Beginning At the New Beginning

Well, this past month has been a whirlwind to say the least.  I figured I better get to summarizing how I got here before I can really talk about all of my adventures in my new home town.  I am going to do my best to just hit the highlights, but may still have to break it down into easy-to-chew, bite-sized pieces.  Here goes…

For the past 5 years, I had a job in the Northwest.  For the past 4½ years, I hated that job.  I could go into all the reasons why I hated it, but the short version is that I didn’t have confidence in the company’s leader, and the culture wasn’t a fit for me. 

At the same time, I was having fun exploring the Northwest, meeting very special people, and moving through one of those painful adult growth spurts – you know, the ones that are more about spiritual growth than physical growth. So for a lot of the time I was there, the job was sort of a necessary evil to facilitate all that other stuff.

This past fall I moved from hating my job into the “I would rather have someone pull out my fingernails one by one than go to work” phase, and decided I needed a plan.  I met with a career coach, anticipating that I may need to change industries in order to find a job in this economy.  I updated my resume on popular career networking sites.  I let friends and a few trusted colleagues know I was looking.  I had a few interviews.

Nothing came of it. 

People always say, “it’s easier to find a job when you have a job.” Those people are liars.  Since you don’t want to call attention to yourself in the office, you wind up with an entire second job of finding a job in the evenings.  Plus, you spend all day hating the one you have, wishing that you could work on the second job, and that just makes you bitter and tired and frustrated all the time. Needless to say, by the time you get home from the job that pays the bills, all you want is a glass of wine and the mind-numbing freedom of your DVR.

The truth is that you need to do what is right for you, and that means knowing how much risk you can bear.  I did this by 1) evaluating the risk, 2) evaluating my tolerance for the worst case scenario, and 3) determining if I was willing to take a leap of faith.

In my case, I knew the biggest risk that I faced was financial.  A temporary lay-off in 2011 wiped out a lot of my savings, and so my funds were pretty depleted.  I knew that I couldn’t leave my job without a plan that would pay the bills. A friend and mentor gave me the idea to propose my own severance.  And I chewed on that thought for a couple of months.

Somewhere around mid-December, I had really thought through every detail of that idea, done all that evaluating I mentioned above, and concluded that it was worth a try. 

But before I took the leap, I made myself do one more piece of due diligence.  If my job was going to be finding a job, I needed a vision and goals – I needed to know what I was looking for so that I could create it in my life.  I make a list of goals every couple of months or so, but this time was different.  I really spent some time envisioning what I want my life to look like, how I want to feel, what are real priorities, and how I want to be remembered.  After all of that soul searching, I came up with the following Vision and List of Goals.

My Vision for 2012

Begin with the End in Mind

I want to strengthen my relationship with God.

To accomplish this…

§  I will pray and study. 

§  I will work to feel and acknowledge God’s presence in my daily activities.

I want to be challenged in a way that inspires me.

      To accomplish this…

§  I will focus on finding challenging and fulfilling work that inspires my creativity and productivity.

§  I will assess my ability and desire to complete my goals and tasks as a measure of fulfillment.

I want to be valued by the people with whom I spend my time.

            To accomplish this…

§  I will be generous and present, and value the time people spend with me.

I want to have a reputation of integrity, compassion, gumption, perspicacity, and loyalty.

            To accomplish this…

§  I will strive to incorporate the attributes of faith, passion, class, professionalism, prioritization and curiosity in my life.

I want to know I am worthy of love.

            To accomplish this…

§  I will surround myself with people that I respect, which motivate me, and make me feel loved. 

§  I will minimize the time that I feel unhealthy, trapped, afraid, and numb.

I want to feel healthy and fit (okay, and look hot too!)

            To accomplish this…

§  I will stop procrastinating and start working on exercising and eating healthy.

