The notion of a job seems so limiting to me but I must take full responsibility for my lack of career planning. As a result of my short-sightedness, I find myself jumping from job to job looking for something, what that something is I'm not quite sure but what that something isn't, this I'm certain of and is the primary reason why I will leave a job in search of the unknown. An unknown something that I can never seem to isolate specifically in my mind and can never discover in a job, so maybe I'm fooling myself or maybe, I am what I have always thought I was, a fool! The truth is I don't mind being a fool, it's a good excuse and it allows me to not take myself so seriously. But there is an angst in the pit of my stomach, a constant gnawing at my spirit with regards to working at what I would consider jobs versus employment that would be in synch with a so-called career.
I'm a habitual job hopper but for the most part it was out of need, a need to feed three children and hopefully sustain some semblance of a life for them. Job hopping came as a result of always working positions that never captured my imagination or engaged my intellect or kindled my passion. So now I'm at this crossroad, not really but we'll call it a crossroad because it sounds much better than anything else that I can come up with. This juncture has me contemplating a new way my forward movement, my renewed or sincere interest in unleashing my career plan but it feels daunting at 42 years of age. The world was my oyster when I was in my twenties and career planning felt like a noose around my neck. My thirties were good for exploration but with kids getting older and my mind aging, I allowed myself to stand on the outside of the process of visioning my life and I let the wind blow me hither, wherever and which ever direction seemed like the path of least resistance. I try hard not to feel the weight of regret because it will not serve any purpose but to make me feel negative things which will confine me to a life lived in a straight-jacket and although it may be fashionable to wear these controlling garment, I still have this inclining of hope, this fraction of an ounce of hope and a smidget of desire to dream big and go where my true heart wants to go.
I think of my mother who worked in the post office, I think about so many people in my family and extended family who worked in plants or who worked in service positions at the University of Michigan hospital. I think back and I recall the joy they felt in obtaining the financial resources garnered from their jobs but I remember more the shear frustration they felt at working at jobs that under appreciated them and work that felt kin to being a slave. I always said I would never work in a factory and I would never work at the post office. The post office specifically was a place that tortured my poor mother and to add insult to injury is was an unsafe environment and I found no comfort in hearing about stories of people going into the post office killing fellow colleagues. There used to be this saying, going postal which was in reference to random killing. I hated that saying because it evoked a image too horrific for me to consider. I was not interested or willing to deal with learning that my poor mother was killed at work because some fool felt mistreated. My mother treated everyone with respect and kindness, people always communicated this to me and a childhood friend once said, it's the good one's that end up suffering. My mother was a good one and I did not want her suffer at the hands of some maniac. Luckily, she retired about eight years ago and I felt an instant sense of relief .
I look at my mother and see the wear and tear of her job on her face, in her hands and most ostensibly in her spirit. She has labored long and hard, I've not labored in this way. I have endured jobs where I have sat on my butt all day, which might be why my butt is big but that's another topic for my blog and for another day. What I do know is this, I'm tired of jobs, I'm tired of sitting on my butt all day (as strange as that may sound). I want movement, I want to intellectually engaged, I want to learn, I want to grow, I want to consider a pathway toward a career, I want to be around people who care about life and for the first time in my life, I recognize whose responsibility it is for my direction. I keep looking to jobs, careers, people, places and things to make my life have meaning. I've discovered that only I can make meaning in my life. Only, I can embrace with a sense of resolve a job or a career. Only I can make the work I do matter beyond the daily mundane. Only I can give value to the work that I do. Only I can decide to love what I give to each employer. Only I can plan my career. Only I can complete the task required to actualize that career plan. Only I can take an employment opportunity and turn it into a miracle. Only I can bring the joy to my place of work. Only I can be the light of love. Only I make the difference and it's not words like job or career.
