When things work out for the better
Being ok with the words 'Thank you for your interest' and realising I am exactly where I am meant to be.
I recently received an email with these exact words ‘Thank you for your interest’ in the opening sentence, I could instantly tell with these five words that I wasn’t going to make it to the next round. I had diligently sent off my application in hopes of making it to the second selection process but alas I did not make the cut from the 640 applicants that applied. I was in the middle of doing exercise when this particular email arrived and so I went from sweating and exercising to crying and exercising. It was oddly cathartic, bawling my eyes out whilst holding various yoga and strength poses. I felt a mixture of disappointment and strangely a sense of relief, maybe it wasn’t the path I was meant to be on and secretly deep down my body knew all along.
The rest of the day comprised of drinking tea and sitting outside in the last of the oddly warm autumn weather, reading a fluffy book which I already knew the ending of to calm my nervous system and give myself a break. It made me reflective and think about all of the times I had applied for jobs and how some worked out and some didn’t. How when I looked back at certain things I realised that it actually worked out for the better.
There was the time in 2019 when I was looking for a new direction and most of the jobs I was applying for meant that I would have to move and start again but they never panned out. I had a pattern of attending the interview or interview and task stage (aren’t they fun!) but not making it past the final hurdle. It wasn’t until late 2019 that I ended up getting a flurry of offers and they all were jobs were I lived. Considering now what the world went through the next couple of years I am actually very grateful that they didn’t work out and I got a job close to home. As I think the uncertainty of a new job, a move and creating a new life would of been even more anxiety inducing on top of what occurred.
There have been several scenarios where things seemed like a fork in the road and that when I thought I was on the trajectory I wanted to be on things then changed. Often I would think ok, right this is where I am meant to be and then somehow events happened or the deep urge to move on occurred and either something happened that was out of my hands to push me to that decision or I had reached that decision on my own accord.
I think a lot of the time I used to follow the old adage of the success myth and that my life had a to fit a set of tick boxes that had been designed as a cookie cutter mould of what success should look like for a person, or specifically a woman.
I remember in my 20’s making lists of things I wanted and now looking back at them ( I recently had a clear out - so found lots of old notebooks) I realised a lot of things I thought I wanted didn’t actually translate to the truth. They were what I thought I wanted due to what was being projected as the ultimate markers of success. Now in my 30’s I have never been more acutely aware of what I actually want versus what I think I wanted and have the confidence in myself and my decisions to make my own path.
It feels freeing but it also feels scary, that balance of being in charge of what I want but also trying to be realistic to how ever the chips may fall.
I think its all part of a process and however you respond to this splinters off to whatever is meant to be next. Even this piece of writing, its totally different to what I thought I was going to put out this week. I had started a piece about relationships and how they evolve over time and it was going to be about them expanding, contracting and changing but instead this piece suddenly arrived in my head. I was more receptive to it and so I parked the original piece and this then seemed to birth what I am writing now. It seemed that this was what I meant to write as I had so much more that I wanted to say.
I feel ultimately what we learn becomes a part of who we are and I feel like that it’s down to how you interpret this and how you adapt each experience.
I think when you open yourself up it makes you slow down and it makes you take in more perspectives and not necessarily the same ones you always prescribe to.
I am ok with where I am and I know I have to trust the process, the good, the bad, the boring, the interesting and the uncomfortableness - the whole spectrum.
No journey is straight forward and for every ‘thank you for your interest’ there will be a ‘congratulations’ and I am ok with not knowing which one it will be. The right YES! will appear when its meant to be.
‘Don't let go of your courage the moment things stop being easy or rewarding.
Because that moment?
That's the moment when interesting begins.’
Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic
Have you experienced a fork in the road? Have you had a moment when the right yes has appeared? I would love to know.
I was unemployed from the end of 2008 through June 2010, 15 years ago, when I was 55. Getting a job, any job, in that economy and at my age, was almost impossible. So my husband and I became managers of maintenance for an apartment complex (poverty with a view) in a beautiful mountain valley. Long story short, we eventually had to return to the city and were able to stay with friends while we resettled. At the midpoint of that time, when I received a message that I was hired after being interviewed by an attorney whose long time assistant had abruptly quit, we were still in transition. I said yes, sorry I missed your first message, I will be there with bells on Monday! After a brief introduction interview, he asked "Are you sure you can handle being a one-girl office?" I said, "Give me the key."