My Goals for 2012

The Big Hairy Audacious Goals:

1.    Eliminate my debt

2.    Develop a habit for exercising regularly, for free.

3.    Find a job that inspires me with its challenges and makes full use of my talents and interests.

Faith

·      Continue with Bethel Bible Series

·      Pray daily

Finance

·      Eliminate my debt

·      Increase my savings to 6 months salary

·      Tithe a minimum of $X per week while unemployed, more when employed

Health

·      Achieve a weight of X or lower

·      Develop a habit for exercising regularly

·      Eat healthy

·      Track and monitor my food intake

·      Make dentist appointment (Jan)

·      Make hearing appointment (Jan)

·      Make annual exam appointment (Dec)

·      Make physical appointment (Feb)

Relationships

·      Visit Brenda & Bryce

·      Contact Inner Circle monthly

·      Be active in the lives of my niece and nephew

·      Be compassionate, dependable and giving

·      Keep myself open to relationships

Professional

·      Find a job that inspires me with its challenges and makes full use of my talents and interests

Volunteer

·      Continue to support the Parks Foundation on its board of directors

·      Participate in friends’ causes when the cause is also one I support

·      Volunteer to help others when my time, talents, or treasure are accessible.

Home

·      Complete a major purge, room-by-room

·      Sell items with value (all profits to go toward debt reduction)

·      Donate items that cannot be sold.

Joy

·       Take at least one non-work, non-family vacation.

·       Read regularly

·       Have dinner with the Wilson’s and the Strands at least once a month

·       Go wine tasting at least 4 times

·       Work on articulating and expressing my feelings

Seriously people.  I cut and pasted that word for word (except for the X-out details) from my original document.   Once I had that in place, my head was ready to follow my heart, and I took the leap.

On Friday, December 16, 2011, I walked into my boss’s office with a piece of paper.  I said, “I think that we can both agree that my employment at the Company is not a good fit for either of us any longer.  I don’t see a path forward that ends in success.  So, I would like to propose an amicable way for each of us to move on by asking for a severance. “  I handed him my request, and 20 minutes later, I had a verbal acceptance of my proposal.  Wednesday, December 21, 2011 was my last day in the office.  Just like that.

And some people don’t believe in miracles.   Tell those people to send me their e-mail so I can add them to the reader list.  Because if you think that was a miracle, you’ll never believe part two of the story.

How I Became An Fan of Neat

My family likes to make fun of me because I am tidy.  Actually, they would probably call me OCD, or Type-A, or Anal Retentive.  Whatever.  They are jealous. It is true I am very neat.  I love an organized closet.  I find organizing my spices fun.  I love taking a carload of stuff to Goodwill.  I have been known to give my time and skills in organizing as house warming gifts to friends after a move.  It is part of my DNA.  Don't pick on me for my mad skilz...just step aside and admire how fast I can organize your closet.

In the event, though, that you wanted to look at this from a Nature vs. Nurture perspective, I have plenty of ammo for the nurture side of the debate as well.

Let's go back to my earliest memories of neatness.  My parents sent me to a Montessori pre-school.  I must have attended classes there for 3 or 4 years, but honestly I don't remember how long I was there. What do I remember from that school?  I will make a list (they taught me to do this):

• Acting out Goldilocks and the Three Bears - often
• Writing all the numbers from 1-1,000 in order on a calculator tape
• The plan of the property - lots of different buildings with various pathways to each
• Barfing on the bus every. single. morning.
• Playing with pie pieces to learn fractions
• We had to clean up this mess before we got out a new one.

In elementary school, I was a member of the scholastic book club.  I would get 2 hard-back books about once a month in the mail.  For awhile, some of these books were children's instruction manuals.  The clean your room book had you put all the stuff that was out of place in your room on the bed.  Then you picked through it and threw away all the trash.  Decided what should be given away.  Then put all the other things in their proper place.  I loved this book.  (My Mom may have loved it more.)

In my later elementary school years, I occasionally complained, "I'm boooooreed."  When I said such a thing to my Mom, it was her cue to give me a chore.  Not just any chore, but a chore that sucked. Cleaning the baseboards with a rag, ironing Dad's work shirts, and vacuuming the carpet so that all the lines overlapped perfectly are the jobs I remember most.

