The Thursday! Newsletter 1-22: Stability isn't Standing Still
Volume 1, Issue 22
I hit an anniversary this week that I never wanted to hit.
Monday was my 32nd work anniversary. Now, I've moved from the agency for which I originally worked to another one and I got shoved out of my original position into another position, but I've stuck around. As best I can tell right now, I'll keep on sticking around. My position isn't likely to go away any time soon and every year I turn in a position that demands very little from me except that I swallow my pride and accept that I'm the guy on the bottom of the org chart forever is a little more in my monthly retirement check when I do finally decide to pack it in.
That's not likely to happen anytime soon because I am, quite frankly, a coward. I've spent so long craving job security over challenge and growth that I am afraid, in my heart of hearts, that I might not know how to do anything else. It bothers me that I've stayed in that place for as long as I have and it also bothers me that I've let the fear grow to be as large at it is. I didn't realize how much it's bothered me until I noticed the two-day funk into which I've sunk because of it.
I'm sharing this because the world in which we live is, well, a hot mess and the whole job and career "thing" is as messy as it's been in my lifetime. You used to be able to trade off job security for salary relatively easily and, believe it or not, cheaply. That's not quite as possible now. Employers have figured out they can automate positions far more easily and they can have one person do many different things. The job market has been so soft for so long that most employees simply don't have the power to push back against the most ridiculous demands because there are plenty of people to hire. We thought that was changing recently but, nope. Not changing very much at all, nor is it likely to over the next few years (though you never know. We might get lucky).
Right now, I'm looking right at one of the biggest fears of my life -- the fear that I'll end up as the old man stocking shelves at WalMart until I die. It is possible there isn't a job out there for me that'll cover the rent. I may never be able to buy a house, even the humble and lovely little house I'd love to have in a town that isn't half as expensive as the one in which I live. I've been in the same place for 32 years and I'm not sure I even know how to be a good employee somewhere where I have to think and work on my own. I think I know how. I believe I remember. But...there are doubts. Big ones.
And a resume? Oh, please! I've been out of the market for so long I'm not even sure what a resume is supposed to look like any more.
But maybe there's hope and that's what I most want to share with you this week. Stability is tempting because stability is easy. Stability is also a myth. You don't have to stand with both feet on steady and unchanging ground in the same spot to have stability. You can be in motion, stepping surely toward a place you want to be. A strong stride is stable, too. You can be stable on one leg. Ask one of my best friends who is has earned many degrees of black belt in Aikido about that. You can be stable while tumbling or stable while running hither and yon. All "stability" means is that you aren't out of control.
Even if you aren't fully in control, you can still be stable, so long as you know what you want to do when things stop shaking. When you know you can move without fear in a direction that you think will work for you, you're stable.
I've been in the same place for 32 years. Was that stability? I thought so but the more I've thought about it recently, the more unhappy and even depressed it's made me. I've become a bit of a mess the last couple days because I've come to realize my position wasn't stable, it was stagnant. I wasn't strong and in control and I'm still not. I'm not moving nor growing nor even in what you'd consider a healthy employee/employer relationship. They pitched stability to me but they really sold me stagnation and I accepted it for way too long.
Why am I still there? Fear. Like I said.
But I'm becoming less afraid every day.
I don't know what I'll do next. Maybe this writing thing will take off, though judging from how many people read the stories I post on my web site, that's not the best hope in the world for me. Maybe I'll figure out the whole resume thing and find a new gig where I can love what I do and the people with whom I work can love what I do there. You never know!
All I know is that stability is for suckers and I'm tired of being a sucker. I don't think 32 ought to become 33, fear or no fear. What do you think?
(Psst! Want an autographed copy of "One Hungry Werewolf and Other Monstrous Rhymes"? Drop me a line and I'll tell you how. It's easy! One for $15 and two for $25.)
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What I Wrote and Read Last Week
"A Giant on the Way", a poem about an old man and a giant that may or may not be an analogy.
"The Hopeful Hour", a sweet little story about some books.
I'm reading about a vast "basement" underneath the Lincoln Memorial that is definitely giving me story ideas.
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Here Are the Arts and/or Letters I Promised
John James Audubon's illustration of Arctic Hares. I think we could use some fluffy bunnies right about now.
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One Last Thing
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