I keep letting work define who I am. Maybe, just maybe if I defined my work which could translate into using certain employment to catapult my personal career goals, then the control would revert back to where it should of been all along which is with me. To discover the real meaning of means to an end. To stop billowing in self doubt or shame of my past or fear of the future. Perhaps today I awaken my consciousness and use it in service to creating the life that I want as oppose to the life I thought I was destined to or a life I felt would fall upon me because I was black, a woman and whatever other stuff I had in my head. Today, I actualize my living in the way the divine spirit has always provided. I use this mind, heart and soul to express the parts of me that I love best. What many people don't know is that I love, I mean I adore science and mathematics. Not only that, it comes way too easy for me but what most gives me complete and utter joy is when I am able to translate scientific or mathematical concepts to people who thought they would never understand it, that feels almost like an orgasm ( I repeat ALMOST but not quite and not enough for me to forgo the actual act of getting to an orgasm). Secretly, I've always wanted to be a science teacher and was willing to teach math course as well. I secretly still want to do that. My ultimate dream, since I'm in a confessional mood today, is that I really would love to instruct medical students in Gross Anatomy. University of Michigan has lecture notes and little videos for this course online, I peruse this site regularly, okay almost daily but it comes in phases. I have this vision of teaching people about the complexity of the human body and not just for the sake of memorizing anatomical structure but for them to discover the majestic nature of the human body. How intricate, delicate yet persistent the body really is and to unleash a profound respect for what our bodies do for us on a day to day basis. We take for granted this vessel, structure that we are contained and I say we need to know it better, take care of it but not in a superficial, cosmetic surgery, fad diet, kind of way. To compound this utter high respect for the human body is the understanding that comes in a course like biochemistry. I found real joy is biochemistry, I confirmed the existence of a higher power in physics but I was able to transcend the brilliance of the creator in biochemistry.
Can a person teach both gross anatomy and biochemistry to first year medical students? Because if they can, I would do it and I would elevate medical school education by bringing a instructional phenomena that will ground these future doctors in a deep-seated admiration and respect for the living organism. We need more doctors to work from that place of understanding because when they do, they develop into partners, partnering with their patience to bring back respect and love to our bodies. This notion will heal people naturally, it will serve as the mechanism by which we stop being dependent on health care (sick care) and engage in self empowerment over our bodies, bodies that desperately need some tender loving care.
I say all this to say this, it's all in how you look at things whether or not something is a job or a career. It is ultimately up to me to utilize a job or a career to create something good for my life, that's a choice that only I can make, a definition I can construct for myself. The difference is not the words, although the words are different, the difference is what I do and my attitude.. The difference is me and today I commit to making a difference in my life and the world we all live in.
I am perfect and I am whole and I am complete. I LOVE ME!
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Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Furniture Commercials Make Me Reflect on Important Things
Alright, I confess that at first I was going to say that furniture stores make me nauseous, which is probably a strong word but what I feel is combination of things and I get so frustrated that I want to throw the television against the wall. So what is wrong with furniture commercials? Furniture commercials for me were the first sign that this country was going to suffer a deep and overwhelming recession because anytime you can buy something and not have to pay for it, felt problematic. As someone who does accounting, paying for something in the future is the worst form of overhead, it's highly predictable and although a receivable and has the ability to increase net worth, I can't figure out why something as disposable as furniture would be put on an extended layaway plan.
Some of this goes back to my childhood, my mother was a major consumer of material things which might explain why her house is full of stuff but I digress. One of luxuries of life was new furniture which she bought on average every three to four years because we kids did our best to wear it out despite repeated attempts on her part to keep us off or she tried to teach us to be gentle but when your kid, gentle is some type of fantasy world thing. I watch these commercials and wonder if my mother has ever fallen victim to the buy now and pay later scheme and if she did, I'm sure became delinquent with payments because by the time she started paying for the furniture, it was old and worn out. What my mother really wanted to do in those moments was purchase new furniture and not pay for the furniture that sat before her eyes in our living room. Furniture that had plenty of defects, was worn beyond measure and was all but ready to be thrown out. But there in lies the trap of having to keep furniture that no longer appeals to you because you have to start paying for it.
