There are times when you’re upset by your turmoils and troubles–moments when you feel like you’re at the center of the world.. where you’re the actor on the giant stage.. Suddenly, though, you realize that the planet will go on without you. You notice finally, after much ado about nothing, that your stage is filled with scenery but not an audience member is in sight.. Instead, you’re alone. Just a human bag of bones, a pile of often useless and mediocre memories.. You’re suddenly dashed of hopes, dreams..
And then a burst of newness comes into your life..
Maybe a new job.
Perhaps a job that will pay you more–exceptionally more compared to your current state of budgetary constraints. It’s just what the doctor ordered to get you back into the limelight again, to make your sad pile of bones come alive like a macabre dancer of the other world. You’re filled with exuberance and happiness, glee and gladness.
Until you realize, that mediocrity is not all that bad.
The job pays more–mighty high dollars aren’t everything though. After all, your benefits will be more expensive, you’ll get less time off, and you’re work location will be moved 50 miles away. About 100 miles a day of a round trip would weigh on you after a few years. Maybe even months.
The raise’s important place in your decision is beginning to be shaped a bit different in your mind..
The issue of a job switch is something that goes to the heart of a person–the actual thing that defines someone..
A few days back, without much reason, I got into a mini-discussion with someone in an elevator. The pointless banter that goes back and forth in those tiny, often odored walls, is a daily annoyance for countless people.That is why if I participate in such events, I attempt to make the conversation a bit more meaningful. So I introduced a question to someone I know and have worked with for years: “What do you do for a living?” She was a bit befuddled by the question, almost staring at me like I’ve completely lost all marbles..
“What do you mean?” she questioned back.
And I stuck with my initial statement, repeating the same thing, “What do you DO for a living?”
She finally answered before her floor saying her job title.. I responded she was wrong.. Instead, I told her she was a mother, a wife, a human being, and a wanderer on the planet earth.
A light seemingly went off in her head at that moment, a time when she realized that indeed she was not just an employee of some crappy job, but instead someone who mattered to someone else..
See, that is what does matter.
Not the job title, not the power player you strive to be.. The number of friends on Facebook or compadres on LinkedIn matters about as much as a warm bucket of spat on an abandoned desert highway.. all futile in the end.
We are mediocre if we judge ourselves on work status only.. We are not that. We weren’t born a plumber or pipefitter, waiter or judge.. we didn’t come from a womb and jump into athlete’s shoes..
We make decisions in life based off of money. Comfort.. All of those things. But what matters more, the money with a thankless job where hours are piled higher than the dollars you’ll count? Or where your work actually means something, even if the pay doesn’t necessarily equate in importance?
I am in a current quandary myself.. I am attempting to determine if money is more important than security.. And if I turn down an opportunity, am I only doing so because of prudent concern for my family’s well being, or because of a fear of success and progress? And change?
So many wonders to wonder about.
So little time–decisions need to be made.
My wife told me one thing that kept my rampaging thoughts in restraints for a bit today: “Your decision is not going to start wars or kill people.” That is true..
Going back to that stage..where no one really watches my show.
Except me in a mirror.. But who am staring at?
So I ask you, if you’d care to share a response, what does matter more? Money? Fortunes..? Or family and comfort..