As I aged into Junior High, I became crazy about organizing my closet.  What drove me to this you ask? My sister.  She loved to borrow my clothes.  Only she wasn't really known for caring for her clothes the same way I did.  Heck, she still had recess everyday.  I learned that if I organized my closet by type of clothing and then by rainbow within each type, I could tell when I opened my closet doors if something was missing.  It would just jump out at me like a flashing neon sign:  The Blue, Green, and Yellow Shirt From The Limited Is Missing!!!! Inevitably, I would find it on the floor in my sister's closet, usually with a stain or missing button or mold.  (Just kidding about the mold.)

Moving on to college...my freshman year, I lived in the dorm with a random, picked-by-student-housing roommate.  I don't have a clue how they matched the two of us.  She was a night person, and I am a morning person.  She liked to practice witchcraft and play D&D, and I, um, didn't.  She was filthy messy, and I was not.  We literally had a piece of tape down the center of our dorm room.  Her side was approximately 1 foot deep with stuff at any given time.  My side was spotless, and I would have cleaned her side if I wasn't so afraid of her casting a spell on me.

This brings me to today.  Again, my family likes to poke fun at me.  But, I love being clean.  I get a little thrill when I open a closet or pantry or cabinet door and see everything stored orderly so that I can go straight for the thing that I am looking for.  That is not to say that my house is a museum.  I spent an hour picking stuff up last night - cleaning up the kitchen, taking stuff to the right rooms, gathering the dirty clothes off the floor, going through a week's worth of mail, putting the shoes back in the closet (Really! How do those shoes get everywhere?).  But if you ask me where to find something in my house, I can generally go straight to it.  If company were to show up at my front door, there are very few days I would be embarrassed to let them in.

I also love having some blank space.  I know some people think that the purpose of a horizontal surface is to have something displayed, stacked, stored, or set on it.  For me a bare counter or shelf gives me room to breathe.  Energy and calm can flow through bare space.  Stacks of stuff are things without a home, and that is stressful to me.  I like to have a place for everything, but I don't need every place to have stuff.

I will also acknowledge that I am the only one in control of my space.  Not having children, or a spouse, or a roommate living in my home makes it eleventy-thousand times easier for me to live a neat life than it is for people with a different lifestyle.

At the end of the day...whether I was born with this tendency, or it was drilled into me through life experience... I yam what I yam, as Popeye would say.  Love it or hate it.  It is me.


Psssst.  Seriously, I love to organize stuff.  It gives me all kinds of fulfillment and joyful energy.  If you ever have a project you want me to tackle, just ask.  It will probably make my day.

Timshel

Image credit to GrowWear

Yesterday, I had a moment.  It was a moment where all the million pieces of my experiences, thoughts, beliefs, and feelings came together for me.  I was able to express to some friends gratitude for a very profound truth, which they helped me learn.  Do you ever have one of those moments?  Where you can finally articulate a truth, that had preveiously been inexpressible to you?

The truth is called timshel.

Timshel is a Hebrew word meaning "thou mayest."  I think the most lovely explanation of this concept was done by John Steinbeck in East of Eden.  Here is an excerpt from that book (yes, it is long, but worth it, I promise!):

“Do you remember when you read us the sixteen verses of the fourth chapter of Genesis and we argued about them?”

“I do indeed. And that’s a long time ago.”

“Ten years nearly,” said Lee. “Well, the story bit deeply into me and I went into it word for word. The more I thought about the story, the more profound it became to me. Then I compared the translations we have—and they were fairly close. There was only one place that bothered me. The King James version says this—it is when Jehovah has asked Cain why he is angry. Jehovah says, ‘If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.’ It was the ‘thou shalt’ that struck me, because it was a promise that Cain would conquer sin.”

Samuel nodded. “And his children didn’t do it entirely,” he said.

Lee sipped his coffee. “Then I got a copy of the American Standard Bible. It was very new then. And it was different in this passage. It says, ‘Do thou rule over him.’ Now this is very different. This is not a promise, it is an order. And I began to stew about it. I wondered what the original word of the original writer had been that these very different translations could be made.”

