Move Number 18

It has been a while since I have posted, but this time I have a good reason. I am changing jobs, companies and even states. I have lived here for the last 5 years, and it has been an incredible journey that I never could have foreseen. I think that I have matured a lot. I say matured but that is a nice way of saying that I look and feel a whole lot older after my time here. I came to go to school and be able to provide for my family, and I accomplished that goal.


Yet somewhere along the way I lost sight of my goal. Generally that means that the goal doesn't get accomplished, but that wasn't the case. I guess that since my existence here was formed around going to school, I had to finish, but somehow my attention and effort really switched to my career after about my first year of school. It wasn't supposed to be that way of course. I was supposed to get an easy part-time college student job and focus on getting a diploma, but that didn't last long. First of all, it was a flawed plan. I had a family: a wife and three kids. Part-time jobs don't support families. Second, it just isn't in my nature.

So after a year of struggling and depleting our savings from my pre-college career, I got serious about my job, and school slowly slipped from my priority list. I kept going, because I had committed to it and commitment is a part of who I am (go ahead and laugh), but my focus was on succeeding at work. Now I am leaving that job, which became an all-consuming factor in my life, and on my way out of the door I am realizing a few things.


1. I will never know what I don't know, so I had better watch out for it.
2. All I can do is my best and sometimes that just isn't good enough. And that is OK. I'll live.
3. School is over. In every aspect. It is time to get to work.


So with that knowledge I am approaching a new career in a new industry. I am going to do my best, and maybe it will work out great and I will make lots of money, etc., etc. or maybe I will fail and life will suck and I will have to do something else. It is both exciting and a bit daunting, but either way, I will live. There are things in my control that I have to take care of: spiritual matters, family concerns, expenditures in their many forms. But the rest will come and go. Good times and bad. Plentiful and scarce. And I think I am OK with that.


Am I ready to move on? Yes, it is time. Am I sad to go? Yes, I am. It is another chapter of my life closing, an unexpected chapter maybe, but a chapter I will label with the word "college" and stick on the shelf. What is next? Well, I have a family to provide for and raise, and I still haven't completely ignored the possibility of an MBA, despite my less-than-exciting GMAT score. We will see what the future holds, and I hope that you (who bothered to read my personal ramblings on my blog) are there with me.