Here it is ... the first day of September. Vacation seems
but a distant memory and school is less than a week from starting, for us at
least. I’m not sure how I feel about schools that get started during the month
of August. To me summer is kind of sacrosanct. I don’t think it’s much to ask
to have a full three months off for kids just to be kids, but I do think that
some reinforcement of the knowledge learned during the school year is
important. I remember the days at the campground doing fun activities that our
mom gave us with nary a thought that we were actually still learning something
from doing them.
During our vacation last month, I decided to do a little
web surfing during some down time. I don’t know why, but I ended up checking
the web site of a tech company I was provisionally hired for when I was in the
process of completing the computer training course I had enrolled in back in
late 2008. I eventually was hired and started working for another company, but
a couple of guys I went to the course with had gone on to take positions with
that first company. I guess I just wanted to see if they were still there, and
if the tech company was still in operation. One was, and it still is. As I
roamed about the website, I came across a section dedicated to the owner’s blog
postings. Long story short, he was encouraged to do so share his adventures as
CEO and entrepreneur. It turned out to be an interesting read in life lessons
and trying to do the right thing in personal as well as professional life.
One of the themes that came up in a few of the posts was
sticking by a poor decision for too long, or being indecisive about something
altogether. That’s something that seems to be a theme in my own life. The owner
hoped that some people may find some guidance through reading the lessons he
learned in his blog, and I kinda thought that would be a good idea to do here
since there is a crossroads approaching my family in the near future as well.
We often wonder if the choices we make are the right
choices. Sometimes they seem so certain at the time, but in retrospect, we end
up wishing we had made a different choice. Sometimes we wonder if what we are
doing is really the right thing to do. One of the things I learned to help me
in some of this decision making has been what I call the “Sneaky Test.” This
came about many years ago; about the the time I was creating my website and
getting involved with the “Millennium Controversy.” At the time I had an old
Windows 98 desktop computer. It did it did its job, but I felt like I needed
something a little more modern and portable in order to do more with the
website … and play games, of course. It’s not that I couldn’t afford a new
laptop computer, but money was kind of tight and it really was a frivolous
purchase. But I threw common sense to the wind, and went ahead and got an Acer
laptop running the then novel Windows Millennium Edition (we can talk about
that mistake another time).
Now normally when you buy something, there’s an
inclination to want to show it off, depending on what it is of course. The “hey, look at my new toy!” type of thing.
Not so here. I wouldn’t say it was buyer’s remorse, because I really wasn’t
sorry I bought the laptop, and it did help with both the reasons I wanted the
thing, but I felt like it was something that I had to hide from everyone else,
especially my fiancé at the time. I always kept it hidden and never used it
when she was around, often getting up in the middle of the night to use it when
she was asleep. Of course, I wasn’t as sneaky or clever as I thought I was, and
she eventually told me she knew I had it. Of course I felt instantly guilty
about the whole situation. Really, from that point onwards, I used the Sneaky
Test as the litmus for whether I really needed something or not. If I felt I
needed to hide something I wanted to buy and not show off to friends and
family, then it was something I most likely really shouldn’t be buying. More
often than not, it turned out to be the right choice as the money was better
spent (or saved) elsewhere.
Somewhat related, but different as well came much later,
during that time a few years ago I was in the midst of a career change and
wondering if it would be the right decision to make. Leaving the known,
comfortable world I was in for something I had never done as a proper job
before. It was during that time that a potential opening was made available to
me through one of my co-workers at the time, whose husband worked in a tech
position with the state of New Jersey. It would be a pretty good job to have as
a start, with the perks of being a state employee, and not having to work a
typical help desk position that is the usual bottom rung a fresh tech support
person would normally start out in. The only catch would be that I would have
to be a resident of the state in order to be hired.
Considering we had just gotten out of New Jersey only a
few years beforehand, I wasn’t too keen on moving back, especially considering
some of the reasons we left in the first place. However, there could have been
a potential way around that little issue in the fact that my parents were still
residents. I could possibly finagle the system a bit to use their address as my
new permanent address and the problem would be solved. Of course there were
some risks inherent in that, but I don’t think it would ever have been too much
of an issue, and I could have had myself a pretty good place to jump off into that
new career path. After all, it was why we spent those thousands of dollars to
attend the course and become certified in Windows OS Support. It was certainly
better than my current position in the retail industry. It would seem like a
pretty easy decision to make. And it was in a way.
Ultimately, of course, I chose a different path and went
to work for a tech company in Pennsylvania. It really came down to just doing the
right thing. As beneficial as it would have been to take that state job, and as
good it might have been for me, it wouldn’t have been the right thing unless I
did move back to New Jersey. It just would have been a cloud hanging over me
the whole time, and really, if it was truly the right choice and the best
choice, then I wouldn’t have had to consider resorting to the deception in
order to make it happen. If I was going to do it, then I wasn’t going to be
sneaky about it and I was going to do it the right way and prove beyond a
shadow of a doubt that it was the right choice to make. Had I taken the other
path, then it simply would have proven that it really wasn’t the right choice,
and I had made the wrong decision.
Despite what transpired afterwards in the job I did take,
it really did turn out to be a good choice, and the right choice. I wouldn’t be
where I am now, and our family certainly wouldn’t be in the position now to
make additional choices about our future that we can really look forward to
making. In the end, it was an expensive lesson, but one that I am glad I was
able to make and take some good things from, not the least of which was the
curiosity that brought me to that blog that night during vacation and being
able to take away some good life lessons from it.
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