Samuel put his palms down on the table and leaned forward and the old young light came into his eyes. “Lee,” he said, “don’t tell me you studied Hebrew!”

Lee said, “I’m going to tell you. And it’s a fairly long story. Will you have a touch of ng-ka-py?”

“You mean the drink that tastes of good rotten apples?”

“Yes. I can talk better with it.”

“Maybe I can listen better,” said Samuel.

While Lee went to the kitchen Samuel asked, “Adam, did you know about this?”

“No,” said Adam. “He didn’t tell me. Maybe I wasn’t listening.”

Lee came back with his stone bottle and three little porcelain cups so thin and delicate that the light shone through them. “Dlinkee Chinee fashion,” he said and poured the almost black liquor. “There’s a lot of wormwood in this. It’s quite a drink,” he said. “Has about the same effect as absinthe if you drink enough of it.”

Samuel sipped the drink. “I want to know why you were so interested,” he said.

“Well, it seemed to me that the man who could conceive this great story would know exactly what he wanted to say and there would be no confusion in his statement.”

“You say ‘the man.’ Do you then not think this is a divine book written by the inky finger of God?”

“I think the mind that could think this story was a curiously divine mind. We have had a few such minds in China too.”

“I just wanted to know,” said Samuel. “You’re not a Presbyterian after all.”

“I told you I was getting more Chinese. Well, to go on, I went to San Francisco to the headquarters of our family association. Do you know about them? Our great families have centers where any member can get help or give it. The Lee family is very large. It takes care of its own.”

“I have heard of them,” said Samuel.

“You mean Chinee hatchet man fightee Tong war over slave girl?”

“I guess so.”

“It’s a little different from that, really,” said Lee. “I went there because in our family there are a number of ancient reverend gentlemen who are great scholars. They are thinkers in exactness. A man may spend many years pondering a sentence of the scholar you call Confucius. I thought there might be experts in meaning who could advise me.

“They are fine old men. They smoke their two pipes of opium in the afternoon and it rests and sharpens them, and they sit through the night and their minds are wonderful. I guess no other people have been able to use opium well.”

Lee dampened his tongue in the black brew. “I respectfully submitted my problem to one of these sages, read him the story, and told him what I understood from it. The next night four of them met and called me in. We discussed the story all night long.”

Lee laughed. “I guess it’s funny,” he said. “I know I wouldn’t dare tell it to many people. Can you imagine four old gentlemen, the youngest is over ninety now, taking on the study of Hebrew? They engaged a learned rabbi. They took to the study as though they were children. Exercise books, grammar, vocabulary, simple sentences. You should see Hebrew written in Chinese ink with a brush! The right to left didn’t bother them as much as it would you, since we write up to down. Oh, they were perfectionists! They went to the root of the matter.”

“And you?” said Samuel.

“I went along with them, marveling at the beauty of their proud clean brains. I began to love my race, and for the first time I wanted to be Chinese. Every two weeks I went to a meeting with them, and in my room here I covered pages with writing. I bought every known Hebrew dictionary. But the old gentlemen were always ahead of me. It wasn’t long before they were ahead of our rabbi; he brought a colleague in. Mr. Hamilton, you should have sat through some of those nights of argument and discussion. The questions, the inspection, oh, the lovely thinking—the beautiful thinking.

“After two years we felt that we could approach your sixteen verses of the fourth chapter of Genesis. My old gentlemen felt that these words were very important too—‘Thou shalt’ and ‘Do thou.’ And this was the gold from our mining: ‘Thou mayest.’ ‘Thou mayest rule over sin.’ The old gentlemen smiled and nodded and felt the years were well spent. It brought them out of their Chinese shells too, and right now they are studying Greek.”

Samuel said, “It’s a fantastic story. And I’ve tried to follow and maybe I’ve missed somewhere. Why is this word so important?”

Lee’s hand shook as he filled the delicate cups. He drank his down in one gulp. “Don’t you see?” he cried. “The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in ‘Thou shalt,’ meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.’ Don’t you see?”

