A couple months ago, I got a phone call that made my heart plummet.
I was sitting at my desk at work and I heard my cell phone vibrate. With dread, I reached down to my bag to see who it was, and sure enough, it was a man I’ll call Jim. He was calling to offer me a job.
Jim worked at the local County Conservation office, an organization that was arguably the most important protector of water quality in Dane County. One of their main roles was to work with local farmers on controlling soil erosion, helping the farmers keep their topsoil and keeping it from polluting local streams and lakes. Each county in the state (and in most states) has an office like this, full of people who know farming and water quality and how to take care of both.
And Jim’s office was one of the best in Wisconsin. As far as I could tell, he was universally respected, by farmers, ecologists, politicians, and scientists.
I had interned for Jim during grad school, interviewing farmers and studying the phosphorus runoff from their farms. In the process, I’d come to realize that while I’d been traveling the globe trying to figure out how best to save the world, Jim and a few of his colleagues had been slowly, steadily saving it by making positive changes on the landscape, one farm at a time.
When I saw that Jim had called me, I knew that he might be offering me a job because I’d interviewed for a position with him a few weeks before. It was similar to the job I’d done as an intern—but it was a “real job,” with stability and good pay. It would double my take-home pay. I would work in a well-run office, and I’d get to do hands-on things to improve water quality.
Applying for the job had been a no-brainer. But ever since applying, for some reason, I couldn’t shake the strange feeling of dread that I would get this phone call.
I slipped away from my cubicle to listen to Jim’s message. It turned out that he wanted to “visit” with me, which I supposed could mean a rejection. He seemed to respect me and might want to break the news over the phone, rather than in an impersonal letter.
I mustered the courage to call back. “I’d like to visit with you in my office,” said Jim. “Do you have any time early Monday?”
“Sure.” I was relieved. He wasn’t offering me the job. At least not yet. I wouldn’t have to spend the weekend deciding whether to take it.
Jim hadn’t made it to my first interview. He wanted to ask me some follow-up questions, he explained; I presumed he was doing the same with the other candidates.
Over the weekend, I speculated on what his questions might be. The question I feared the most was, “What are your long-term plans?” I didn’t want to lie, but my interview instincts rebelled at the thought of saying, “Jim, I’m just not excited about this job, and I’m not sure why. I’m afraid that I’d leave in a few years, maybe sooner.”
I still hadn’t decided on a course of action by the time I was sitting in Jim’s office Monday morning. So my heart took another plunge when he said, “Well, Katie, I was really sorry not to be there for the interview. So I’m speaking now with some of the candidates to ask you some follow-up questions. And one of my questions for you is about your long-term plans.”
I made a split-second decision. “Well, I guess I’ll be honest. I have been wrestling with that question for the last couple weeks.”
I told him how there are a lot of things I didn’t love about my current job at the state Department of Natural Resources. But I did love getting to work with streams—it made me happy. I wasn’t sure I’d be as happy working with soil and farms.
“You’d still be working with water,” he pointed out. “Our mission is water quality.”
“I know,” I said, “And I think I’d actually get more done for water quality, working with you, than I may ever get done at the DNR. But…”
I hesitated. How could I explain that it wasn’t the goal, but the process of the work that I wanted to enjoy? That this was an entirely selfish desire of mine: I’d rather do a job I enjoyed more, even if I’d accomplish less for the common good?
Working at the DNR, I didn’t make any measurable changes on the landscape. But I did get to go out and be in streams at times, and even at my desk, I got to immerse myself in the science of water quality. Sometimes I even got to teach people about stream ecology. I loved all of that.
I left Jim’s office relieved that I’d been honest and stayed true to myself, and fairly certain that I wouldn’t get the job. “And that would be fair,” I explained to Ron. “They shouldn’t hire me. I might end up leaving; they should hire someone who’s more sure about it than I am.”
Jim had told me that this was a really hard hiring decision. But I felt sure that if they thought about it, they’d make the right choice.
Fairly sure that Jim would offer the position to someone else, I set about preparing for another interview for a different job.
