lucky few have known all their lives (or convinced themselves that they did) what they wanted to be when they grew up. They have pursued those dreams with a single minded passion. Others have lived more spontaneously letting life's ebb and flow guide them, or perhaps they have been driven by survival. I have been somewhat subject to the latter, hanging on until such a time as I felt more of my decisions were my own and until I found some topic or vision or idea that made my heart quicken.
Certainly there are a number of facts, desires and goals that drove me through life to this point. When i was very very young I was inspired by National Geographic. I wanted to be a biologist and a photographer. And I wanted to be great so I set my sights on the greatest thing I knew about at the time, the Nobel Prize. I have been distracted many times as I have grown, usually by the vocations and avocations of favorite characters in an array of books. I have wanted to be a variety of animals, a witch, a marine biologist, an aerospace engineer, a movie director, a musician. Nothing really interfered with those dreams (except maybe the being another animal thing) I could have probably ended up as any of those choices but I didn't end up as either of them.
It took me a long time to understand that the purpose of a job is to generate money for necessities and not to be the fulfillment and ultimate realization of self. And while I know that cognitively, job as ultimate expression of my unique, personal humanity is still something I crave. So I have been searching for a long time for the money generating activity that is in-line with my values, incorporates all of my favorite tasks, calls on skills I love to execute and somehow beams from me as light emanates from the sun. i have been disillusioned often by jobs I thought might fit the bill, doctor, non-profit worker, medical researcher. The unpleasantness of the actual labors or outputs or day to day realities of these careers overwhelmed the fulfillment I imagined I would feel doing them. This has led me to focus on tasks and daily flow as two key points for selecting a job. But it has also led me to be skeptical any time I get excited. "Maybe this will work out as badly as that last thing," I think. I am wary often of my own decisions. So moving forward is as much about trusting myself as it is about meeting a particular goal.
I have to go. To be continued. .
"Ooh Baby, what I couldn't do. With plenty of money and you. In spite of the worry that money brings, just a little filthy lucre buys a lot of things...It's the root of all evil, of strife and upheaval, but I'm certain honey, that life would be sunny, with plenty of money and you." - Al Dubin and Harry Warren With Plenty of Money and You
I have to earn money. If I didn't, I would...um...I don't really seem to know anymore. I'm tired but I'm having trouble sleeping because I am trying to figure out what comes next in my life. There are only so many bits of it that I can control, but job is a whopper. I can remember very vividly when I was "so excited" about a number of things and now I just look around and feel like most things are "Sure, that'll do." It's not the end of the world. But it is kind of like getting to a restaurant you picked especially for its menu and finding that nothing there really excites your palate. It's disappointing. Disappointments are my Achilles Heel, Wrist, Toe you name it.
I've been here before. I try to mark this spot on my mental map, navigate away from it but sometimes when I get lost I circle back and there it is. A reminder of the progress I seem to be failing to make. Perhaps a message about some important milestone I need to summit. Familiar, for better or for worse.
This is month 7 of my transition to Boston. Everything I have done this weekend to make friends and assimilate has caused me pain, physical and emotional. It's February and T.S. Eliot was wrong. I'd take this month over April in a cage wrestling match any day of the week. It's more like February has to make up for the perceived slight. "Who you callin' short!" he likes to bellow. Then its death by a million rose thorn cuts. Or some new car jumps the platform at the President's Day Clear-Out Clearance Sale. Or it snows then melts then rains and freezes all in one 24 hours period.
But I'm not mad about the weather. For once. I'm pained because I am not sure what to do next to earn money. And I know there is a limit (no matter how remote) to my ability to continue to do my current job in my current location. And I feel trapped because I feel like I cannot make my next jump based on passion because I automatically think that something I am passionate about could not possibly earn me enough money. And I feel broken that I cannot seem to free my imagination to see my passion because of this damn ball and chain of a salary requirement. I live very simply. There are other changes I could make but that's a slippery slope. I am almost less concerned about what the job is than what I will make. Only that's not entirely true either...*sigh*
There are worse problems. One of them is right outside my door. Cold air and heavy rain tonight. I am lucky to have shelter. I am lucky to have the problem that I have. But it is what's keeping me awake tonight. I do not have a long term solution to my job situation. That and my legs. I never imagined I could be so sore. And the fact that our heating makes much more noise than I recall.*sigh again*
This bit is unrelated to this post at all, but I just want to laugh at myself publicly. I took 5 very, very small screws out of my watch today to get at the battery so I could take it with me when I buy the replacement. By the time I had freed the battery I had lost one screw. Somewhere in the course of my grading tonight --moving stacks of papers around, picking my coffee mug up, putting it down-- I have lost 3 more! Now I need a battery and screws. Perhaps it is just time for a new watch. Tempus fugit.