“Yes, I see. I do see. But you do not believe this is divine law. Why do you feel its importance?”

“Ah!” said Lee. “I’ve wanted to tell you this for a long time. I even anticipated your questions and I am well prepared. Any writing which has influenced the thinking and the lives of innumerable people is important. Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, ‘Do thou,’ and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in ‘Thou shalt.’ Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But ‘Thou mayest’! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win.” Lee’s voice was a chant of triumph.

Adam said, “Do you believe that, Lee?”

“Yes, I do. Yes, I do. It is easy out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of deity, saying, ‘I couldn’t help it; the way was set.’ But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There’s no godliness there. And do you know, those old gentlemen who were sliding gently down to death are too interested to die now?”

Adam said, “Do you mean these Chinese men believe the Old Testament?”

Lee said, “These old men believe a true story, and they know a true story when they hear it. They are critics of truth. They know that these sixteen verses are a history of humankind in any age or culture or race. They do not believe a man writes fifteen and three-quarter verses of truth and tells a lie with one verb. Confucius tells men how they should live to have good and successful lives. But this—this is a ladder to climb to the stars.” Lee’s eyes shone. “You can never lose that. It cuts the feet from under weakness and cowardliness and laziness.”

Adam said, “I don’t see how you could cook and raise the boys and take care of me and still do all this.”

“Neither do I,” said Lee. “But I take my two pipes in the afternoon, no more and no less, like the elders. And I feel that I am a man. And I feel that a man is a very important thing—maybe more important than a star. This is not theology. I have no bent toward gods. But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed— because ‘Thou mayest.’”

I love Steinbeck.  I love that book.  I love that my Grandmother loaned me her copy of East of Eden to read.

Timshel.  Thou mayest.

What got me thinking about that word was watching this video over on Life In Grace.  It is one of my favorite blogs!  Edie's house burned to the ground just a few days before Christmas.  This week, they tore down the remains so they could start rebuilding a new home.  She has shared here experience of this tragedy with such grace, and faith, and honesty.  It really is inspiring to be connected to her (even though she wouldn't know me from Eve - probably doesn't even know I am a reader.)  I encourage you to watch and listen to the video.  The lovely song by Mumford and Sons is just perfect too.

Did you listen? 

Good.

So how did I grow to understand timshel, you ask?  I know it through my dear friends.  They stood with me through the past 4 years of pain, and depression, and lonliness, and rebuilding.  They held my hand, even though they couldn't move the mountain for me.  They didn't have to.  They chose to.  They thought I was worth it, and I was! 

My spirit was charred, bruised and broken like Edie's house, and I had to choose to fight through the fear and the pain.  And my friends chose to stand with me during that struggle.  I feel like I have finally pushed through that fight in large part because people who love me chose to help me.

I am forever grateful to those who loved me enough to support me in such a profound way.

The future is so bright because thou mayest.

Elite Aspirations

Every once in a while, I hear someone say something so great, so profound, so genius that I immediately think two things:  1) that I wish I had a pen and paper handy to write that down, and 2) it rings so true to me, I wonder why is this the first time I have heard that concept put that way.

I don’t usually think of the Golden Globes as being the source for wisdom.  Last Sunday evening, Aaron Sorkin proved me wrong.  As he was accepting the award for Best Screenplay for the movie The Social Network, he said the following directed to his 10 year old daughter:

Elite is not a bad word, it is an aspirational one.  Honey, look around.  Smart girls have more fun, and you’re one of them.

Let that soak in a minute.  Maybe re-read it a time or two. 

Wow.  Just, wow!  That is officially on the list of things I wish I had learned when I was 10. 

The word elite is used in a lot of ways.  I think to most 10 year olds, elite is a noun that means the wealthy, the private schooled, the privileged, the famous, and the snobby.  It is easy to resent the people who those descriptions fit, if it seems they have not done anything to earn the title.  Sorkin, though, wanted his daughter to set aside that definition, and think of elite as an adjective meaning talented, skilled, knowledgeable, virtuous, and accomplished.