I read one of those furniture contracts and what I discovered is that not only would it take my mother several years to pay off the furniture, the worn out, need to be thrown in the trash furniture but with the interest she would pay for the furniture not twice over but nearly three times the original price and this felt like high way robbery. I wonder why the furniture companies didn't create a commercial that showed the customer buying furniture with a happy face and then a section showing the customer years later with the new monthly payment plan. In big letters as oppose to small unreadable text, they could flash across the screen information about the furniture being worn out by the time you start your first payment and how in the end you will pay three tie the original cost. Now that would be complete disclosure in advertisement and allow people to make sensible decisions.
I've always been cash and carry every since my first credit card where I spent it on a pair of shoes for my boyfriend, shoes that I never ended up paying for and the credit card that made my credit awful for way too many years. I realized how much of a tight hold credit was and how deceitful the whole concept is. Credit means that you are owed something, but really credit in layman reality means that you owe and on top of what you owe is interest and on top of that more interest and by the time you get something paid off, you've bought the item at a price at least twice the amount indicated at the original purchase but why do people all over the globe buy into this concept?
It goes back to the need for immediate gratification which is something I've been guilty of but no longer find it rewarding. What I believe in more is short term sacrifice for long term gain, I'd rather wait than spend money I don't have and with that has come the fine art of living within my means. This lifestyle of living within my means is foreign to most people and at times I made to look like a freak because I refuse to play the credit game which only translates into being in debt forever game but you only live once, at least that what people say including my mother.
It's been nearly fifteen years of living this way and what I've discovered is that all the things that people say are required for living really aren't. I get by with so little yet I feel completely fulfilled and I have everything I need. And need is the operative word, I have every single thing I need, however I don't have many things that I think I want which in time I discover wasn't something I really wanted in the first place. My life is significantly empty of financial stress and I found it completely amazing when the so-called recession occurred (because I'm certain that in history, we are going to give this time period a different name than recession), I wasn not stressed out about anything really because I lived below my means and while I could suffer a job loss, there are two things that keep me sane and out of a worried space. Number one, I could work a minimum wage job and take care of my bills, barely but with appropriate planning it could work and I would work a minimum wage job to to do that. Secondly, since my expenses are so low, I could and would be open to sharing space to help reduce expenses. These two factors create in my mind solutions and therefore lessening the panic of job loss or reduce in income. This feeling of being able to handle what might come is different for me because there used to be a time when money dictated my mood. When I had money I was happy, when I was low on money I was miserable. It's a socially learned characteristic but when I took my personal power back and began to control my money versus my money controlling me, things changed significantly. No longer was I tossed about in the storm of unpredictable finances.
I see how the furniture commercials seduce us into thinking we can have something now and pay for it later but there is a price for immediate gratification followed by long term payback. The price is crippling, the price includes a noose around one's neck and the constant barrage of bill collectors calling and sending mail and emailing and text messaging and for those really good bill collectors, some come snoop around your home, some repossess what we can't pay for. They meaning the companies that handed out credit to any and everyone, they are clever yet they are the one's that put us in those situations in the first place. I find it so interesting when people suggest I just go get a credit card or get something on credit and no one ever ask me if I'm happy living without material things, no one ask me if I can afford to buy something I can't pay for and no one, I have yet to meet one person who encourages me to live within my means. So, luckily for me I am someone who struts to the beat of my own drum. I live with mis-match furniture, recycled bed and furniture. I don't have any new clothes and haven't for years. I found the best pair of boots, my size, leather and they looked practically new for five bucks at the thrift shop. I thanked the divine spirit for this gift, I wear them nearly daily and they are solid boots, made well and must of cost a fortune when they were bought originally, I just hope the owner isn't still paying for them on her credit card.
