I can tell you from firsthand experience that anger and vitriol don’t win arguments.
Trying to shove the same tired rhetoric down our throats doesn’t work and all this backlash coming from Democrats over the #WalkAway Campaign only proves the point for us that we made the correct choice to leave.
Thanks for listening, stay strong everyone and be excellent to each other!
It was a total whim, after weeks and weeks of searching for something in social media. Busting my ass one night, freaking out about the lack of call backs – Mike looked at me and asked, “Why are you working this hard to stay in an industry that you really aren’t happy with?”
And my initial reaction was something along the lines of saying shut the hell up I am damn well happy thank-you-very-much – but I stopped short and actually THOUGHT about what he was saying for once.
I wasn’t happy in this industry anymore. It started out as something fun and turned into a chore. Totally didn’t mean for that to rhyme but there it is so I’ll stand by it.
So my ridiculously patient but probably insane boyfriend ended up throwing me the lifeline I needed: with his work picking up he’d be able to make ends meet if I wanted to try something totally different. TOTALLY DIFFERENT! Almost 10 years in this industry and *poof!* CAREER CHANGE!
What to do… what to do… so I thought about my life these past ten years or so… and as I’ve said before, it just felt like a big pile of selfish decisions. And I realized that wasn’t the person I wanted to be anymore, and that if I was going to make a huge change like this, now is the time to seize that opportunity.
Now I’ve got it in my head that I need to return to my roots – I need to get back in touch with the child my parents raised, the one that believed helping others was the most important thing a person could do with their lives.
So I’m still very much a work in progress, but progress is the key word here – I’m committing to becoming a more mindful, helpful human being, and I’m really excited to see where this new path takes me.
The other day Mike asked me, “Who do you think you are?” And thankfully, he didn’t expect an answer, he only had a point: does the person we think we are sync up to the person we really are?
And I thought for a while and decided that I think I am brave, I think I’m funny, and I think I’m honest. But is any of that actually true?
I went sky-diving to celebrate my birthday last year. I thought the moment I let my instructor drop us out of that plane and plummet to earth was one of the bravest things I’ve ever done. It made me feel invincible and it made me have more faith in myself.
I’m able to jump out of a plane, but I’m unable to have a raw, difficult conversation with someone I love. The moment an argument starts, I’m out – I’m a coward and I walk away from the conversation, I walk away from someone that cares about me because I can’t stand under the weight of their emotions.
And I see how selfish of a reaction that is – because I can’t handle confrontation I take away the other person’s right to have one – that isn’t brave, that isn’t honorable at all.
So I’m going to change – I want to really be the person I think I am, the person I wish I am.
I want to live a life that’s more than myself, more than any selfish desires, more than what I’ve come to prioritize as an adult. I’m ready to shed the parts of myself I don’t like and focus on my strengths, then I’m going to use my strengths to help others.
That’s not who I think I am right now, but it’s who I want to become and I have to believe that I can make this happen.
So maybe I’m brave enough to admit I’m unhappy with the person I’ve become, but I also know the person I’ve become is strong enough to do something about it.
