It is funny how things pop into my head sometime.
I was sitting in church yesterday morning, and the thought came into my head: if the teaching thing really does go south, and it's no longer desirable to teach (be it for reasons of special-snowflake-dom or the administration wanting to turn us into an IRL version of University of Phoenix), I could put my vague "retirement plan" into place.
My vague 'retirement plan' - something that's been rattling around in my head for four or five years - is to go to seminary, learn to be a minister, get ordained, and then either serve as a pastor in a church, or do something like chaplain at a hospital.
I say the plans are "vague" because I don't know if I genuinely have "the call" or not - I'd have to spend a lot of time contemplating it, and maybe talk to people who know. (Though I will say, I've had more than one person - one of them a retired minister - ask me if I had ever considered going into ministry. Which I actually did, as a young teenager, but then decided later I didn't really have "the call." But maybe I actually do. I don't know).
But anyway. It popped into my head that if things got really bad at my current workplace, even though it would mean pulling up stakes, making a big change ("We fear change" - Garth Elgar), taking some risks with my life, going back to student mode, still, if I'm willing to put some effort into things, I will succeed, eventually. Or, I will be "taken care of." I don't mean, like, by finding a sugar daddy - I mean, the thought I got, was "God will take care of you somehow, if you just keep trying, and if what you want to do is the right thing."
I'm not ready yet. And none of the things I am worrying about at my current workplace may even come to pass - or if they do, they may not be as bad as I feared. But for me, having a plan - even a vague plan - helps. It's like knowing there's a little escape pod I can jump into if things get too bad here, and though it may be rocky and difficult for a while, likely I will land safely somewhere and will be able to keep on keepin' on.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Perhaps a cheering thought
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2 comments:
I do this too. I always plot out kind of a "worst-case scenario" thing when I am upset or unhappy. To many, this would be considered pessimism. Maybe it is. But it makes me feel better.
If I have a plan, then no matter what happens, I will be alright. It might not be perfect, but I will survive.
It makes the thing I am upset or unhappy about seem less powerful and less scary.
It's not a bad coping strategy, and definitely a good thing to have. On a personal note, my life was turned upside-down a few years back, and in the midst of that chaos, I felt I had nothing to lose. Now I'm on the other side of grad school, in a new field. It can happen.
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