Less Talk, More Action

The voice is back. Kind of. Enough to speak to my sister this morning, and enough to point out to my landlady that I thought that the new filter on her fish tank might be on too high a level, considering that every five seconds one of the four fishes was being blown sideways from one end of the tank to the other. Very visually amusing, but not much fun for the fish.

So my voice is different, and I believe that my words will be different too. It is only over the past couple of days, not being able to express every banal thought that entered my head, or contribute MY own experience to every conversation, that I have realised how many words I have wasted. I thought for a moment that I had exceeded my quota for this lifetime. Perish the thought.

Each of the meetings with my teacher I have wanted to focus on talking about me, me, me. MY process, MY experiences, MY thoughts. Okay, sure, let me hear about the energy of the week/month/holiday, just as long as we can quickly cover the latest of the dramas currently taking place in my life. I'll trade you. Through the Ego Workshop, I identified that I held a lot of Judgement - I compare myself to other people, judging them by my standards and myself by their achievements. And I look for recognition or approval from other people because I'm not certain that I am actually enough.

I am looking for my fulfilment in external things rather than building it from within. That explains a little why I like to try so many different, crazy things to make myself appear more interesting (white water rafting, land-yachting, bungee jumping, elephant riding, scuba diving, mountain trekking, skiing, flying a plane, flying a glider, water-skiing, trampolining) and why there is nothing more exhilarating than riding the biggest, fastest, wildest rollercoaster. (Aren't I fun? Aren't I daring? Do you like me now? Do you want to hear about the time I handled a tarantula or played with a meerkat?)

Unexpectedly, the need for external fulfilment now appears to have wained slightly, or perhaps something is just stronger within. Pesach seems to have spun an internal miracle.

By being silent for nearly three days, I painfully realised how many times I have paid lip service to what I was going to do, and avoided actually doing anything. I recognised that whilst I felt devoid of the recognition I felt I deserved from my teacher for 'working so hard on my process', that actually, what I have achieved isn't quite enough yet. And I don't mean that in a judgemental way, just in understanding that instead of wanting brownie points for generating my own inner miracles, I have to keep plugging away, doing more, listening more, applying myself more, learning more. And talking less.

Yesterday I received the outcome on the interview from last Thursday - I didn't get the job. They didn't think that my technical skills were good enough, they wanted somebody who could immediately get up to speed. Unable to even voice my frustration, I choked back some bitter tears. I know that I could have got up to speed really quickly. That job was meant for me - simply by the way it came to me. I thought I had done so well.

Later in the day, I re-read the email. And actually, it was quite polite. She said I would be an asset to their team, and that they would keep my CV on file. She said she would keep me in mind for any database roles. Once I took my pride out of the loop, I could see how they would want somebody with technical skills who could add to the role, rather than somebody who would spend the first few weeks with smoke coming out of her ears, trying to translate the syntax for every query.

Of course - because at the interview, for some bizarre reason (trying to show the best interest in the role I was interviewing for) I stated that training on a full time basis quickly became boring and I preferred the support roles. Like, duh. A bit of a silly thing to say, given that I know they have a training based role (which I would much rather do) coming up in the near future.

So, what were my choices? I could either believe that everything she said in the email was a lie and that she simply didn't like me, and walk the other way. Or I could email her and explain what I was really looking for, and possibly re-open a door. And I could properly revise my CV and seriously start looking for work elsewhere.

And when I am making the real effort and taking real action, the rewards are going to be much bigger than a few words of recognition from my teacher.