It’s been awhile since I’ve had time to sit and write. Apologies. I miss it when I don’t write. All these thoughts, discoveries, questions, ponderings buzzing around inside my head always want to get out and usually end up on notes here and there until I can find time. I have endless notes in random places, so have plenty of material from all my navel-gazing, but the time to write seems to elude me. Glad to be here for a quick post. Hope to get back to reading my favorite blogs more regularly, too.
Once again, life is changing … in a really good way! Background: I was unemployed for nine months last year after being laid off. A wonderful period of rejuvenation, wonder, happiness and walks. Then I started a new job in December. Within the first week, I knew it wasn’t the right fit, either professionally or personally. Professionally, because I was hired as an Interactive Project Manager, and the company did not have an interactive group, nor did they practice project management. Personally, because it was a very toxic environment for anyone with any kind of sensitivity, which would mean most people. A lot of agitation, aggressiveness, finger-pointing, accusation … a negative and hostile work situation. It physically hurt to work there.
I applied and interviewed for several months while continuing to work at the company. Then a few weeks ago, someone from my previous company (the one that had laid me off last year), contacted me regarding an opportunity there. It would be in a different department and the pay would be less than I’d made there previously (but more than I was currently making). Basically, both the title and the pay would be lower than before.
I gave it a lot of thought. My job search the past few months was entirely targeted toward interactive project management, but this opportunity was in quality assurance, and I would not hold a manager title, for the first time in many, many years. In three other companies, I’d been a QA Manager, establishing the discipline for each company and growing the department, before I became an interactive project manager.
Did I want to move from a manager role to an analyst role? Did I want to abandon my search for an interactive project manager role? Did I want to return to my former company in a different capacity, with different responsibilities?
When I asked my daughter for her thoughts, she simply asked: “Mom, what would make you happy?”
What would make me happy? Doing work that I do well, working with people I enjoy, being successful in my efforts, being in a good, supportive company, going home at the end of the day feeling happy and satisfied. Those are the types of things that make me happy. Feeling that I’ve contributed and done the best job I can do. Feeling that I'm in a place where I can thrive, professionally and personally. Pay, title—those aren’t things that drive me to excel and achieve. Nice to have, but not important to the health and wholeness of my spirit. In fact, when I really thought about it, pay and title are more about my ego than they are about happiness. And I’ve been really working the past few years on learning to release ego. Maybe that’s why this opportunity was presented to me at this time, to help me in my journey, to help me be less prideful and less egotistical? Maybe the lesson here is to learn what choices will simply make me happy?
“Mom, what would make you happy?” I stopped thinking (ego) and started feeling (spirit). When I thought about going back to my previous company, I felt physically light and happy; right with the world. There was a lift to my spirit and a smile in my heart. What more did I need? Every experience has value and helps us along our journey here and there was a reason that I had to spend time at the “toxic” company. I’m exceedingly happy to report that I’m starting my new job at my old company in a different role tomorrow morning. I chose happy!
