Tales of Eagle eggs and career quandries
I'm having one of those frantic, everything is on fire kind of days. My financial services client in SF needs accounting data restored from last nights backup and I've been having backup issues for the last three days. At three other clients there are also fires to fight.
But right now I'm waiting on hold. I thought I'd check my yahoo mail for something to relax me and I opened a newsletter from the SF Zoo (I'm a member - with a toddler I go to the zoo - a LOT).
The first article was about eagles that have mated at the zoo and a picture of two baby chicks:
How exciting is that? Baby eagles. The zoo raises some to about 1 week and then placed in wild nests on Catalina Island.
I wonder if it's strange for the adult eagles to suddenly have chicks where before they had none? Do they see them as a gift from the Great Eagle?
The zoo raises the rest of the chicks to 7-8 weeks and puts those on Santa Cruz island.
All to help the declined population of bald eagles wiped out from the use of DDT which made their shells too thin to hatch eggs.
I then followed a link (http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=10091) to a story about the first bald eagle egg laid on Santa Cruz island in 50 years!
This gives me hope; hope for the future; hope for a world I want my daughter to inherit.
I have a dilemma of a more personal nature, although what can be more personal than Bald Eagles, I ask? I have a career dilemma.
On Tuesday I had dinner with my manager and the owner of the company. I currently work 3 days a week, but their invitation was to work full time and take on a slightly different but better in some ways, more challenging in others sort of role.
The owner also threw in a couple hints about Ava's future school (and he meant elementary + high school!) being $400K and what about money I need to save for my future. I know, he was trying to appeal to my sense of security and desire to take care of my daughter, but it bugged me. Not in a way I noticed at first, but over the last couple days.
I get that I need to save for my future, and I'm probably not saving enough. Sure, I can make more than double my current earnings by working 5 days vs. 3. I know that. The dilemma I'm facing is whether to move towards a future of technology, which doesn't ignite any sort of passion in me at all. At all. Twelve years in technology has sucked all of the passion out of it. Or do I stay with 3 days a week but leave time to be with Ava, leave time for writing, and leave time for yoga.
I feel like there are two divergent paths in front of me. I feel if I took this job I would be working a lot - a minimum of 45 hours a week - and I keep thinking that my one and only child is still a little girl. She turned 2 yesterday and as independent as she's getting, she still needs me. Am I crazy to give up significant money for time with my daughter?
I have worked those crazy hours - even crazier. I fear going down that path again, because then I was passionate about technology, now I'm not. Now I would be doing it for money, and I really don't do anything well doing it for money.
Argh...
On the fun side of things, I led my first ever yoga class yesterday. It was about ten minutes long and with one person - the 60 year old office manager at my Wednesday client site. Woo hoo! I made up a pose I called downward-desk-dog with hands on the edge of the desk leaning back into the hips. Now that was fun!
I shall keep you posted.
posted by Julie @ 12:47 PM
2 Comments:
oh julie. first of all, a related fyi about me: it's not the idea of making money at a creative endeavor that currently gets me blocked, but rather the idea of applying energy toward a plan or a specific goal of attainment, when my heart is just not in it at the moment.
please forgive me, but i have to say: the idea of taking on more hours exclusively for more money sounds like a terrible idea to me. please carefully consider doing what makes your heart sing as much as you can, and MINIMIZING what you do because you feel you have to, for money. seriously. i think you're the opposite of crazy for wanting to spend as much time with your daughter as possible right now. and all those daily moments the two of you have together is WAY more important than what school she attends, if it comes down to that, which it may not anyway. that was a smart thing for your boss to bring up to manipulate you into this, but does it have the ring of truth on a heart level, or on a fear level?
i think taking on more hours doing a task that does not nourish you would be subscribing to an idea of scarcity, but that staying on the path where you do more and more of what you love - teaching yoga - and spend lots of time with ava will fill your life and your spirit with more and more abundance, on every level. in my observation, the way we think about money and the compromises we believe we must make in its name determine our flow more than our salary. go with the real flow! stay in the stream of joy! think of the synchronicities you have experienced, maybe reread your own posts. those are clear and loving messages, and they ain't about spending more time at the office.
of course i support you whatever you decide to do. only you can know what's really right for you and your family right now. i just had to say what i really think.
peace to you.
me again. i've been thinking about you and what i wrote, and i hope it wasn't too strong and therefore unhelpful. i'm a bit free with the personal opinions sometimes. anyway, you're in my thoughts, and i hope things are clearing up for you. like stef says above, follow your heart and gut. peace.
Post a Comment
<< Home