A Bear, A Bear, A Bear
Jul. 18th, 2019 08:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebe
Yesterday I asked a friend for a no-interest loan to pay off a high-interest credit card. He's rich, so I'm not sure if he'll miss the money, but...I'm torn between insane gratitude and shame. I thought I was smarter about money than that, but I guess not? And now I'll be in debt to my friend for at least a few years once I get out of the unemployment hole. It's amazing to have friends like this; I just wish I had been responsible enough to not need them.
I've applied to six additional places yesterday and pinged the recruiter at Coursera about any progress made with my candidacy. After thinking on it a lot, I thought I would divulge that it wasn't my choice to leave 23andMe, give a fairly accurate reason, and dive right into what I've learned through it. I'm hoping that this information will head to the VP and kind of reset the relationship a little bit. One of Coursera's core values is 'deep honesty', and in the end I thought it would be best to own my experience and speak a bit more forthrightly about it.
I was listening to a podcast yesterday about how not to just "bounce back" from rejection, but "bounce forward". (The podcast was WorkLife with Adam Grant, if you're interested.) It included a section on being fired and the healthiest way to view it. One woman related her personal experience, and it sounded a lot like mine -- she blamed the company first, and then herself after a while. But really, it's the *relationship* between employee and employer that didn't work out. While both sides may have contributed individually to the faulty fit, ultimately I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time for myself. I can own my part of this and use it to move forward.
Moving forward, I'll try to have a better perspective about my environment and make sure my focus is in the right place -- giving to others as much as I can, whether that's time or experience or perspective. It can be very difficult to be giving in a corporate environment because there are so many demands on your time, but I'm hoping that I can manage my workload to work smarter, not harder. Batching tasks, knowing myself well enough to set boundaries in the proper places, and using tools to overcome procrastination are all new lessons I've learned and I can't wait to put them to proper use.
Twitter has been a bad scene for stoking my anxieties this week. The business about 45 and his increasingly-blatant bigotry has me on edge, and it's incredibly discouraging to see that the Democratic leadership isn't that interested in doing anything about it. I sorely wish that we had a clear direction of resistance, and that our voices could be lent to a clear statement of rejection for this kind of evil. But the people we elected to be our voices are failing us terribly. And honestly, I'm just not sure what to do about it at this point.
When I get overwhelmed about the state of the world, I keep thinking about a quote attributed to Ghandi: "My life is my message." It's such an elegant way of stating that what you do should point to where your values lie. Not the grand gestures or milestone achievements, but the persistent habits you carry with you every day. The way you live your life should align with the things you find important.
What could I be doing to make my life more closely align with my values? Volunteering to environmental causes, and being a better mentor to my two young nephews, and being as kind and accepting to my friends as possible for a start. Now that I have the time to really dig into the things I've been wanting to do, I should be using that time a little better than I have been. Sure, I've been making progress with that. But I'm still not where I want to be. I have no idea how much free time I've got left; it's a really good idea to make the best use of it that I can.
I'm having lunch with a friend who works at Stanford today. We don't know each other TOO well and don't hang out all that often -- in fact, I don't think we've ever been in a situation where it's just us two. I'm looking forward to it, though. He's a fun guy and we have a lot of shared interest. It'll be neat to see where our conversations take us.
For now, more job hunting, writing, and study.
I've applied to six additional places yesterday and pinged the recruiter at Coursera about any progress made with my candidacy. After thinking on it a lot, I thought I would divulge that it wasn't my choice to leave 23andMe, give a fairly accurate reason, and dive right into what I've learned through it. I'm hoping that this information will head to the VP and kind of reset the relationship a little bit. One of Coursera's core values is 'deep honesty', and in the end I thought it would be best to own my experience and speak a bit more forthrightly about it.
I was listening to a podcast yesterday about how not to just "bounce back" from rejection, but "bounce forward". (The podcast was WorkLife with Adam Grant, if you're interested.) It included a section on being fired and the healthiest way to view it. One woman related her personal experience, and it sounded a lot like mine -- she blamed the company first, and then herself after a while. But really, it's the *relationship* between employee and employer that didn't work out. While both sides may have contributed individually to the faulty fit, ultimately I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time for myself. I can own my part of this and use it to move forward.
Moving forward, I'll try to have a better perspective about my environment and make sure my focus is in the right place -- giving to others as much as I can, whether that's time or experience or perspective. It can be very difficult to be giving in a corporate environment because there are so many demands on your time, but I'm hoping that I can manage my workload to work smarter, not harder. Batching tasks, knowing myself well enough to set boundaries in the proper places, and using tools to overcome procrastination are all new lessons I've learned and I can't wait to put them to proper use.
Twitter has been a bad scene for stoking my anxieties this week. The business about 45 and his increasingly-blatant bigotry has me on edge, and it's incredibly discouraging to see that the Democratic leadership isn't that interested in doing anything about it. I sorely wish that we had a clear direction of resistance, and that our voices could be lent to a clear statement of rejection for this kind of evil. But the people we elected to be our voices are failing us terribly. And honestly, I'm just not sure what to do about it at this point.
When I get overwhelmed about the state of the world, I keep thinking about a quote attributed to Ghandi: "My life is my message." It's such an elegant way of stating that what you do should point to where your values lie. Not the grand gestures or milestone achievements, but the persistent habits you carry with you every day. The way you live your life should align with the things you find important.
What could I be doing to make my life more closely align with my values? Volunteering to environmental causes, and being a better mentor to my two young nephews, and being as kind and accepting to my friends as possible for a start. Now that I have the time to really dig into the things I've been wanting to do, I should be using that time a little better than I have been. Sure, I've been making progress with that. But I'm still not where I want to be. I have no idea how much free time I've got left; it's a really good idea to make the best use of it that I can.
I'm having lunch with a friend who works at Stanford today. We don't know each other TOO well and don't hang out all that often -- in fact, I don't think we've ever been in a situation where it's just us two. I'm looking forward to it, though. He's a fun guy and we have a lot of shared interest. It'll be neat to see where our conversations take us.
For now, more job hunting, writing, and study.