This interview would take place on Thursday morning. It was a job I thought I might actually want, but the interview would be a doozy—there’d be a panel of six interviewers, and I had to kick off by giving a ten-minute presentation. The closer I got to Thursday, the more often I got nervous shots of adrenaline when I pictured the interview.
I didn’t normally have job interviews twice a week. I had only applied to a handful of jobs in the previous couple of years, so this was a coincidence. Both of these jobs had been announced months before.
Ron and I made next to nothing in our jobs at the DNR. At some point, we’d need “real jobs” if we wanted to save money, and since we were 32 and wanted kids in a few years, that “some point” should probably be soon.
At the same time, I liked my DNR job and I made enough to get by. I wasn’t eager to leave unless it was for something I really wanted.
And there was something else on my mind, too. For the last ten years, my career had been moving steadily towards natural resource management, and I was comfortable in that field. But there was a nagging voice in my head that was telling me to be a writer.
Writing was, after all, my very first career. It began before I could technically write, when I would tell my grandmother stories and she’d tell me I’d be a writer someday. Ever since, I had loved writing and always pictured myself writing books “someday.”
And for some reason, this year it was as if a faucet had turned on—I began writing for myself and also started my first blog. But I’d been toying with the idea of writing something bigger, a book, and I’d been realizing that it might be good to try this out before I had a needy baby on my hands.
What if I took some time off now, in the next year or so, and tried to write seriously? I wouldn’t make money, but forever afterward, I would know that I’d given this life dream a try.
If I committed to a “real job,” I couldn’t take that time off to write. This was yet another argument for being discerning in accepting any offers. I was applying to these jobs to explore my options, but part of me was hoping they wouldn’t pan out—not quite yet.
As I said, my interview and presentation would be Thursday morning. By Tuesday I was all ready, having learned that I interviewed best if I didn’t rehearse the day before.
This second potential job was at the DNR, but full time, with a similar salary and benefits to the farm job. I would be coordinating public outreach for aquatic invasive species around the state. I wouldn’t get to work much with the public and would be a desk jockey…but for some reason, this job didn’t give me that feeling of dread that came with the farm job. I’d get to work with water issues, with ecology. I rather liked picturing myself in this job.
Wednesday, I was busy at work all day. In the late afternoon, between tasks, it occurred to me that I’d heard my phone vibrate a couple hours earlier. Curious, I checked and saw Jim’s name. Gulping, I slipped away once again to call him.
“Katie,” said Jim, “I’d like to offer you the job.”
My jaw dropped. “Wow,” I gushed, “I’m so honored! Thank you.” I couldn’t believe my fortune. They had chosen me despite my reservations! I asked for the weekend to think it over, and Jim said sure.
In a fog, I glided back to Ron’s desk. “Ron. Jim called. He offered me the job!”
We beamed at each other. Being honest and true to myself had paid off! I told my supervisor, who had been following my little saga. He gave me a sincere congratulations and wished me luck with my decision.
After work, I had planned on attending an Arabic class and Ron had planned on Frisbee, but we both stayed home that evening instead. After my DNR interview the next morning, I’d be flying home to Portland for a family weekend I’d been planning for months. This evening would be my only time to process my job decision with Ron in person.
By the time I sat down to dinner with Ron, my excitement over the job offer had worn off. I knew I should feel happy, but as the news sank in, I felt overcome with sadness.
Beginning to eat, I surprised us both by bursting into tears.
We were eating next to each other on the futon in the front room, overlooking Lake Monona. Ron put his arm around me as I picked at my food. “I just don’t know what to do,” I said, “Why do I feel so sad?”
Poor Ron. We talked for three hours, went to bed, awoke early, and talked for another hour or two before work Thursday morning. By the time we left home, I was laughing and saying, “You’ll be glad to be rid of me this weekend.” He smiled but didn’t disagree.
Besides, the conversation was repeating itself. Did we want kids? Yes. Not now, but soon? Yes. Could we put off saving money for a couple more years?
