Do you know when to leave?

I was chatting with a friend recently about her job.  Like me, she has been on the radio for many years, but she finds herself in a situation where more and more is demanded of her, with very little input and no extra money.  She’s been moved around, her duties change monthly and she generally feels unappreciated and sorta bummed.  I get it and probably a lot of you do, too.  She is struggling with what to do next.

She asked me how I managed to thrive in my radio career, amidst rampant downsizing, consolidations, syndication and sadly, instances of horrible management and I thought about it.  First, I  learned to put myself in situations where I fit in, where I could grow and learn and hopefully, thrive.  But, I think the most important thing that I’ve learned over the course of my almost 30 year career, is to know when to leave.  Know when it’s time to move on.

The more I thought about it, the more I’m convinced that it’s one of the hardest things for most of us to do and yet it’s probably the most important.  Knowing when to leave.  It doesn’t just apply professionally, it applies to life in general.

I’ve left jobs that were obviously not a good fit, but the bigger leaps were when I left jobs where I was well-compensated and successful; when people looked at me and said “are you nuts”? I’ve moved from cities that I liked and the same question arose from friends and colleagues.  Logically, I knew that I was in a decent situation; I was leaving something that was working on some level, but it was no longer working for me, at my deepest level.  Full disclosure: I’ve also been told (okay, I was fired) to leave various jobs and to be honest, that worked out for the best, too.

I’ve heard from a lot of people lately who are worn out, stressed out, freaked out and they are stuck.  Stuck in the idea that they HAVE to make their current life work, because there is no alternative.  That it’s better to be in a horrible situation that you know, rather than leave it behind to seek out a better one, because maybe that better one isn’t out there.  I’ve used my career as an example, but it could be another part of your life.  Relationships, habits, reactions, friends, job, money, etc.  Whatever isn’t working in your life.  You don’t have to stick with it.

Sit and ponder your life and your choices and your decisions.  How many times have you made a tough choice that scared the crap out of you and then six months later, you look back thinking, “I wish I would have done that sooner.  Why did I wait so long”?  Sound familiar?  YES.  We instinctively KNOW when it’s time to leave, to move on, to move forward and yet it can be so hard to listen to our inner voice that’s telling us we’re not in the best place.  That inner voice that manifests as stress, restlessness, sleeplessness, anxiety, over eating, over drinking, frustration, sickness.

And think about this:  maybe moving forward is actually circling back.  Back closer to your family, back to what you originally wanted to do or be until life steered you in another direction; back to the healthier, more relaxed lifestyle that you had before you had kids/money/obligations/status, etc.  Maybe it’s time to ask yourself, “Is it time to leave”?

How about a mid-year reset?

 

I wrote this last December and realized this week, that I had abandoned much of what I pledged for 2012. As we get into the “silly season” of a presidential election I thought it might be relevant reminder for a lot of us, so I’m re-posting.  Or maybe it’s just a reminder to me that I had certain goals for this year and  since we’re halfway through, I need a kick in the pants to live them.

So, my friends how about a mid-year reset?

The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is kind of a netherworld between regret over the past year and the exciting potential to begin anew.  Time to mull over what worked and what didn’t, while you try and formulate the way forward into another year.

Maybe the past year was rough, maybe it didn’t live up to your expectations, maybe 2011 flew by and you didn’t lose the 20 pounds or get a better job or save as much money as you had hoped.  The beauty is that we all get a mulligan; a do-over in 2012.  Every year, every day for that matter, we can hit the re-set button and start again.

2011 was a better year for me than 2010; I made some personal progress in some areas that I felt that I needed to work on.  I developed some new skills and hobbies.  I let go of some stuff and I re-connected with some old friends.  As we all must plot the way forward into 2012, my goals for the coming year include developing more humility and grace.  I admire those traits so much in others and they don’t come easily to me.

You see, I have a tendency to evangelize.  I try to bend people to my way of seeing or doing things.  When I see the light, I want everyone to see that same light, to have that same epiphany that I’ve experienced.  It’s my ego, mixed with an equal part of wanting people to be happier, less frazzled, less scattered.  There are some philosophies and behaviors that I feel strongly about and I’m compelled to force them on others.  No more.

