By My Wednesday email feed from Greg McKeown did not resonate with me (linear vs residual thinking)…but at the end of them email there was this amazing quote from Joseph Campbell.
I, of course, went down the internet rabbit hole and looked up Mr. Campbell. I’ll let you journey down that rabbit hole yourself, except to note that his idea of a monomyth is pretty cool. And to let you know he got shout out from George Lucas.
On a separate note, I wonder what I’d have to do to get a wikipedia page for me?
Back to the subject at hand – letting it go. My sister’s response to me sending her the above quote was a little bit of Frozen melodrama:
The quote and GIF got me thinking – am I holding onto expectations? Is that preventing me from moving forward with Mary 2.0?
I didn’t have my future mapped out, but I may have had some assumptions in place that well, made and Ass out of U and ME.
My mother and father worked at their medical practice for their entire life (he was the doctor, she was the nurse, accountant, laundress, etc), so growing up I had no idea what a career path was or should look like. And I didn’t get the idea of separation of work from personal life, because for my parents it was all one in the same. I carried that into my work and I suspect gave a little too much of myself to my various jobs…which by the way companies are TOTALLY willing to accept. I think one time I had a manager that told me to take a break. Otherwise, insane workaholic behavior was rewarded. Staying up all night or working weekends was praised. When I ran a team, I was very clear with my teammates that I was not condoning or rewarding that behavior, even though I often still worked/cared too much.
Do you know what happens when you carry on like that for too long? I do. Burnout and/or Health issues. I experienced both.
Until I finally drew the line and said I value ME more.
I’ve started a consulting business. This is my second entrepreneurship run (Amanda and I built a bakery in Macon while back).
I lamented to my sister yesterday as I prepared my first invoices that I wasn’t making a lot of $. And last night and today (especially after that quote), it hit me. My “plan” included an expectation of a certain amount of money. If I can let go of that, I can see what is waiting for me.
And so I let go of ‘corporate America’ and I free-fall into this new space.
The life I want: helping clients the way I want to; creating solutions that are fun and sustainable; balancing work and life; having the ability to take time off and experience new cultures and countries.