I'm at a career crossroads, I guess. I didn't expect to be in this spot because I have a good job. My job has been the most secure thing in my life for six years. I work for a commercial lending firm. I never really consciously chose a career path. I fell into one.
I'm not sure that ten years ago I would have predicted that I would have a respectable, well-paying job at this point in my life but I do.
My job is fine but there's no flame in it, as you would say. My life has been very settled for the past five years since I got divorced. My ex-wife and I were married for four years.
We married very young and just never gelled as a couple. When we broke up I went completely into the work vortex. I worked all the time.
Last year my dad had a heart attack and it was a real shocker and a wake-up call. My dad got healthy and lost weight and I started working out with him. Our relationship is the best now it's ever been and we hang out together which we never used to do.
I made a promise to myself at the start of 2015 that I'd try three new things during the year. Sounds corny I know but I was in a deep rut. I did nothing except work and sleep.
One of the new things I did in 2015 was to go to a Meetup meeting. I went to a blogger meetup because I was thinking about starting a blog. I didn't know anyone there.
These particular bloggers were very nice but super technical and I had no idea what they were talking about. I walked up to a pretty young woman and said "Hi, I'm Jonah, and what's your name?" which is not like me at all. I am pretty reserved.
Her name is Sarah. I got her number and we had coffee three days later and that was that. We started dating.
I will say I was smitten, and luckily she was too. We've been dating for eleven months and we are talking about getting an apartment together.
So you could say my life has changed dramatically and it's all for the good.
Sarah has a degree in musicology, which I never even heard of before I met her. She has three jobs. She loves her life. She earns $36,000 a year and I earn well over twice that. I stress about money. Sarah doesn't.
I've seen her add up her bills and write checks to pay the bills. She's the only person I know who writes paper checks and sends them in the mail.
Sarah works at a doggie daycare, teaches music theory lessons and directs a choir at a church. She leads a handbell choir at another church. In her free time she goes to training sessions to train her dog Vivo to be a therapy dog. Everything she does is related to her passions for music, people and animals.
Her schedule is precise but she has a lot of free time and she wakes up humming and singing. I got paid more in my first year out of college than she earns now but she is way more creative about money than I am.
She buys clothes at thrift stores and remakes them into new jackets and dresses or whatever. She is really talented at sewing. Saving money is a game to her.
I am learning a lot from her.
I look at Sarah and have to wonder "What does she know about life that I don't?" I want to get closer to my passion but I have no idea how to begin doing that. I feel that I need every penny of my salary and it's hard even to put anything away in savings.
There is also pressure where I work to get promoted. That's a big deal in my company. So, I can see that I'm stuck in the hamster wheel. I want to get off but I am nervous, too.
I don't know what else I'd be qualified for apart from what I do now and can't think of another job that would pay me my current salary.
You talk about Mother Nature sending us messages and I feel like she is sending me one. Sometimes when I pull into the parking lot at work I feel like an idiot, like I'm wasting my potential, but how would I know what that potential is? Will I go broke trying to figure it out?
Thanks,
Jonah
Dear Jonah,
I am happy for you! The uncertainty and frustration you feel over the decision "What is my life going to be like, and about?" is a sure sign that you are in reinvention, and that is always good news!
We all fall asleep on our lives and careers, sometimes for years until something jars us awake.
We attend to things and people right in front of our faces and forget about the looming question "What do I want to do with my life?" Sarah woke you up, and that is only one of the things I admire about her.
Sarah is inventing her life according to her own specifications, and that is what all of us must do. We all need money. At Human Workplace we call your money-generating apparatus The Crank. We all need a crank to turn -- a way to earn money.
We have to stay alive. We all find different ways to get paid. Some of us have a Crank in the shape of a full-time salaried job with a business card and a desk.
Some of us have Cranks made out of part-time jobs and side gigs. Few of us will keep the same Crank throughout our careers.
You have to get paid, but you don't have to stop there. You can ask the next question, "How can I design my life around the things I care about? How can I earn money doing something that's interesting and fun for me, not just something that I'm qualified to do?"
Your first assignment is to stop worrying about the details, and give yourself permission to ponder the question "What sort of career and life do I want?"
This is where people get stuck. A lot of people don't think they deserve to imagine their life on a grand scale. We've been taught that it's self-indulgent and presumptuous to ask more of the gods than whatever they're giving us right now.
It's just the opposite. The gods reward people who say "Listen gods, you put me here on this planet, so you must have expected me to do something. Here I go. I'm going to do something!"
We always have the choice to try to make a safe burrow and hide out in it, or to soar like an eagle and see what happens. We all get to take risks or to avoid them. Sometimes the riskiest course of action is to put our heads in the sand and pretend that time is not passing, or pretend that we are not in control of our careers.
You have a Crank and you also have a Flame. Your flame is your passion and your spark. You grow your flame whenever you do, say, experience or think about something that is true for you, or uplifting, or sacred. The more you insist on being you and the less you pretend to be someone else, the more your flame will grow.
Music grows my flame so I keep music around me all the time. What grows your flame? Think about yourself not as a machine who goes to work and earns a salary and feels pressure to get promoted, but as a brilliant, creative person starting a new life and feeling strong.
Let your mind wander and imagine the life and career that would get you out of bed every day humming or singing the way Sarah does. Forget about the money for a moment.
The money will follow as your vision for your life gets clearer. The Crank proceeds from your Flame, as we say. When you figure out not in your head but in your body what you're supposed to be doing, the obstacles on the ground will get much smaller.
You can do what you want with your life, but you'll need a compelling vision in order to produce the fuel -- we call it mojo -- that will power your journey.
The great thing is that every time you step out, speak up, follow your gut or stay in your body instead of your fearful, bossy mind, your flame will grow and your mojo supply will increase.
Things that seemed hard to do will get easier. Look how easily you walked up to Sarah and spoke to her at that blogger meeting. Take a step like that every day!
Don't feel that you have to solve your paycheck-or-passion dilemma in your head. You won't.
It's not an equation. The snake doesn't get to tell Mother Nature "According to my calendar, my old skin should start to scrape off next Tuesday." Mother Nature is in charge.
You are stepping into the new version of Jonah. Don't rush to make decisions or change jobs because you feel that any change at all will reduce your anxiety. You can take your time.
Let your reinvention play out. Get a journal and write in it, and get on your bike or do jumping jacks in the living room.
Anything could happen. You are in the realm of all possibilities now. Listen to your body, and pay attention to your dreams.
Maybe you'll go to work for someone else when the clouds part, or maybe you'll start your own business. There are no limits on you. Any limits you perceive are breakaway chains, like theatrical props.
You can bust through them any time, because you constructed them to keep you secure until you reached this moment. Now you've arrived. You don't need the shackles anymore. It's time to cast them off and go after what you want.
All the best to you, Sarah and Vivo!
Yours,
Liz
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