What I’ve realized is that I can only control me; I can only impose my will or my beliefs or my knowledge or my epiphanies on me.  Look, a lot of you have lived your lives this way for years.  I’m usually a little late to the party, when it comes to self-realization and self-control.  I got here through study,  introspection,  observation and finally, acceptance.  People are gonna do, what people are gonna do, regardless of how I think they should behave.

The basic message of Christmas is what crystallized this for me: “Peace on earth, goodwill toward men”.  Christians say they believe in Jesus as their personal savior;  his message fills their hearts and their lives, yet many Christians seem to ignore what I believe is Jesus’ main message: 1. We are all sinners and 2. Love thy neighbor. I don’t study the Bible (that’s a whole other post, my friends), but I’ve read it and those two statements seem to distill it all down into a very simple premise that I intend to follow, even though Jesus is not my personal savior.

My no-nonsense husband put it this way:  “God didn’t mean for it to be so complicated”.  YESSSSSS!  So, whether you are religious or a searcher, like me, it’s this:  Take care of your own business and stay out of everyone else’s.  We’re all flawed, messy humans and the only person that you can fix or control, is YOU.  That’s it.

We can guide, we can teach, we can influence and then, we must accept.  Simple.  We make life complicated and frustrating when we list all of the things that we ‘wish’ other people would do:  drive better, be more polite, go to church, don’t go to church, believe in God, don’t believe in God, vote differently, spend money, save money, raise your kids better, blah, blah, blah.  Look, we’re all ‘that person’; you know, the imperfect one.

So, in 2012, I will work on me; I vow to stop bitching about everyone else because that takes away valuable time from my true work.  I won’t worry about other people’s sexual orientation/diet/political views/spending habits/parenting skills/religion/work ethic.  To paraphrase the J-man, who so many of you follow, “it’s time to worry about the plank in our own eye, dudes”.  Simple?  Yesssssssss!

Reset, reboot….reject

What if we all had a reset button? Maybe in the middle of our forehead or more subtly placed behind our ear. You wouldn’t want to press it too often; maybe never.  But if you did, you would go back to your default settings.  Back to before you screwed up.  We could go back to how we were as children.

Imagine that.   No bias, no guilt, no pre-conceptions, nothing.  Just a clean slate.  I kind of like that idea.  I like it even though I’ve often proclaimed that everything that I’ve done in my life has gotten me to this very moment; lessons learned, mistakes made, success achieved, along with pain, guilt, and failure.  We are all the jumbled events of our lives and our choices and sometimes that results in a lot of unhappiness, doesn’t it?

Or maybe that’s just me.  I’m trying mightily to expunge the demons of my past.  Alcoholism and the pain and mistrust that it infused into my relationships are central to my struggle. So much from that part of my life still dogs me, even though I hope that I’ve put it behind me.  But, you never can because people don’t forget.  I don’t forget.  I can’t.

So, there are times that I’d like to jab that reset button and make it all go away.  To open my eyes after my reboot to a fresh slate.  To see things for the first time, the way a child does.  With amazement and curiosity and freshness.  No reflexive defense mechanisms, no automatic responses to anxiety or insecurity, no fear of being hurt or burned or rejected, no manic need to try and control the world and make it bend to my needs and will.

Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?  But, life on earth means that we are forced to carry the burdens we’ve wrought and of course, to celebrate the goodness and happiness we’ve achieved. The reset erases everything good, bad or inconsequential.  So, most of us wouldn’t want to sacrifice the good stuff to get rid of the bad.  Some of us might consider it, though.

I mentioned my idea to my husband and he was unequivocal, “no, all that stuff has made me who I am”.  He’s right, but there are times when some of us aren’t too keen on ‘who we are’.  I look at who I was as a child and who I am today and I marvel at the stuff that seems to have glommed onto my psyche and has made me so different from the 5 year-old me.  Or the 10 year-old or 15 year-old, for that matter.  Let’s not mention the 25 year-old.  She is dead to me.

These experiences are like barnacles on a rock; after awhile, you can’t see the rock.  It becomes covered and misshapen and completely overtaken by the foreign organisms. The rock is no more.  But, it’s under there just like our essence or soul is there, buried underneath our life experiences.