That was one of the big questions. Good jobs seem few and far between, especially in Madison. If I passed this one up, how long would it be before another one came along for either of us?
I was fairly useless at work Thursday morning, and at 10:45 I had to go to my interview. It had scarcely crossed my mind since the call from Jim. I smiled to myself—well, that was one way to relax at an interview: get stressed about something else!
I hopped on my bike, running late, and booked it to campus, where the interview would be held. (Even though this job would be at the DNR, I’d technically be working for a campus extension program.)
I’d been warned about this interview, with its six-person panel and ten-minute presentation. It sounded intimidating, and it would be. “Most people feel like they bombed it,” counseled one veteran, a gal who’d been turned down from the same job the year before.
I made it to the Pyle Center just barely on time, dashing up the stairs and standing outside the interview room, willing my breath to return to normal before they came out to collect me.
I’d caught a glimpse of the room, which had an all-glass wall that looked out into the hallway where I stood. My panel of six interviewers was sitting and talking around an enormous wooden table, with a projector screen on the far wall.
A man stepped out of the interview room, one of the interviewers who I already knew. “Katie?” he said. “Come on in; we’re ready.” He was smiling and wearing a black suit and tie.
I took a deep breath as I followed him into the room. Maybe, if I aced this interview, I’d be offered this job, too. Then, I could still have stability and good pay, without sacrificing working with water.
Maybe, if I played my cards right, I could make money and be fairly happy.
I walked into the interview room. My panel of six stood up from the big wooden table. They were mostly men, and mostly in suits.
Despite being out of breath and perhaps underdressed, my secret helped me relax as I shook their hands. I’d already been offered a job elsewhere. I was wanted.
I walked to the front, faced them, and began my presentation.
My voice trembled slightly as I spoke, but I had practiced and I gradually found my rhythm. I noticed some smiles at my jokes and some nods of appreciation at things I said. When I finished and sat down with them at the table, I remembered the advice I’d heard: “Everyone feels like they bomb this interview.” I held it in my mind as a mantra.
Each of the panelists took turns asking me questions, and each of the questions was difficult. But I felt that although my answers weren’t perfect, I connected with my interviewers, even making them laugh at times. I knew that I’d be good at this job. I felt that that came across.
When I emerged from the room, I was dizzy but on a high. I hadn’t bombed it. I had a chance.
I couldn’t believe the roller coaster I’d been on since Wednesday, and I needed to calm down. I biked to the library, always a comforting place.
I’m a book browser. One of my favorite things to do in airports is browsing the bookstores. Sometimes, when I’m grocery shopping, I’ll reward myself with a little detour to any section that remotely resembles a bookstore: a magazine rack, a shelf full of cheap novels, the office supplies aisle. There’s something calming about paper and the feel of a book in my hands.
I also love the smell of books. Ron says I’m just addicted to book glue.
I picked up three books at the library’s “Too Good To Miss” table. One was The Geography of Bliss, by Eric Weiner. I noticed it because it reminded me of a conversation I’d recently had about happiness.
Actually, this conversation was somewhat formal. It took place within a Discussion Group that suspiciously resembled Ron’s and my group of friends.
We’d been meeting monthly to officially Discuss political topics. Ron had started these discussions, with the goal of learning more about political issues. We all researched things like the war in Afghanistan or the national debt, then got together and taught each other what we’d learned. It was fun and educational, and I loved that we were all nerdy enough and comfortable enough with ourselves to pull it off.
Our last Discussion had been about a seemingly apolitical topic: happiness. I was wary of this topic from the beginning. What did happiness have to do with politics? You could give all the fluffy justifications you wanted to; talking about happiness was not going to make me more informed about Obamacare or gun control. But this was a democratic Discussion Group, so I bit my tongue and reasoned that we’d get to those topics some other time.
It turned out I was wrong. Happiness has a lot to do with politics, in ways I hadn’t thought of. Our focus wasn’t just happiness but happiness indexes—efforts to measure happiness. The idea, as statistician Nic Marks puts it in his fantastic Ted talk on the Happy Planet Index, is that we put far too much stock in GDP and not enough in “what makes life worth living.”
