Life works in strange ways. It is the same theory they call Murphy’s Law or the Magical Lists. Just when you’ve changed your plans, change aim, things happened the way you wanted them to. But you’re not sure you want them anymore. And that is the undependable nature of life and of the human kind. Call it fickle, call it capricious or call it the Why Not?
Up until six months ago I was looking for a reason to leave my job and that would rightfully be a new job. A job I liked better, and could earn more and learn more from. I sent out resumes to magazines and ad agencies because writing, I thought, should work out in either of these industries, and I wanted to write. Resume after resume, follow-up email after follow-up email, nothing transpired. One day while discussing careers with WH she said that perhaps I was the sort who had to close a door before another would open. No, I replied instantly, I am not that sort. But as days and weeks set in, that seed of a passing remark so casually plucked from the top of her head, the tip of her tongue, had germinated in my thoughts and I saw the ambiguity of the matter. It took a dash of courage and impulse but I decided I’m quitting. Heck, I’ll close this door and hack the next one open if I have to.
Between that decision and possibly lunch, like an image coming into focus, the vagueness I had about what’s-next congealed and peeled off to reveal a desire. I didn’t want to be jumping from institution to institution, cubicle to cubicle. I wanted something else, I wanted to live differently, not radically, just different… then the clarity was gone.
In the days, weeks and months that follow, this sense of sureness would come and go depending on the literature I was reading, the person I was talking to, and most crucially, the opportunities that came my way. And since I left my job two months ago, I have been propositioned to go back into the work force many times! If I had experienced a drought earlier when my resumes had evaporated into cyberspace, then now I have tripped upon a spring. This sure plays with my mind a lot. I want to carpe diem, not to justify running the hamster wheel, yet every time I am asked to put on those sneakers again, I have to struggle to refuse. This might be part of the journey, I sometimes think. Then I think, no. A decision that flickers like that of a tungsten lamp is most undependable! What might be dependable is what keeps coming back, the recurring dream.
In this process of consideration and filtering, I’ve deconstructed some of my values and priorities, my wants and desires. Sometimes they lay in a neat grid before me and all I have to do is to sweep my eyes across to come to a decision. Other times they are a mound of flea market wares, toppling over one another or hidden under the carpet. Those days I feel doubtful and afraid. But I remind myself that there is nothing to be afraid of. It is only life. And life is transient so I should do the good things I am meant to do.
I am still in the process of reconstruction and I cannot tell how long it will take or how futile it might be, but I keep faith that I am already on the path that lets me live out my life meaningfully, purposefully and happily. It is so damn tough. But woohoo I cannot be more thankful.
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| I love breakfast. Water is my favourite drink and coffee comes a close second. |
