dimanche, novembre 20, 2005
time to say goodbye
When I went back to school last year, I was very careful not to set any expectations for myself. I was prepared to be lonely, frustrated, challenged, and conversely I was prepared for it to be a reasonably tolerable time (yeah, that was my optimistic upside!). Low expectations make it hard to be disappointed. I was, after all, returning to a school in a town where I'd spent four and a half years of my "young adult" years (although looking back, I'd hardly consider myself to have been very adult at all at that point) - and didn't have a tremendous amount of fond memories from the experience.
I probably learned a lot of difficult lessons that first time, but I didn't really come out of it with lasting friendships (except for a handful of great people I've managed to keep in touch with), and neither did I feel that I'd really "succeeded" in mastering the university experience, whatever that was supposed to have been (the most tangible failure being the lack of degree, which I decided I couldn't keep pursuing). So, although I knew last year that I could not keep going on the path I was on, and finishing what I'd started made sense, heading back to Bishop's and Lennoxville didn't fill me with delight.
Who knew that it would end up being such a positive experience...? I probably didn't fully appreciate it while going through it, and have maybe idealized it to some extent since then, but all in all, I was pleasantly surprised at how I felt while I was there, how much I cared about what I was doing, and how surprisingly goal-oriented I was - me, the girl who never sets goals. I proved a lot to myself, I suppose.
The Buddha said that:
Recently I've been really disappointed. Somebody reminded me this week that I'd "created" this situation for myself. Yeah, I suppose that life is about perception, and about the decision to focus on the positive instead of what's maybe not so wonderful in one's life. I made a mistake when I got this job offer. I mistakenly believed that since I was finally being offered a salary which reflected some of the hard work and achievements I've made recently, it was necessarily going to fulfill me somehow. The truth is that I'm still doing administrative work, and my expectations were misguided. Money is nice, but it doesn't create fulfillment, and that was a stupid moment on my part to have forgotten that important point.
Since giving up the job at this point would be a little hasty and impractical, I've decided that I will instead give up my expectations. No longer will I go into work and think that my job will automatically be rewarding or challenging - at least not at this point. I keep saying that I know it will get better, and I still do believe that, but maybe I need to be a lot more patient.
And because I know that last paragraph sounds a bit defeatist and sad, really, I need to clarify something. A lot of people do not love their jobs, I know that. And there's this idea that you are supposed to create a full life outside of your workplace that compensates for the lack of fulfillment. Yes, good idea. But not for me. One thing I do know about myself is that I cannot settle for work that doesn't have some kind of meaning for me. I've struggled with that alot, finding contentment in my work, and I realize that for me personally, finding value in what I spend most of my waking hours doing is important. How I achieve that remains to be seen. | ¶ 1:02 p.m.
I probably learned a lot of difficult lessons that first time, but I didn't really come out of it with lasting friendships (except for a handful of great people I've managed to keep in touch with), and neither did I feel that I'd really "succeeded" in mastering the university experience, whatever that was supposed to have been (the most tangible failure being the lack of degree, which I decided I couldn't keep pursuing). So, although I knew last year that I could not keep going on the path I was on, and finishing what I'd started made sense, heading back to Bishop's and Lennoxville didn't fill me with delight.
Who knew that it would end up being such a positive experience...? I probably didn't fully appreciate it while going through it, and have maybe idealized it to some extent since then, but all in all, I was pleasantly surprised at how I felt while I was there, how much I cared about what I was doing, and how surprisingly goal-oriented I was - me, the girl who never sets goals. I proved a lot to myself, I suppose.
The Buddha said that:
- Life is suffering.
- Suffering is caused by attachment.
- Attachment is created by expectation.
- So get rid of expectation and attachment.
- And suffering will ease.
Recently I've been really disappointed. Somebody reminded me this week that I'd "created" this situation for myself. Yeah, I suppose that life is about perception, and about the decision to focus on the positive instead of what's maybe not so wonderful in one's life. I made a mistake when I got this job offer. I mistakenly believed that since I was finally being offered a salary which reflected some of the hard work and achievements I've made recently, it was necessarily going to fulfill me somehow. The truth is that I'm still doing administrative work, and my expectations were misguided. Money is nice, but it doesn't create fulfillment, and that was a stupid moment on my part to have forgotten that important point.
Since giving up the job at this point would be a little hasty and impractical, I've decided that I will instead give up my expectations. No longer will I go into work and think that my job will automatically be rewarding or challenging - at least not at this point. I keep saying that I know it will get better, and I still do believe that, but maybe I need to be a lot more patient.
And because I know that last paragraph sounds a bit defeatist and sad, really, I need to clarify something. A lot of people do not love their jobs, I know that. And there's this idea that you are supposed to create a full life outside of your workplace that compensates for the lack of fulfillment. Yes, good idea. But not for me. One thing I do know about myself is that I cannot settle for work that doesn't have some kind of meaning for me. I've struggled with that alot, finding contentment in my work, and I realize that for me personally, finding value in what I spend most of my waking hours doing is important. How I achieve that remains to be seen. | ¶ 1:02 p.m.
