If at first you don't succeed, keep trying

My sister (whom I love dearly) is a high-level management type at a Fortune 100 company. She makes a lot of money, has traveled much of the world in first class and regularly rewards herself with expensive jewelry, clothing and furniture. She brash, iconoclastic, popular…the picture of success and she’s done it mostly on the strength of her sharp personality and work ethic. She loves her company (warts and all) and loves her work. Pretty impressive for someone without a college degree!

I on the other hand went to college, a pretty decent one on the west coast, and ended up in civil service and have slowly been building a pension for the last 17 years. I have also traveled extensively but on the cheap. I regularly reward myself by eating high caloric meals or purchasing books on Amazon. My more modest achievements were accomplished through a very low-key, intelligent but empathic personality. People love talking to me and I've always had a knack for making someone feel good about themselves.

I’m also a hard worker-verging on workaholic- but only when the situation calls for it. I hate my company and my work, I’m chronically sick on the job and I’m finding it exceedingly difficult to maintain my low-key, people-pleasing outlook. A pretty bad situation for anyone, college degree or not.

I don’t recount this story to you just so that I can whine (although, I did get a good whine in). I also use it to illustrate my belief that passionate people tend to succeed while those who turn away from the hard work required of their passion tend to whither. This is classic example of not listening to the melody of our master numbers, interpreting the insistent refrains to take important risks as so much static.

I’ve been a poster child for this kind of wrong-headed thinking. I always wanted to write (technical writing, essays, columns, etc.) but felt it would lead me down the path toward bag lady-dom. Thus…

• I didn’t feel especially passionate at college and had no real plan when I finished.
• I didn’t feel especially passionate when I got my first jobs. I was just happy to have a position that had benefits and a pension.
• I boomeranged between several different types of work at the same agency with no real commitment. As soon as I found I the work insufferable, I bounced to another department…but the intervals between when the work was tolerable and when I detested it became shorter and shorter. There was virtually no honeymoon when I started my current job. I hated it the first day. I also lost hearing in one of my ears my second week on the job. It hasn’t returned yet.
  
• I no longer even feel well enough to have casual conversations with people at work ( which were more like professional listening-- can you tell I'm an INFP???)...these seemingly innocuous conversations were my way of networking and staying connected to the hiring powers that be. Instead, I cough alot and appear tired and edgy. Definitely not an asset.
  

I’m fairly confident I’m not the only one who’s done this in their lives…moving through it like it didn’t matter. I’m lucky though. I’ve finally figured out that it DOES matter. And that the hard stuff of working up to our potential must be done sooner or later…but it can’t be denied.