We’ve created a national accounting system which is firmly based on production. [We need to] redesign our national accounting system to be based upon such important things as social justice, sustainability, and people’s well-being…
People all around the world say that what they want is happiness. They think money is slightly important, but it’s not nearly as important as love. And it’s not nearly as important as health. Why are we not thinking of the progress of nations in these terms, instead of just how much stuff we have?
The ultimate outcome of a nation is, how successful is it at creating happy and healthy lives for its citizens? To prioritize happiness over production is to overturn the world’s dominant economic paradigm.
The discussion of happiness was, we all agreed, the most enjoyable Discussion we’d had thus far with our group. We talked about the concept of happiness and what made each of us happy. Flipping through The Geography of Bliss in the library, I could see that this book fit perfectly with what we’d talked about:
What do the following events have in common? The war in Iraq. The Exxon Valdez oil spill. The rise in America’s prison population. The answer: they all contribute to our nation’s gross national product, or…GDP, and therefore all are considered “good,” at least in the dismal eyes of economists.
The Geography of Bliss looked like a book I could use right about now. This weekend as I made my job decision, I had a feeling I’d be thinking a lot about happiness. Maybe I’d even be putting a price on it.
I went home from the library, happiness book in hand, and packed for Portland. I also tried to check my email.
I had sent out a frantic plea out to many of my friends that morning with a subject line that read, “Help Me with my Big Decision.” I’d outlined it all in the email: I had a great job offer, but it made my heart feel heavy. What should I do?
But my email account had chosen this day to stop working, and I couldn’t see my friends’ responses. I wished I could read them. I wanted someone to just tell me what to do.
After a day of travel and a long night, I woke up my first day in Portland and found myself glued to the computer and phone. This was supposed to be a weekend of quality time with my mom, sister, and stepdad, but was turning out to be all about jobs.
First I emailed the interview panel from the DNR job, explaining that I’d been offered the farm job and needed to decide on it over the weekend. (I hadn’t wanted to tell them this during the interview, thinking it might be a distraction.)
Then I talked again to Jim, plying him with questions about the farm job. He patiently answered, often surprising me with things that should have been good to hear. I would be fairly independent, and I might even be able to get into streams, visiting restoration projects and coordinating a stream monitoring project.
But with each good answer, my heart sank a little lower.
“You know what I’m noticing?” I said later to my sister. “I’m actually feeling disappointed. It’s almost like I want to find some reason why I just can’t take the job.”
My family on my Mom’s side is a family of counselors and musicians. I grew up singing in choirs and learning basic guitar and piano skills, but I’m the least musical member of my family. Mom and Lanny, my stepdad, are in a seemingly endless array of bands, playing fiddle music for contra dances in Portland and often elsewhere in the country. Mom plays fiddle and piano (and guitar on the side); Lanny plays piano, accordian, guitar, banjo, mandolin, and pretty much all other string instruments. My sister plays fiddle, piano, guitar, and harmonium, which accompanies her in chanting at the studio where she teaches yoga.
I’m often amused at how Portland this side of my family is, so filled with art, spirituality, and counterculture.
And the counselor part: Mom was a psychologist for 10 years, and my sister was in school to become one. This was all extremely handy for me. Whenever I came home, I got free guitar and yoga lessons, live Irish fiddle and accordian music, and all the listening ears I could want.
So in between all my phone calls and emails, talking to my family helped me.
My sister pointed out that it’s often hard to tell the difference between intuition and fear. What if this heaviness wasn’t my gut or my heart speaking, but just fear of change? How would I know the difference?
It was a relief to think that maybe I should just listen to my head on this one and take the job. Override my heavy heart, which might be fickle. Maybe this was like the sadness I’d felt before Peace Corps, which had evaporated as soon as I started the program.
