A close friend asked me the other day whether my attitude has changed because I'm getting older or wiser. After being stumped for an answer, I just replied that I'm more experienced about life (which is probably another way of saying I'm older and wiser). You see, when I was younger, I believed that anything was possible if I just set my mind on it. Less than a year after graduating from college, I convinced myself that my dream job as a technical editor for a trade magazine would make me happy forever (or at least until I retired). But after six years of tight deadlines and endless travel, I convinced myself that I just wanted a 40-hour a week job that had a reasonable commute. I got my wish and I went to work as a technical writer for a startup (for what I thought was going to be happily ever after)--only to bounce around in Silicon Valley for another 20 years trying to stay ahead of endless software release cycles and the (seemingly) never ending layoffs.
Through the best of the boom times and the worst of the bust times, my experiences have taught me that I'm not always going to get my way (which is humbling for me), and even if I do get my way, things never really end up being happily ever after anyway. So, rather than trying to change conditions (like people, places, things, situations, and outcomes) to suit myself, I'm just trying to change myself to suit the conditions as they are--hard as it all may be to accapt.
When I surrender my ego to the grace of God, I am then able to make lemonade from lemons.
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