Pretentious, Self-Righteous Essays

I’m the type of person who often takes blind leaps. I don’t know if I like to do this but this is certainly what I do when I’m unsure of what choice to make, i.e. when all options seem equivalently as good based on the knowledge that I have at that point in time.  I think  that a number of years ago I realized that the plunge is never as dangerous as we think it could be.  If we take this analogy a little further, I can say that I’ve been injured but always recovered.  The dust always settles, things needn’t always be neat, tidy and perfect, and there exist no situations from which we can’t learn. So when I feel like I need a change, I look at what I can’t control, then take risks where I can.  It’s better than life being stagnant, and me being indecisive.  I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and go.

Warning!  Wheels have been set into motion.  There can be no going back…

In my third year of working in an office environment, I had a disagreement with a colleague at a staff meeting.  It was one of the final meetings prior to the biggest event that we used to run in that company.  Here was the situation: we had a team contact us about registering late.  I, as the Office Manager, said ‘no’ to letting them in.  The event was sold out, registration had been open for half a year, and admitting them at that point in time would have required changing all of the plans that had already been made.  Game schedules would have had to be redone (registered teams approached a total of 2000), supplies, and accommodations  – in general – would cumulatively amount to [imho] more work than the money from their registration fee would have afforded us.  Our Marketing Manager strongly disagreed, stating that the effort would not only make the team (who may potentially be well-connected) happy, it would make us look good.  Needless to say, at the time I disagreed that we’d look “good” by breaking our rules for one team.  Well, long story short: we let the team in.  They were ecstatic.  The event went off seamlessly.  I got OT pay.  Everyone was happy.

The other day, we reached an application deadline.  There were postings, and there were applicants to these postings.  The deadline was for the applications to postings.  The day following this deadline, someone sent me a .. posting! I panicked and tried to think of ways of accommodating this late posting.  I thought perhaps of emailing his posting to all applicants to see if any of them were interested.  I even thought of extending the deadline so as to give this posting a chance at getting a great applicant.  I looked to the person running this posting/application process, and her advice was to keep our deadlines such as they are, and just let the poster know and find another reasonable solution. I would have killed myself to ensure that I accommodated this late request, but I was advised not to.  I feel badly about not going out of my way, but I am aware that it wasn’t necessary and that it was perfectly fair and fine to follow the deadlines such as they were laid out.

I have this strange feeling that the former experience shaped my inclinations for all future ones.  I suppose I could call it a “Customer-Service Oriented” attitude.  Does this make me understanding? a push-over? a good employee? or none of the above. Whatever the answer is, looking back, I know who I blame for the change.

When I got all wound up in knots planning my future – drawing out all of the possible outcomes, determining probabilities, trying to figure out the “best” course to take – Marlene would always tell me that I’m worrying about nothing.  You have no decisions to make.  Worry when you have a decision to make.

Mostly, she’d say this to shut me up.  But there was still a lot of wisdom in the words.  After all, she was right.  I didn’t have any real decisions to make.  Choosing between programs or courses.  Choosing between this entry level job or that one.  It didn’t matter.  None of it mattered.  You’re looking way too far in advance.  Just do it, then worry.  Even when you are forced to choose between two paths, that’s a good thing.  That’s where you want to be.

I took her advice.  I took time off school and worked.  I took different jobs.  I tested many different waters.  I stopped thinking and finally trusted that I’d grow and learn in any situation.  That’s what it was all about to me, anyway – growing and learning, not wasting time.  I had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I’ve been saying this a lot lately.  I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. I must have no decisions to make.  Off to change that!

If you want something done, give it to the person who’s busy. I still remember my high school English teacher saying this to me in my OAC year when I told him I was going to drop his Writer’s Craft course.  Or was it when I told him that I didn’t think I had time to do any additional extra-curriculars?  I can’t distinctly remember now, but it was certainly because he was trying to point out to me that it was foolish of me to free up my schedule in my final term of high school because I wanted to ensure that my grades didn’t drop, my Descartes (and all other contest) score(s) would be high, my clarinet playing didn’t suffer, and my performance in the high school musical didn’t suck.

It admittedly did (and does) get difficult to stay on track when you have too much free time on your hands.  You don’t feel more focused.  You feel less so, and it shows in lowered productivity.  In the case of my final term of high school, I was right in reducing my workload the way I did.  What none of my teachers knew was that I had been living over a restaurant that had then-recently turned into a bar that blasted music until 4:00 a.m.  My room was over the speakers.  Even with earplugs I couldn’t sleep.  If I didn’t find other times to get caught up on my sleep, I’d have been a zombie.  But instead my grades didn’t drop, my Descartes score was high, my performance didn’t suck, and … ok well, the clarinet playing suffered just a tad.  And since I was so successful in my supposition that a reduced workload would be worthwhile, for the first in many years, I started to cut out activities from my schedule.

The following Fall, after starting University, I remember not wanting to take on a job so that I could focus on my studies. The following summer, I didn’t want to take non-work-related courses so I could excel at my work.   Throughout the entire period, I took singing lessons and tried to meet and sing with other musicians in the city.  This I did occasionally.  The trouble I had with any of these paths (i.e. University, work, singing) was that I didn’t know why I was on them.  I felt like I would arbitrarily choose one, try my hardest at it, clear my schedule for it, and then use the experience to decide how I felt about it.  In this way, I unwittingly spent years “searching for myself” – an act that I had scoffed at as a teenager.  In the end, all I learned was that I liked incorporating elements of each into my daily life.  So, that is what I aimed for.  It was this balance that I strove for.  It became the guiding principle on which I based my decisions.

That was years ago.  Now I realize it was just my fear.  I rationalized my decisions because I was afraid to invest time in the things that mattered to me.  I was afraid of failure.  I aimed for the present because I was afraid of being disappointed by the future.  And this is because it is scary to invest time when you don’t know the “right” path to take.  It’s easier to take a non-committal attitude toward your career than to buckle down and decide This is it!  This is the direction that I’m going to take!  Now, I will aim to get there. It’s a lot like love.  What is the “right” path?

Years later, I still make this same mistake.  To work harder at my job or school?  Or to do neither? That is my question.  My fear is always what it has been: that I’ll wind up so far down a path that I only discover after it’s too late that it’s not where I want to be.  And I’m still the same person who invests 110% but is envious of those who succeed and don’t.

I’m tired, and I just don’t know if all my effort is worth it.