Preface: I have always been very ambitious and very calculated when it comes to my career. When I graduated college I told myself I would stay at my very first job for exactly one year (which I did), my second job three years (did that too), and my third would depend on the situation and circumstance but at that point, I would have worked long enough to have an idea of what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be and if I wasn't at that point by my third job, then I would need to do whatever it took to get there. The third job to me was that transition point, where you've had enough experience to forge the beginnings of a career, but not enough to say you're in it yet. The third job is the turning point...
It's Saturday morning and I feel like I just ran a marathon. I lost 6 pounds in three days, I have woken up around 4 am almost every morning, I've not slept solidly through the night once, and I have been stressed to the point of tears. I'm exhausted, but smoke-free, and I found myself walking outside last night with a stupid piece of gum in my mouth thinking, damn this non-smoking shit sucks.
People say you can't plan everything, but I think that's a load of horse shit (pardon my French). You can absolutely plan everything. It doesn't mean it's all gonna work out the way you planned, but you can certainly fucking plan it....
Yesterday I told my current job I'd be leaving them after one year and you'd think after having done this twice before it would get easier, but it doesn't. It in fact gets harder, because the more experience you've poured into something, the more you've given of yourself, and to let it go, even after only a year, is a difficult thing to face. (i.e., I am a wimp and almost blew chunks)
I received an opportunity too good to pass on. It wasn't planned, or expected, or even slightly calculated. It just.... happened...
They took the news so well it was startling, and I wanted to puke, and after it was all over, I wanted to sleep. I wanted to rest, and wake up feeling strong, but instead I came home and answered 20 questions about 401(k)s and health plans. It took everything out of me, and I wanted to smoke so badly because then I wouldn't have to answer shit for anybody. I could take a walk with a cigarette, and my thoughts, and feel neither loneliness or pity. I could feel relief. But no...I didn't. I didn't smoke so instead I felt stressed, sadness, loneliness, anger, and then after all of that...I felt a tinge of happiness. Happy that an opportunity I have literally been dreaming about since I was 16, may have just become a reality. This sequence of events is to me a sign that I am doing the right thing. That a new chapter is about to occur in my life around the same time I am closing out an old one... smoking. It couldn't be more perfect if I had planned it :)
And that with great sacrifice comes great achievement... at least that's what Napoleon Hill wrote... and according to Wikipedia he was a smart guy.
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