Screenshot Saturday
This screenshot was taken March 25, 2021. I’m not sure what compelled me to save this quote at that moment in my life. It was early in 2021. My mother-in-law was still alive, though we were growing more and more concerned about her health. I can’t remember if I had already said yes to going to grad school and becoming a principal. I do remember that just before my mother-in-law died in October, Josh told her that I was going to be a principal. But I don’t remember if that decision came in the spring or fall of that year.
But here’s what made me choose to reflect on it today. My life has been in a pretty steady state of change lately. I spent last year healing from past trauma and evolving into the person I am now. Just when I settled into this new identity, new persona, I decided to quit my job and go work somewhere else. Change has certainly been abundant lately.
This quote though reminds me of the first time I quit my job. “If you don’t like something, change it” I didn’t like my “mentor” and how she treated me, so I quit and made it so I never interacted with her again. “If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it”. There were some challenges in my new job, and at the time I didn’t think quitting again was the right answer, I changed the way I thought about it. I began to think about it as being just a job. It wasn’t a career, I had already had one of those. It was a just a job for paying the bills and making it so that one day I could save enough money to quit and be a full-time writer. Just a job. Adopting that thought helped me tolerate the things at work that bothered me. That is until I circled back to the first part of the quote. I am once again changing my job because I don’t like it anymore. That’s putting it mildly, but still, I’m changing it.
Change is scary. As someone who very much depends on a routine to keep my anxiety at bay, change is not fun. I’ve gotten more accustomed to it lately. In fact, I’m very much looking forward to this job change. I’m eager to start my new one. Ultimately, I think we shouldn’t be afraid of change. And we shouldn’t be afraid to initiate it for ourselves. I got lucky and have had some awesome results because of it. When I quit my job as a principal, that was intensely scary to do, but I did it. And now I’m not as afraid of making other changes. Quitting my current job and getting a new one really didn’t bother me. It only bothered me when I got worried I might not get hired somewhere else fast enough for my liking. I’ve been ready to quit for a while now. Not scared at all.
Think about it, how would your life be different if you adhered to the idea of changing things you don’t like? Or changing the way you think about things if you can’t actually change them? It’s an idea worth considering.
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