The Awesome Revolution: Today is the day

Today is precisely the day that I take down the sign in the window at left with its sunny promise "Don't Worry. Everything is Going to be Amazing," pack up the Van Gogh sunflowers behind it, and close the door on one chapter of my professional career to walk through a door I've always dreamed of.

Today is pretty awesome.

I'm a tiny bit sad, because endings are sad, but mostly I'm delighted because it's one of those days when I can really feel how great it is Take Action, to Make Change where change is needed, to Drive My Own Destiny.

Today is pretty awesome because I made it that way.

The way I think about it -- maybe it's the way I think about everything, actually -- these two years at this precise job were an experiment. I thought giving up title, scope and commute would be well-worth the loss in pay and power.  I expected regular lunches with my sweetheart, whose shop is four blocks away. I expected less stress and leaving the work at work and the satisfaction of cool, calm numbers.

But that's not what I got. Not at all.

For two years, as evidenced by the window sign and the sunflowers, my Pollyanna Disorder was on compensatory over-drive, trying to counteract my own sense of panic at being in a dark and grouchy place.  I have been super stressed-out, haven't done anywhere near as many lunches with Sweetheart as I dreamed, have felt blocked and frustrated and unsuccessful on the job, and financially, well, to be honest, this has been a total bust-up for us.  

That's the thing with experiments, though, right? If you're doing it right, sometimes you don't get what you expected. You get something altogether different.  You get surprised.

Yes, I learned a ton from this experiment.  In terms of hard skills, I am better for the experience of two years in this job. But it's in the soft skills, for sake of comparison, that I learned the most.  So glad to have given up the commute, that's been great, but mostly I gained deep knowledge about my own need for autonomy, creativity and trust on the job, my need for there to be good humor and laughter even as we plug away at resolving centuries-old social ills.  For heaven's sake, we don't need to be friends or Friends, but could it just be friendly?

Bottom line learning, the reminder I needed:

Everything Turns Out Amazing IF you do the work.

So I did the work.  

And I got out.

I'm so proud and happy today that I'm ending something that hasn't been so good for me. I'm excited about the new job, yes, so excited, but mostly today I'm celebrating being in charge of my own life, shedding what I don't want and going after what I do.

It's one of those days where I am really appreciating Work, that work that we all do to make our lives come true, to translate dream into reality, to drive ourselves precisely where we want to go, to be us.

I really feel like this statement I made on Facebook yesterday is so true -- maybe those Mayans were right about 2012, that it was the end of the world as we knew it. This is our year, 2013, the Water Snake Year, to shed the old and step (or slither) into the new, into the Us we know we really are, fully, joyfully. I'm calling this the Awesome Revolution in my head, and am happily cheerleading, baton-twirling, kicking high.

Do the work. Take charge of your life. Make everything amazing.

The Awesome Revolution can't happen without you. Jump in!

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