So It All Comes Down to This

Here’s the Meaning of Life According to Holly at This Point at the Ripe Old Age of 48:

(1) Be the bearer of God’s love to others.

(2) Use the gifts and talents God gave us.

(3) Do something good in the world.

But the question is this: HOW?

And the other questions are:  In one special way?  Or is a lot of little ways OK?

And a couple more: If I can see it so clearly when some other people finally get caught up in The Flow (of life) and dive in, why doesn’t The Flow (of life) ever come for me?  Will it ever happen, and if so, WHEN?

I read this verse in the Bible this morning: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  (Jeremiah 29:11)  Now, I’m not looking for cash when I think of prosper, just that abundant life biz and no longer spinning my wheels in the Qube farm, but doing actual meaningful stuff.  I guess I’m getting impatient again.  For the summer of puppy-training and bathroom renovation, I told myself to quit bitching and whining and just try to fit into my Qube and be a good girl.  It must be where I am meant to be.  Alas, the world of business has reared its ugly head again and gently reminded me that I’m not very fond of it.

It’s simply a convergence of events.  Both a coworker and my supervisor brought up the fact that last year’s substantial raise to get the editors’ salaries to poverty-level pay was supposed to be “just a start,” and that we were to receive the continuation of that pay shift this year.  (NOT.)  The dear coworker also reminded me that this is supposed to be a career, we are supervisors, we each hold college degrees, and we have 15 years of devotion to this company, so we should be making better pay than a starting shift manager at McDonald’s–one who has zero experience, for that matter.  I’d been ignoring the issue of pay in my attempts to be a good girl.  And then came the issue of training writers, which is simply not as easy as one would think…Each writer has a different learning style, I find.  I have one who is incredibly creative, and I have to rein in her wild ideas to suit nonfiction subjects such as spiders, military equipment, and geography.  (She is doing fine.  I find it easier to relate to her than the opposite…)  I have another writer who is more of  a technician and needs a cut-and-dried approach to our writing:  an if you see this, write that sort of method.  I enjoy the challenge of figuring out how people’s minds work and how to train them to do the job, but the problem is that I go home thinking, “How can I help this bright young man/woman learn to do the writing we need them to do?”  Add to that the realization that I earn crap, and I wonder why I bother…Well, a lack of real alternatives is one BIG reason.  And then last of all in the old bones dug up from the depths of my dirty little soul is the long-buried issue that I HATE the fact that we give writers a rating on every piece of work they do.  It’s like going back to school, but more nitpicky.  I don’t actually issue the numbers–it’s just a department practice, or maybe even a company one.  However, I don’t think it’s helping.  It’s hard to see the reaction of grown adults to this, yet I don’t know exactly how we’d be assured of quality work without it, as our writers work at home…Arrrrrrgggh.  And to think there are people who lost everything in Hurricane Sandy, and I am back to griping about the Qube again.  Ah well, I promised honesty in my insanity here…

At least I distilled life down to points 1, 2, and 3.  Maybe this newborn meditation practice of mine will shed some light on the How of it all.

I wonder if this will fit inside my Qube.

~ by rebuildingholly on October 31, 2012.