Stills from Metallica's "Unforgiven" video. Heavy, and not just because it's metal.
Olympic hangover: watching television last night was so dull compared to the last two weeks. The United States racked up the most medals, but it was amazing to see perseverance from all corners of the globe. Go World indeed. Closing ceremonies rocked, but NBC did a little too much commercial break editing and screwed the audience out of some iconic performances.
Fitness goals continue, I was informed by Mike, the personal trainer at the Y that has been watching my progress, that I am currently sitting in 6th place in the Y's Summer Sweat Challenge. I have been diligent but not competitive about participating... until now. I'm not going to go crazy, but I might step it up a little to score a few more points and see if 5th place is in reach.
That said, the last of my size 16 pants (I guess it's OK to reveal the size I was now) have retired to the Goodwill pile. Out went the khaki, gray and black dress pants. I am now down to only two pairs of dress pants, both size 12 - giddy! - that will have to do until I can go shopping again.
Dad's birthday is looming this Saturday, and my mom is being so optimistic and insisting we celebrate his life instead of mourning his passing. Lesson learned, how nice.
I had leadership training here at work last week, and although it was a little hippy-touchy-feely, I learned quite a bit about myself. *blows out breath* Where to begin?
Day 1 we were asked to punch circles out to give our assessment of how well we take care of our mind, body and spirit. I punched out two medium circles for mind and body, then punched out a smaller but still medium sized circle for spirit. Then we took a quiz that stunned me, all my parts were more or less perfectly equal and in sync. When asked, as the youngest member of the "balance" group how this could be, I explained that significant life changes forced the issue. Overwhelmed, I cried, thinking "I'm going to be OK..."
For years, I have been wondering about my life path, most significantly, what the hell I'm doing here. Working in hospital admissions is not my career path, and was certainly not part of my life goal. When asked to reflect on why we were attending the conference, I prayed for an answer that would satisfy my ego, which had been battered by my layoff several years ago.
After three days of lectures, dialogue, skits, "sharing circles" and such, I began thinking about my favorite parable, that of the man who gave three servants bags of gold that they were to use to amass a fortune. The one he gave 5 bags of gold to returned with 15; the one with 3 returned with 9; but the man who was given only one bag returned the bag unused and untouched. When asked why, the servant responded that he was scared to lose it and didn't use it. The man explained that it was like having a talent and not using it, was worse than robbery.
For a clearer explanation, I refer to Metallica's "Unforgiven."
Anyway, I have bemoaned the last few years the loss of opportunity to use my talents as a copywriter, event planner and designer. Well, I've used this blog to keep up my writing, don't really care about the event planning, and I have overachieved in the designer thing with all the art shows this year. But I hate the feeling my career is over.
Ah, but I have one little bag of talent that while I have used it, has gone unnoticed and under appreciated by me.
Back when we were living in St. Louis, I was hired by a top accounting firm to be a graphic designer. Sure, they liked my work, but when I agreed to work for them, I was pulled aside by the hiring manager and told exactly why I was hired: I was the kind of person that would unite instead of divide and at present, the current staff hated each other. Wha...? I ended up staying in the job for 6 months, the only reason I didn't stay longer was because we moved back to Michigan. And because of that, I was offered a position in the Detroit office, the hiring manager a little off on her geography.
Working in admissions is not easy, you see lots of anger, lots of tears, lots of confusion. I don't get to use all of my talents, but I do use one, that being a welcoming, pleasing person that can smooth over a crisis as a minor bump in the road. It's a talent I didn't see as a talent, yet I am using it willingly in service at my job.
Was this God's answer to me? Are we sometimes allowed to exercise freewill, but in other cases, he rearranges the chess board, so to speak, as a request that we serve Him in a capacity for which He needs us?
Pretty heady thoughts for someone answering phones.
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