I want a new computer because my computer is so slow, I type faster than the letters appear which is an indication of not only the age but speed of my out dated computer. I don't when I will get another one but it doesn't matter, this one works and until extra disposable income becomes available, I will have to live with my computer because I refuse to buy a new one and pay for it twice or three times over.
Living within my means has been wonderful though, I find I am extremely lucky or blessed when I shop, I find the things I need as well as several of the things that I might want and all within the amount of cash I have on hand. I surrender this to the universe and allow the presentation of items to come in their own time. I'm never in a hurry for anything with the exception of food which is a requirement for living. I await the moment I happen to stumble into a store and find a item that needs replacing and the price tag is less than I thought I would have to pay, this delights me and what it does is gives me the opportunity to take the left over money and do something extra special for myself, something that not in the budget. For example, every so often I get to go to the nail place and get my toe nails done, it's not much but it's a special treat for me and I feel so blessed when I walk in able to pay without worry, stress or as a reaction to financial woes. I smile at the attendant who lovingly massages and cares for my feet, much in the way that I do and I select the color of the nail polish with a simple joy full of abundant peace.
My message is this the price of short term sacrifice for long term gain far outweighs and outlives any immediate gratification couched in long term and over priced payback. The price is peace of mind and that's priceless. And I'd rather have peace than a whole bunch of material things that are only destined to clutter up a landfill, I'd rather have meaningful connections to other human beings and I'd rather define my own self value beyond material things because I'm worth more and things are only temporary but I am full of the spirit that lives forever and that's enough for me.
I am whole and I am perfect and I am complete. I LOVE ME!
Some of this goes back to my childhood, my mother was a major consumer of material things which might explain why her house is full of stuff but I digress. One of luxuries of life was new furniture which she bought on average every three to four years because we kids did our best to wear it out despite repeated attempts on her part to keep us off or she tried to teach us to be gentle but when your kid, gentle is some type of fantasy world thing. I watch these commercials and wonder if my mother has ever fallen victim to the buy now and pay later scheme and if she did, I'm sure became delinquent with payments because by the time she started paying for the furniture, it was old and worn out. What my mother really wanted to do in those moments was purchase new furniture and not pay for the furniture that sat before her eyes in our living room. Furniture that had plenty of defects, was worn beyond measure and was all but ready to be thrown out. But there in lies the trap of having to keep furniture that no longer appeals to you because you have to start paying for it.
I read one of those furniture contracts and what I discovered is that not only would it take my mother several years to pay off the furniture, the worn out, need to be thrown in the trash furniture but with the interest she would pay for the furniture not twice over but nearly three times the original price and this felt like high way robbery. I wonder why the furniture companies didn't create a commercial that showed the customer buying furniture with a happy face and then a section showing the customer years later with the new monthly payment plan. In big letters as oppose to small unreadable text, they could flash across the screen information about the furniture being worn out by the time you start your first payment and how in the end you will pay three tie the original cost. Now that would be complete disclosure in advertisement and allow people to make sensible decisions.
I've always been cash and carry every since my first credit card where I spent it on a pair of shoes for my boyfriend, shoes that I never ended up paying for and the credit card that made my credit awful for way too many years. I realized how much of a tight hold credit was and how deceitful the whole concept is. Credit means that you are owed something, but really credit in layman reality means that you owe and on top of what you owe is interest and on top of that more interest and by the time you get something paid off, you've bought the item at a price at least twice the amount indicated at the original purchase but why do people all over the globe buy into this concept?
It goes back to the need for immediate gratification which is something I've been guilty of but no longer find it rewarding. What I believe in more is short term sacrifice for long term gain, I'd rather wait than spend money I don't have and with that has come the fine art of living within my means. This lifestyle of living within my means is foreign to most people and at times I made to look like a freak because I refuse to play the credit game which only translates into being in debt forever game but you only live once, at least that what people say including my mother.