So, how to break off the barnacles? How to re-emerge as the fresh, open, trustful, happy, innocent, loving, curious ‘me’?  I’m not sure, but I do know that it’s a process and it takes time.  I feel like I’ve at least recognized that I’m covered in barnacles and maybe I’ve been able to slough a few off with introspection, time and a little counseling.  The process continues and I guess we all have to reach a point where we just live with our past.  We acknowledge that being human, means screwing up.

The Buddhists say that as humans, we are born to suffer.  It’s unavoidable and so we must learn to deal with it, regardless of whether it’s self-imposed by bad choices and behavior or is dropped onto us by other suffering humans.  Being born means we need to expect it, accept it and do what we can to lessen our own pain and the pain of others.  Rather than push away the discomfort, swim in it, observe it, feel it deeply.  The alternative is probably not as healthy, particularly if it involves drugs, alcohol, food or other self-medicating behavior.

So, no reset button.  We all have to live with our choices, even though a lot of them suck.  Here’s to moving forward with better choices, eh?

I’ll let you be you; now let me be me…..

The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is kind of a netherworld between regret over the past year and the exciting potential to begin anew.  Time to mull over what worked and what didn’t, while you try and formulate the way forward into another year.

Maybe the past year was rough, maybe it didn’t live up to your expectations, maybe 2011 flew by and you didn’t lose the 20 pounds or get a better job or save as much money as you had hoped.  The beauty is that we all get a mulligan; a do-over in 2012.  Every year, every day for that matter, we can hit the re-set button and start again.

2011 was a better year for me than 2010; I made some personal progress in some areas that I felt that I needed to work on.  I developed some new skills and hobbies.  I let go of some stuff and I re-connected with some old friends.  As we all must plot the way forward into 2012, my goals for the coming year include developing more humility and grace.  I admire those traits so much in others and they don’t come easily to me.

You see, I have a tendency to evangelize.  I try to bend people to my way of seeing or doing things.  When I see the light, I want everyone to see that same light, to have that same epiphany that I’ve experienced.  It’s my ego, mixed with an equal part of wanting people to be happier, less frazzled, less scattered.  There are some philosophies and behaviors that I feel strongly about and I’m compelled to force them on others.  No more.

What I’ve realized is that I can only control me; I can only impose my will or my beliefs or my knowledge or my epiphanies on me.  Look, a lot of you have lived your lives this way for years.  I’m usually a little late to the party, when it comes to self-realization and self-control.  I got here through study,  introspection,  observation and finally, acceptance.  People are gonna do, what people are gonna do, regardless of how I think they should behave.

The basic message of Christmas is what crystallized this for me: “Peace on earth, goodwill toward men”.  Christians say they believe in Jesus as their personal savior;  his message fills their hearts and their lives, yet many Christians seem to ignore what I believe is Jesus’ main message: 1. We are all sinners and 2. Love thy neighbor. I don’t study the Bible (that’s a whole other post, my friends), but I’ve read it and those two statements seem to distill it all down into a very simple premise that I intend to follow, even though Jesus is not my personal savior.

My no-nonsense husband put it this way:  “God didn’t mean for it to be so complicated”.  YESSSSSS!  So, whether you are religious or a searcher, like me, it’s this:  Take care of your own business and stay out of everyone else’s.  We’re all flawed, messy humans and the only person that you can fix or control, is YOU.  That’s it.

We can guide, we can teach, we can influence and then, we must accept.  Simple.  We make life complicated and frustrating when we list all of the things that we ‘wish’ other people would do:  drive better, be more polite, go to church, don’t go to church, believe in God, don’t believe in God, vote differently, spend money, save money, raise your kids better, blah, blah, blah.  Look, we’re all ‘that person’; you know, the imperfect one.

So, in 2012, I will work on me; I vow to stop bitching about everyone else because that takes away valuable time from my true work.  I won’t worry about other people’s sexual orientation/diet/political views/spending habits/parenting skills/religion/work ethic.  To paraphrase the J-man, who so many of you follow, “it’s time to worry about the plank in our own eye, dudes”.  Simple?  Yesssssssss!