taking chances

A while back, Kim Klassen wrote to those of us in her Beyond Layer class about taking chances (I'm terribly behind in her class). I have always lived my life safely and I have always done the normal thing. I have wrote about that before. The biggest drag on my life in recent years has been my job. Now I know that I should not complain. I know that I am lucky to have a job--a good job with a decent company (most of the time) and with very nice benefits. This is what some people themselves dream about--especially in this economy; it's just that I had no passion for it anymore. It was worse than feeling like a cog in a machine. Honestly, I am okay with that because at least the cog has purpose. I felt like I was a cog spinning outside the machine for several years. But I felt like I could not quit . . . at least not without another opportunity so I could continue to meet my responsibility to support my family financially.

A couple of years ago, I was about to take a big chance. I was going to go work for a former boss (the best boss I ever had) at the company she had started working for as a Vice President. I was going to move out of Indiana and back to my home state of NY (I will always think of that as home) and I was going to be able to work from home full time. I was as close as I could have been but then my former boss got disillusioned with her job and experienced some management changes that caused her to take the chance and resign so she could pursue studies in bio-ethics and try to get a job in academia. I felt like it was the right thing to do for her and in addition, I felt like she was lucky and brave to take that chance (but also, I realized she somewhat set up for it since she had reached retirement age at the company and while, perhaps not drawing a large pension because it was early retirement age, she at least had health benefits . . . let's face it, that is a big and maybe the biggest reason why people work for corporations in the US! Private insurance is just too expensive.) So in the long run, it all may be for the best.

After that fell through, I (admittedly) badgered my husband into buying a vacation home in the a town called Raquette Lake, NY which is in the Adirondacks. This is one of my favorite places in the world. It is another chance that may not be paying off right now (we do plan to rent it out but are off to a slow start on that!). The real motivator was to just do something toward my dream of moving out of Indiana and be able to spend longer amounts of time there. The realistic idea is that after we retire, we can sell our house in Indiana and split our time between Raquette Lake and Idaho (another favorite place and where my husband has family). The, perhaps, unrealistic idea is to be able to go there for a month and work from there for 2 or 3 weeks and take a little vacation time, too. My husband tells me I'm dreaming about that and I probably am, but I also have some work colleagues who have said that it should not be a dream and I have to agree! Why not, right? Even there, I would have all the tools I need (though cell phone service is spotty, but there is a perfectly fine land line). But not sure . . . not many people do things like that at my company; I just think they should. There is really no thought of moving there year round and permanently, though. It is a town that has no kids. The school is 20 miles away . . . just not a place to bring up kids.

I did recently make one small step and I got a new job in the same company I work in. It is not a major chance, but it is something. I think I will like it okay, but I'm off to a slow start. One thing I know is I do like my new boss better than my old one.
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The picture above is of my daughter, Margot. I like the way she appears in the picture: she appears to be at once up to something and dreaming of something. She wants to be a veterinarian or a paleontologist or a marine biologist/dolphin trainer when she grows up. I love her dreams and aspirations.