I finally got through to my email account. My plea had generated a slew of thoughtful responses from my friends, a surprising number of whom started with, “I’ve actually been in the same situation recently.” Did this have to do with my age? Maybe I was following some sort of pattern that was common in my generation: freedom and adventure in your twenties, then a screeching halt in your thirties as you faced the roadblock of kids and a settled life. That would all be a new kind of adventure, probably even more rewarding, but the transition felt like a rude awakening.
“What a One-Third-Life crisis we’re in,” remarked one friend.
Most of my friends advised me to take the job. There were overwhelming reasons in favor of this course, ranging from the practical to the noble.
Although there was a chance I’d get the job at the DNR, we had to assume that I wouldn’t—opportunities for good ecology jobs in Madison were few and far between.
The farm job would still be close to my field, and I could pursue stream ecology on my own time, for instance through fishing.
Jim and his office would appreciate and support me much more than the DNR could.
There was no upward mobility in my current job.
I’d get to interact with people (farmers) from different backgrounds than my own, something I enjoy.
I could still write on evenings and weekends; after all, that’s how most writers get started.
My favorite wisdom came from a friend named Liz:
It sounds like you have many dreams: to have and raise healthy, fun-loving, intelligent kids; to work in a job with meaning; to write; to pursue other activities, too. You also have (God willing) a lifetime to work on them all. No matter how you decide this dilemma, you can make a 40 or 50-year commitment to achieving your dreams.
I liked that. Just because I might put off my dreams in the short term, taking the job might be better for the long term.
I had thought my email would make it obvious that I shouldn’t take the job. I’d spoken of the conflict between practicality and listening to my heart, and I figured that my fellow young Americans would repeat that Hollywood mantra, Follow Your Heart. I was surprised to find them persuading me to take the job.
My friends were smarter than Hollywood. They could see beyond my whining to the complexity of the situation. It wasn’t like this would be some soul-sucking job at a big corporation where I’d be screwing over the world for my own benefit; I’d be doing good for the world, and doing good for Ron and me and our future family.
In our happiness Discussion Group, we’d talked about the different sources of happiness: pleasure, relationships, giving, achievement. This job would at least give me happiness from giving of myself and achieving good things, and from the challenge of learning new skills.
Even my sister, who had recently given up a promising career in academia to pursue a less certain future in yoga and psychology, and whose email signature read “Leap, and the net will appear,” wasn’t certain I should pass up this job.
I had wanted someone to tell me what to do. Maybe, through all these conversations, the answer had come.
Mom had a gig Friday night, so I spent the evening with my sister. We went to a concert in northeast Portland, with performances by a little collection of local folk musicians. As I listened to the music, I hoped that one of these artists would have some wisdom that could help me.
All day, I’d been tentatively deciding to take the job working with farmers. Reason was winning out. Now, I just wanted some kind of a sign.
We knew one of the musicians, Katie Sawicki. I sat in the front row with my sister and her girlfriend Katie, listening to Katie Sawicki play guitar and sing. (My sister has an inordinate number of Katies in her life, also including me, her landlady, and several close friends.)
I enjoyed Katie Sawicki’s music, although it didn’t give me the answer I’d hoped for. I’m not sure what that would have been. Perhaps something like, “If you’ve got the same name as me/You and this job were meant to be…”
Although I’d been leaning towards taking the job all day, something in me was still hesitating. As I had driven across the Willamette River on the way to the concert, the light had been filtering through the clouds, dappling the bridges and water with a heavenly aura. Looking into the shimmering light, I’d had the unwelcome urge, once again, to turn down the job, and a disturbing peace of mind that came with that urge. Now, as I sat listening to Katie play, I couldn’t figure out whether this peace had come from a sort of manic last-ditch effort to hang onto my twenties, or from some kind of godly force that was speaking to me through light tricks.
Looking at Katie onstage, I couldn’t help but notice that she was fulfilling her dream, exuding the self-assurance and ease of knowing that she was doing what God intended her to do. And to my right was my sister, who had recently quit her own job to live her dream as a yoga instructor and counselor. I had watched that transition and was constantly inspired by the way she seemed to glow with a happy radiance in her new life.
