If you have been following my blog posts, you probably would have realized that I'm a hapless citizen of this world. Try as I might, at a mature age of 37 (going on 38), I really don't have anything to my name. Have I started a company? No. Am I married? No. Do I have a happy family? No. Do I have savings? Not much. Am I saddled with debt? Yes, and 63,000 USD of it. While I am cognizant of the need to constantly be appreciative and thankful for what I have, such as a relatively healthy body, a job that pays average salary and some awesome colleagues, I really don't think I have anything that's noteworthy or something that I'd look back ten years later with a smile of pride. Pretty pathetic you might say -- and that is the story of my life. I actually am worried if I would have enough for when I am old and haggard. If you're like me, I certainly hope that my story makes you realize that you're not alone; that no matter what you did or tried, success just evades you and you only. Luck is rarely on my side (and yours too if you were nodding your head earlier).
Anyways, back to my career situation, which is seriously in dire straits no matter how you look at it. I am getting about 5,000 USD a month -- and I got an MBA. I did a reflection post on why I should leave my job and as I reviewed that article, I was struck by how every single point still resonates deeply within me today. Truth be told, I actually bore some hope that things would change for the better after I put out that article -- alas, my wish did not come true. My manager is still the same -- defensive, weak, inarticulate, inept and dumb. These are qualities that can't be changed overnight and it was indeed wishful thinking on my part that things would even improve!
So here I am, contemplating a job switch. Over the past few weeks, I saw a few jobs that I liked, but at the same time, I was not quite sure if I were up to it. It was at this point that I came across a video of Marissa Mayer (the current CEO of Yahoo!) who, in a Stanford Graduate Business school interview, exhorted the audience to always look for the smartest folks to work with and be in something that makes us feel a little comfortable (in business world parlance, step outside our comfort zone). This quickly made me cotton on to the fact that I should summon my courage and apply to jobs that are a few grades above my current payscale. Do I have the experience? Perhaps. Will the company want me? Perhaps. Will I be successful? Perhaps. And is there a chance that I might fail? Maybe! Life is really meant to be lived taking chances and a sum of our success net our failures. If I don't embrace the probability of failure, then I will never be able to bask in the probable success either. Such is life and its peculiarities.
I never like to end my blog post on a negative tone, and I really like how I am able - through writing - sort out my thoughts and all of the ostensibly confusing mind meandering...the "what-if"s, "should-if"s and "could-if"s. That's just the dark side of the mind, or the defensive nature of self, to discourage us from jumping into the unknown or leaping into untested waters. As Liz Gilbert so aptly said in her book, Big Magic, we could let fear join us in our life's journey but we should never fear be the driver. How true.
Extremely dejected that my career has not quite panned out the way it should and I don't see it changing the way I would like it to. Valentine's Day marks the end of my time with this unicorn startup - and the beginning of bigger, better things to come. Let there be light in our lives and let us promise ourselves to live a life larger than our fears and build dreams and not nightmares.
Please leave me a note at the end of my blog post if you like what I wrote or have suggestions and comments. Thank you!
No comments:
Post a Comment