Facing a Challenge

Everybody faces ups and downs in one’s lifetime. We take ups for granted or as a natural result of our existence, and we tend to take downs as something that was inflicted upon us – something we surely did not deserve. However, experience and a bit of thinking about one’s life and its stream of events may prove differently. We may have pushed our own pendulum harder, so it’s swaying fast.

There are things none of us can influence – the weather, natural disasters, flat

tires… and there are things of which we are the only masters- our choice in relationships, education, jobs… a whole lot of them. In modern societies, life is basically built on those premises – you study, you work, you date, perhaps have a family. Most of them are, at the very end, connected to finances. That is what I am going to focus on today – moments in one’s life when things go tough in one’s wallet.

Several months ago I ended a project that was financially satisfactory, but which gave me a lot of bellyaches because of the relationships with our partners. I not only felt sick during the process, I even ended up being diagnosed. So, when it ended, I was thrilled for not having to meet those ghastly people any more, and the fact of not receiving a fat check every month was not so disturbing. At first… as days passed, and as I skimmed through various job opportunities, I realized I can, with more or less no pain, find a similar job in a similar project, and possibly spend another agonizing year or two calculating every word and action of mine, in order to achieve the goal of the project. My belly was strongly against it. While I was reading job descriptions, or talking to prospective employers, my body was literally saying NO to it. I realized I had to change the stream along which I was swimming. And savings were getting thinner and thinner. What to do?

In battles like this, you can use any weapon available: talk to your family, talk to your friends, attend interviews … (even those you know you will not accept – boost your ego..), borrow money from those that don’t expect it back, and pile up impressions about yourself – whether they come from the ones who know you well, or those who say it by the way. Balance it up. Wage pros and contras. See where you are light and where you are heavy. My father used to say that what matters in life is balance. His pendulum is moving from laughter to smiling. In the process of weighing up, I asked myself three questions that I was lucky enough to stumble upon this.

• What you can be the best in the world at?
• What drives your economic engine?
• What you are deeply passionate about?

And I couldn’t answer them immediately. The very fact of me not being able to answer those questions in a jiffy, told me that the speed which was so important to me may have taken something away from me – yes, balance again. I had to slow down and take a good look into the inner mirror – to talk to myself again. I went back to the school days when I enjoyed drawing for hours: and remembered that I hadn’t installed the programmes for drawing in the computer. I did so, and the result of the process is two commercial web sites. I speak languages, but I’m fed up with being a translator. I love nature but I live in a city. Organizing things was always natural for me. The result of balancing these was that I am now a licensed mountain guide – now I spend a fortnight of my time in the open, talking to French tourists. In the meanwhile, I explore myself, and the environment. I plant trees and herbs, and share the knowledge that is in my possession with others.

In fact, I am still in the process of – digging deeper in order to answer those questions. Challenges are welcome.

P.S.

If you would like me to elaborate on those three questions, one after another, I would gladly do so.