It's been nearly fifteen years of living this way and what I've discovered is that all the things that people say are required for living really aren't. I get by with so little yet I feel completely fulfilled and I have everything I need. And need is the operative word, I have every single thing I need, however I don't have many things that I think I want which in time I discover wasn't something I really wanted in the first place. My life is significantly empty of financial stress and I found it completely amazing when the so-called recession occurred (because I'm certain that in history, we are going to give this time period a different name than recession), I wasn not stressed out about anything really because I lived below my means and while I could suffer a job loss, there are two things that keep me sane and out of a worried space. Number one, I could work a minimum wage job and take care of my bills, barely but with appropriate planning it could work and I would work a minimum wage job to to do that. Secondly, since my expenses are so low, I could and would be open to sharing space to help reduce expenses. These two factors create in my mind solutions and therefore lessening the panic of job loss or reduce in income. This feeling of being able to handle what might come is different for me because there used to be a time when money dictated my mood. When I had money I was happy, when I was low on money I was miserable. It's a socially learned characteristic but when I took my personal power back and began to control my money versus my money controlling me, things changed significantly. No longer was I tossed about in the storm of unpredictable finances.
I see how the furniture commercials seduce us into thinking we can have something now and pay for it later but there is a price for immediate gratification followed by long term payback. The price is crippling, the price includes a noose around one's neck and the constant barrage of bill collectors calling and sending mail and emailing and text messaging and for those really good bill collectors, some come snoop around your home, some repossess what we can't pay for. They meaning the companies that handed out credit to any and everyone, they are clever yet they are the one's that put us in those situations in the first place. I find it so interesting when people suggest I just go get a credit card or get something on credit and no one ever ask me if I'm happy living without material things, no one ask me if I can afford to buy something I can't pay for and no one, I have yet to meet one person who encourages me to live within my means. So, luckily for me I am someone who struts to the beat of my own drum. I live with mis-match furniture, recycled bed and furniture. I don't have any new clothes and haven't for years. I found the best pair of boots, my size, leather and they looked practically new for five bucks at the thrift shop. I thanked the divine spirit for this gift, I wear them nearly daily and they are solid boots, made well and must of cost a fortune when they were bought originally, I just hope the owner isn't still paying for them on her credit card.
I want a new computer because my computer is so slow, I type faster than the letters appear which is an indication of not only the age but speed of my out dated computer. I don't when I will get another one but it doesn't matter, this one works and until extra disposable income becomes available, I will have to live with my computer because I refuse to buy a new one and pay for it twice or three times over.
Living within my means has been wonderful though, I find I am extremely lucky or blessed when I shop, I find the things I need as well as several of the things that I might want and all within the amount of cash I have on hand. I surrender this to the universe and allow the presentation of items to come in their own time. I'm never in a hurry for anything with the exception of food which is a requirement for living. I await the moment I happen to stumble into a store and find a item that needs replacing and the price tag is less than I thought I would have to pay, this delights me and what it does is gives me the opportunity to take the left over money and do something extra special for myself, something that not in the budget. For example, every so often I get to go to the nail place and get my toe nails done, it's not much but it's a special treat for me and I feel so blessed when I walk in able to pay without worry, stress or as a reaction to financial woes. I smile at the attendant who lovingly massages and cares for my feet, much in the way that I do and I select the color of the nail polish with a simple joy full of abundant peace.
My message is this the price of short term sacrifice for long term gain far outweighs and outlives any immediate gratification couched in long term and over priced payback. The price is peace of mind and that's priceless. And I'd rather have peace than a whole bunch of material things that are only destined to clutter up a landfill, I'd rather have meaningful connections to other human beings and I'd rather define my own self value beyond material things because I'm worth more and things are only temporary but I am full of the spirit that lives forever and that's enough for me.
I am whole and I am perfect and I am complete. I LOVE ME!
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