“Learn to let your intuition—gut instinct—tell you when the food, the relationship, the job isn’t good for you (and conversely, when what you’re doing is just right).”
-Oprah Winfrey
I can’t. I can’t do it. I couldn’t do it so much that I ditched it and went to a noon meeting, and at that meeting (which was a 12×12 study on the 8th tradition) one of the old, old timers said, “If your job turns your guts inside out, get a new job.” And my job turns my guts inside out. I simply cannot make cold calls 8 hours a day and still have enough spiritual energy to devote to the things that really matter to me and to my recovery. I am simply too beaten up at the end of the day. I dread going to work. On Saturday mornings I think to myself, “Oh my God. I have to go to work Monday morning.”
I feel slightly less anxious about it now but not completely OK. But I have a plan. Perhaps an imperfect one, but I have a plan. I’m headed down to campus right now to apply for admission. I cannot delay any more. May as well continue being poor for awhile working toward the goal of solving it rather than being poor and working toward the goal of keeping a roof over my head.
There are a couple of things inside this that I need to take a closer look at. The first one is my resistance to the job I have. Is it simply that I hate working? Do I have some internal spring that will always tell me, no matter what job I have, that I hate my job and I cannot face going to work, much like the addict spring in me goes off no matter what situation I’m in that tells me that it would be great to get high? The ‘get high’ spring hasn’t gone off in a long, long time so I have faith that any ‘I hate my job’ spring can be repaired to, if I’m willing to do the work.
The other thing for me to look at is, “How much better am I willing for my life to become?” How much ‘conscious, diligent and purposful action’ will I take to improve my circumstance?
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cold calling is hell. i wouldn’t beat yourself up about it. i think i remember you saying you grew up lds – does cold calling kind of feel like knocking on doors to you? i know it does to me.
i love to sell people things they want – if they come to me i’m more than happy to help them – maybe just a shift in the type of work might honor your soul a bit more than being forced to force yourself on people all day like the white shirts & black pants teams that stroll through our town.
btw – when i see them i always wonder if there is a “chris” deep inside one of them – if they ever come to my door i’m going to invite them in for a coffee and just be kind, just in case that clean cut, red head is a chris in disguise.
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Pingback from Oprah » Nausea on April 29, 2008 at 4:41 pm
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Can you find other work? What’s the economic climate like where you live? Like Bobbie said, cold calling is hell. Don’t give up on yourself about work in general. It sounds like this particular job isn’t a good fit. But there probably are jobs that will work with your natural tallents and abilities better than this.
I just left my very stressful job after almost 4 years. There were a lot of things about the job I really enjoyed, but my “season” for that work has come to a close. I knew it intuitively. But what’s next? I’m not sure yet.
Good luck!
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The first thing I genuinely started to trust after I grew up (well, after I became an adult anyway) was my intuition. I knew 10-15 years ago that it was “right”, and about 2-3 years ago I began to realize even the slightest intuitive hint (non-rational, absurd ones included) was always going to turn out to be right.
But only in the past YEAR have I learned enough to both trust my intuition AND to act on it.
I would say that is exactly what you are doing, and it seems like you are headed in the direction of fulfilling a higher purpose for yourself.
And cold calling! My goodness, I can’t imagine doing it for even one day!
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