From
time to time life presents us with changes.
Maybe we move to a new house, get a new job, a new relationship, or a
new car. Sometimes these changes are
planned for and expected while other times they are a total surprise. Changes manifest themselves in many wondrous
ways.
Maybe your old car died.
Maybe you had to move to a new residence. Maybe you lost your job. Maybe you lost a person who was close to you. Obviously the many wondrous ways changes can
manifest themselves isn't always in the delightful, heart warming, fuzzy way
you would have liked it to come about.
“All Changes, even the
most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part
of ourselves; WE MUST DIE ONE LIFE BEFORE WE CAN ENTER ANOTHER.” ~ Anatole
France.
The one thing you can truly count on besides getting older
is that one way or another things will always change. Many people fear or hate changes and have
trouble coping with changes as they barge into your life and change
things. It’s so much easier, just like
getting older, to embrace them both with an open mind and child like wonder as you
look for the silver linings in the aspects of changes and getting older. It doesn't do any good to avoid changes or
attempt to keep from getting older.
How you embrace changes and getting older can determine how
happy and fulfilled you can be throughout your life. As I have stated numerous times through blog
posts in the past, success is the journey, not a destination.
True
Confessions Time –
On March 7, 2013, I was let go from the company I had worked
at for the last twenty and a half years.
It was un-expected, a total surprise, and definitely what one would
describe as an unexpected life change.
For the last seventeen years I drove a company vehicle, so not only did
I lose my job but I lost my means of transportation also!
I know something like this could devastate some people,
maybe most people. I know a lot of
people have lost their jobs since the collapse (or major hi-cup ) of the
economy in 2008. Success is the Journey
not the Destination.
What would be some Silver Linings of a situation like this?
I haven’t had my own vehicle in seventeen years. Each time the company I worked for would
switch out the vehicle I was going to be driving they would ask what I
wanted. I would always ask for a CD
player in the vehicle. Every other
vehicle the company owns has a CD player and for the last seventeen years all I
could get in a vehicle was AM/FM Stereo.
I will be getting my own New Vehicle with not only a CD
player but with the MP3 player adapter so you can listen to the music off your
MP3 player. I have never owned a new vehicle myself in the thirty-four
years I have driving. A Silver Lining!
I was initially upset, felt betrayed and angry. Really, who wouldn't be after faithfully
coming to work and helping grow and run a company for so long. After some serious soul searching I realized
that I was excited about the opportunity to try something new. I have
found that I am extremely happy and in a much better place since being released
from my previous employer. To find
another company that I may be able to help grow from a small company and build into something much bigger and more valuable
over time is exciting. This is a major
chance, exciting opportunity and wondrous Silver Lining of a magnitude that
many people never get an opportunity to attempt.
Since the seventh of this month I have used my time to secure a vehicle,
because let’s face it without reliable transportation your chances of securing
gainful employment are slim.
I have made a resume for the first time in twenty some
years, and it is much more impressive than what I had twenty years ago, another
Silver Lining!
I have started working out daily, not that I was in bad
shape to begin with for a man of my age.
It is amazing how quickly you can tone back up and rebuild muscle mass
you had when you were younger. I am
blessed that not so many years I was in awesome shape. There was a time when I would work out in the
morning, have breakfast and then go work in a tire warehouse all day long.
In retrospect my time with my previous employer changed me
in many ways. I am much older and a hell
of lot wiser than I was twenty years ago.
I have seventeen years of hard management experience learned and earned
in the trenches of real lives, hard business with brutal competition. I have learned that I am capable of things that
I would never believed possible twenty years ago.
Most people in life have no concept of their true potential
and capabilities unless pushed to extremes by extreme circumstances. I have been blessed over the years to face
some large and daunting challenges along my journey. Having survived and succeeded in these
challenges opened my eyes to my capabilities, gave me the confidence in my
abilities and convinced me of boundless opportunities I am capable of rising up
to overcome. The chance to face new
challenges with a new company excites the hell out of me as it is an
opportunity to grow to new and greater heights in my journey of success.
As a writer, starting a new book is as easy as taking a new
idea and beginning a new word document.
Given time and an active imagination and weeks of writing and you have a
new novel. Months of editing and
polishing and eventually you have a marketable new book.
In real life starting a new book with your life isn't so
easy. In real life you don’t know where
the story is going to end up or how the story is going to play out. In real life we are the characters in our
lives dramas and the decisions we make, our daily attitude toward the
situations we are dealing with, and the attributes our own characters will
largely determine if the outcome is positive or negative.
It is exciting as I enter a new phase, a new book, with new
chapters in my life.
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