Do you remember what it was like to be 10?  When the kids in school began to separate themselves into cool kids, and nerds, and jocks, and smart kids, and stinky kids?  When some kids got to have brand new Jessica McClintock dresses for the school dance, and you only did after begging and begging and swallowing a big dose of guilty pleasure (emphasis on the guilt)?  How about when you were a little older and the cool kids started getting fancy cars, and designer purses?

Eventually some sort of resentment develops between the haves and the have-a-little-lesses of the world. (Let's face it, very few of us were actually have-nots.) The stuff starts to separate the elite from the normal. 

Now, I am fairly confident Sorkin’s kiddo is among the haves, but she probably has so much that it is embarrassing to her. She doesn’t want a famous Dad, or have the best birthday parties, or designer clothes.  I imagine she is trying to fit into social circles in a different way.  She is ‘the elite’, and she just wants to be like everyone else.

I wonder how different high school would be for the kids who figure this out at 10.  It seems that the latest social crisis – bullying – would be obsolete.  It seems that kids would tap into their own unique talents and learn to capitalize on them at an early age.  I imagine that kids would develop and amazing sense of self early in life.

Now, before someone gets angry (my family reads this blog, y’all), let me be clear.  Lot’s of people were trying to help me learn this lesson as I was growing up.  I think that grown-ups found it difficult to know how to help me work through these problems because I probably couldn’t articulate what it was I was struggling with.  I was also probably extremely conscious of how the things I wanted to say could disappoint or hurt the person who would hear it. 

Sometime in my mid-twenties, I think I finally learned this lesson.  I still don’t think I could have articulated it as well as Aaron Sorkin did.  (Maybe that is why he gets paid to write, and wins big awards for his elite talent?)  I do have to applaud him though, for being tuned-in to his daughter and her social struggles, for using his moment as a step toward resolving her problem, and for doing it on such a public platform that we could all share in this knowledge.

Image credit to bigcityal.

Crossroads and Junctures

Recently the pastor at my church talked about ‘junctures’ and ‘crossroads.’  He defined crossroads as a place a person comes to where they have to make a decision. When you reach the crossroads you have to decide if you take Path A or Path B.  He defined a juncture, as an event that you know will change life, as you know it, forever.

I have only experienced a few junctures in my life, graduations, new careers, moving to new states.  Changing careers from the non-profit world, to the for-profit world was a huge experience for me.  I learned the true value of my contributions.  I was able to experience teamwork and collaboration, and the great things that can be accomplished with great resources.  At the same time, my work didn’t have the same sense of purpose.  The passion eroded from my daily life.  But the career move changed my life. I was making a real income.  I was able to buy a home, and save for the future, and take vacations, and buy nice stuff.

For the past 12 or so years, my career has been THE focus of my life.  It has been fun, but I want to the focus into developing a more balanced life.  I would like to fall in love, and have a family, and find the joy in living rather than working again.

The hard part is, I am at a crossroads with my current job.  I love the job.  In terms of the responsibilities and the actual work – it is my dream job.  In terms of the leadership – I hate it.  It is the kind of job where my work is not valued.  It is the kind of job where expectations are unrealistic, and resources are limited. 

Interestingly, I know only too well that a crossroads in my career path, usually becomes a juncture in all the rest of my life.  A change in salary (which is likely in the current market) would mean a dramatic change in lifestyle.  No more travel.  Maybe even no more cable or A/C.   I would have to purchase a car, and pay for all the associated expenses – currently part of my compensation.  A change in employment would also mean that work would become the top of my priority list again.  The learning curve, and my own desire to succeed would ensure that work would again become the focus of my efforts and all those other things that I want in life would fall to the back burner, again.

So, for now, I am choosing to stay the course.   I am sacrificing passion for my work to find passion in my life.  This means I have to figure out how to lower my expectations for my work experience but certainly not my performance.  I will have to prioritize living without risking that which supports the living. It is quite the debacle.  It may require copious amounts of wine and shoulders to lean on, but I know that this is the right thing for right now.

Image credit to tjschloss