#12 When to get up
- Christian D'Andre
- Aug 10, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Feb 14
How do you know when it’s time to stop meandering, and time to get back on track? How do you know if you are even lost in the first place? What a question! I know when I was lost in my career path, I thought I was on the right track. At least, I did at first. After a while, I felt something inside me saying “this path isn’t me.” I always figured if that feeling was right, God would call me out and onto a better path, but I didn’t have the journey mapped out at first. So I stayed in my lane for a while. As always, the doors opened up when the time was right and now I’m back on the trade-tracks. But I want to point out some highlights of how I knew where things were going. Hopefully, you can apply some of these to your own life as well.
The first suspicion I got was when watching Gotham. I made an earlier post about this, and I believe I may have referenced this once earlier, but a character goes through a season-long redemption arc. He spends enough time on his new path that we are expected to believe that this is his new role in the story. I don’t know what it was about it, but the story arc stuck with me in such a way that I couldn’t quite forget about it. It didn’t immediately feel like this was about me, it just stuck. Looking back, I think it was God trying to get my attention, and add a little extra confirmation to what would happen next.
I think the other big thing was the workplace turbulence. It’s one thing to see your own job get a little rocky, but the entire field that I was trying to enter was looking like a piping hot mess. What rattled me was seeing all of the people far more qualified than me trying to find jobs and failing. I found myself working alongside some extremely knowledgeable technicians who were there because they were having trouble getting the really good jobs elsewhere. The competition was so intense that only the brutally dedicated were making it anywhere. And even then, some of those were still losing out. It made me ask myself what chance I really had.
But I didn’t find my place because I was intimidated by where I was going. Thankfully, I landed on something a little more solid. You see, I knew I would be able to keep up if I really wanted to. Trouble is, I didn’t really want to. When life turned up the heat, my desire to work in IT simply burned away. None of it seemed worth it to me. Some of the crap I had to put up with, from the corporate drama to ever-changing work standards, seemed like such a pill. And the only exciting thing about my job was how little I had to do it. Not only that, but everyone else seemed to act the same way.
But that’s a lot of the specifics, let’s churn this into a universal takeaway, shall we? I think that’s the point I want to make: sometimes life pushes you around. It tries to take things away from you. It will seem like it’s so much easier to switch onto this other road over there. You might be offered a job when yours sucks, you might start feeling like you’d be better off single. Whatever is going on in your life, it will seem easier to give up on what you have. And in those moments, you will be forced to ask yourself if you really want it. You will have to decide if you are going to try to keep what you have found, or be flushed away with the flowing tide.
And neither choice is truly the wrong one, per se. The only wrong choice is to deny your gut. If you feel strongly about sticking with something, stick with it. If you don’t, then maybe this is your time to get up and try something else. And if you really want to do it, but are scared to try, then you must try. Talk yourself into taking that first step towards where you want to be. Know that dreams aren’t built overnight, so a good thing may take some time. But if you truly want to be there, then get marching! And don’t ever stop til you get there, or ultimately decide that it isn’t worth the price you are paying. Either way, you’ve got to keep moving.
And, as always, I do recommend praying over these things. Nothing is too big or too small to merit God’s attention. If it’s important to you, it’s important to Him. Ultimately, He will show you the way forward, and it will be the best way you could possibly go.
Until next time
May Peace be your Guide.
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