A funny thing has been happening at work lately. In the last two days alone, four or five people have told me I have a “great voice.” It’s happened a few times before. I totally disagree, naturally, because my jacked-out inner critic won’t let anything like a simple compliment get through, but it’s happened enough times that I seriously wonder if I should use it somehow. Narrate audiobooks, maybe? Start a podcast?
My career in a nutshell.
This is just a catch-up post. I’ve been busy, you might say. Out of necessity, I’ve been working as much overtime as my body and mind can bear. It’s just a necessity. There’s a wolf pack at the door, and they’ve brought howitzers. So, I’m usually plugged in, logged on, and professionally chipper by 8:00 AM every morning until 9:00 PM almost every night.
This impacts the “growth work,” as I call it; the creative work that I still believe will unlock the dreams that we - my wife and kids and I - have. “Impact” is a gentle word, though. “Annihilate” probably works better here.
So, I pivot. If I only realistically have one hour per day, first thing in the morning, to do the growth work, that’s when I work. It’s not out of some rise-and-grind compulsion, it’s just the reality of right now.
One great thing about it: It focuses me in a way that no weekend productivity seminar could. It makes me shove a few of those old demons into a steamer trunk in the attic. I’m talking about despair, bitterness, resentment. I simply don’t have time for the pity party. This isn’t rah-rah happy talk. It’s real and I’m actually really thankful for it.
One amazing possibility on the horizon: there’s a chance I could be offered a new position at my day job as early as this Friday. It’s more in line with my skills, abilities and experience, and it could quite possibly pay around twice as much as I make now. It would also free up my time, although the schedule would be more of a 9-5, which would change the nature of the challenges a bit, but the bottom line is that I’d get back some of my time.
However, it’s still a long shot. The recruiter I’ve been working with said that there was a huge response to the opening. I don’t know how many people applied, but it’s been weeks since my second interview, so I assume it was a lot. Nonetheless, the recruiter said he thinks I’m in the Top 4. They were impressed by my resume. That alone is a victory for me right now. I don’t want to get all sentimental here, but it’s a victory because it feels like a validation for all the work I’ve been doing, both inner and professionally.
We’ll see. Worst case: I don’t get the job, but I’ll get a hell of a “How to survive disappointment” post out of it. And then Plan G will be activated.
At least I always have plans…
I struggle with what to do with this thing, though. So far, it’s basically been a blog; a sort of public journal that just seems like vanity. It seems like all of the spiritual reading I do (and let’s be honest, it’s basically down to a few people I follow on Twitter posting Church Father quotes…) all tell me that this is vanity.
Probably. But something seems to be emerging from the nebulous vapors of intentions I originally had with this thing: guys in similar situations who read the “code” in my posts who reach out with their stories. They’re in their own battles, fighting in accord with the best, most noble principles they’ve cobbled together along the way. Like me, they weren’t given any kind of a road map to life by their fathers or communities. They’ve read their way to some sort of workable modus operandi. They (we) have tried to do the faithful life starting from a basically theoretical framework, and the inadequacies of that modus are revealed when the very real and untheoretical challenges of life land on their kitchen tables.
If they find value in this public struggle, I can work with that. We can rise above together.
A recent example: I was chatting with a church buddy the other day at the big post-Pascha church picnic. (This, after the 3:00 AM feast…Oy.) It was a light conversation, mostly making wry observations about the challenges of the so-called work/life balance. At one point I said, “Yeah, it seems like we have to push our family away in order to provide for them.”
“Yes!” He exclaimed. He said it in a normal tone of voice, but within that tone I could hear a primal scream. He was, or seemed to be, in the midst of his own crucible. As a husband and father of four young children, working full time and going to school, he was maxed out. As a new convert, he was doing his best to live in full accordance to Orthodox Lent, which is no joke. I’m sure somebody told him that the ideal in Lent is basically monastic level discipline, but it’s not expected for people in a different state of life to follow it to that degree. Nonetheless, he’s earnest and sincere, and wanted to “do it right.”
It was killing him.
I get it. He’s the kind of guy I’m trying to encourage with these meandering, grasping posts.
Anyway, like I said, this is sort of catch-up. I’m struggling to practice what I preach in real time, and then maybe share what I’ve learned along the way. But something is changing. All good changes, actually. But I want to, I need to, focus it a bit. Please pray that I’ll find the right direction and, as always, at least 50% of the right words. ;-)