I was reminded of this lesson just last week. It was, hands-down, the worst week I've had at work in many, many moons. In fact, it was a shitty week for everyone, and my administrator had a wastebasket full of soggy, tear-soaked tissues to prove it.
Most days, I love my job. I'm happy at work and happy in life. I recognize that I live a comfortable life with great family and great friends. I have the respect of my peers. My dog loves me. Sounds like a pretty good life, right?
It is. And yet there are some days when my ego starts to creep in. Slowly, so I don't expend too much of my valuable time staving off negative thoughts. I figure they will just go away or I'm just having a bad day and that a sleep will do me well. Usually that works, but when the feelings accumulate over a period of many years, you know the shit is about to hit the fan.
By way of background, here's how I feel about work and education: I love school and I love to learn. If I ever won a big lottery jackpot, I'd go back to school and just earn degree after degree and diploma after diploma. Knowledge and education is so important to me and it's more impressive to me than any Gucci bag or famous name dropped in casual conversation.
As for work, I have never desired a position where I was in charge of anyone. I am not management material. I'm too concerned with other peoples' feelings to be an effective manager. I would burn out faster than a candle in the wind. I prefer being part of the team, albeit a somewhat independent member. I like to be able to say that I contributed to my team's success, but I don't need all of the glory.
Now, when you take into account that I've had a few people, independent of each other, tell me that I'm "destined to do great things" (their exact words, not mine), add my slightly inflated ego, and stir in my far too accommodating nature, you (or rather I) end up with an eddy of expectations. It's rough being me.
Anyway, where all this comes in is when I have to make binders at work. Or photocopy. Or file. All of a sudden, work that I consider easy, brainless, a break from sitting on my arse, etc., is now below me. The day before, I was thinking, "Wow, I get paid what I get paid to make binders? This is awesome!" The next day, I'm thinking, "I have a degree in English, a diploma in Paralegal Studies and you're asking me to make a freaking binder? Do you know what I'm even capable of? Do you know how much more effective I can be?"
The most eye-opening thing about all of this is everything I wrote above, I could've written last week and it would still be very accurate and yet, I wrote it at least a year or two ago. It just goes to show that some things in life (or arguably, most things in life) don't really change. It was a good reminder that it is actually my oft-inflated ego, and not necessarily my general outlook on life, that drives my unhappiness. Some may say that with a positive attitude, I'm just keeping "reality" at bay and that when I drop to my low points (and we all do), that is when I am finally living my real life. Those people may be right. But who are they to say? Their reality isn't mine and my reality isn't someone else's. Kind of trippy when you think about it - we're all living our own version of reality but living in the same world. I guess it makes us all varying degrees of delusional.
It really irks me when I hear someone say, "It's not fair!" Life isn't fair. I think we all have had our experiences with that. But it's how we choose to make it good that makes the real difference in our respective worlds. Some never find good in the world. Others never see bad. Who's to say either is wrong?
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