I wanted that.
So: Did God intend me to work with farmers, and speak to me through all my friends’ gentle reasoning? Or did God intend me to be a poor but happy writer until I had kids?
My hopes for a sign were still unanswered in my dreams that night. Even a Saturday morning yoga class yielded no answers. Despite the omm-ing and the chanting, the stories of Hanuman and Ram, and sweating my way through sun salutations and half-moon poses, I still felt no closer to a decision.
I had awakened in the morning once again thinking I would accept the job, and I’d felt content. But then I had driven across the bridge and seen that damn dappled sunlight, and wavered.
After yoga, I wandered to the corner of the waiting area, mostly out of the way of the bustle of young women in trendy yoga clothes. Now in the afterglow of class, they were talking, hugging, laughing, bonding, and sipping tea around me.
I loved them. Saturday morning at this studio was jokingly referred to as “yoga church” by some of the students; it was a release, a worship, a cleansing. I still didn’t have any answers, but I, too, felt good, and more at peace than I’d been in days.
I sat on the comfy bench in the corner, waiting for my sister to finish with her duties at the front desk. In front of me was a small collection of books on yoga and on Hindu and Buddhist wisdom. I pulled a book off the shelf: Offerings, a page-a-day coffee table book of pictures coupled with wise sayings.
Flipping through it, the pictures were largely of Himalayan scenes. Mountains, prayer flags, yaks, ruddy-faced Tibetans. It calmed me to feel the heavy book in my lap and be transported to a faraway place.
I flipped to this week’s page. Maybe, I thought wryly, my answer would be here. Wouldn’t that be nice!
The entry for May 2nd read, somewhat ominously:
The trouble is, you think you have time. – Buddhist thought quoted by Jack Kornfield
I laughed out loud. For some reason, I hated looking for signs and just finding more evidence toward taking the job. Yeah, yeah; I know, I thought. I think I have more time, but I’m thirty-two—not getting any younger, not saving any money yet. Time to start. Time to be practical.
I flipped through the book. Another page said:
When faced with a feeling of stagnation and confusion, it may be helpful to take an hour, an afternoon, or even several days to reflect on what it is that will truly bring us happiness. – The 14th Dalai Lama
This quote struck a chord with me. It described what I’d been doing for the last few days: feeling confused and thinking about what would make me most happy. At least I’d been doing the right thing.
What would make me most happy? It seemed like every time I thought about writing or working with streams, I felt so much happier than when I thought about working with farms.
But how could I turn down such an opportunity? This was my chance to move forward in life.
On April 21st was another Dalai Lama quote:
Achieving genuine happiness may require bringing about a transformation in your outlook, your way of thinking. And this is not a simple matter.
I thought about that. Maybe I needed to just accept a more grown-up kind of happiness, the kind that comes from stability and family and achievement. Or maybe…
As my hand began to turn the page again, I paused. I sat there for a long moment, my eyes cast to the side. No particular thought crystallized in my mind, but there was something, just out of reach, if only I could grasp it.
I looked at the book again and flipped back to the first quote.
The trouble is, you think you have time.
Time for what?
The question hung in my mind. Could it be that Jack Kornfield was talking about time for happiness?
I thought about my life dreams: writing and working with water. If I took the job, I’d be putting off both of them. I would be sacrificing things I loved, in the present, for future things I wanted…future loves…future happiness. Who knew how much time I had? After all, the future is always uncertain, with so many possibilities.
And maybe there would be more opportunities than just the farm job. I had felt so good about my interview for the DNR job. Even if I didn’t get it, maybe others would come along. Other jobs like that one, that didn’t make my heart feel so heavy.
I don’t want the job! I felt myself flush.
The thought of the job just didn’t make me happy. I wanted to be happy now. This year.
As I sat there in the corner of the yoga studio, letting all of these thoughts sink in, I remembered that my Peace Corps friend Gwen had been one of the only ones to caution me against accepting the job. Her email had said:
I have had a heavy feeling, the same as you describe, for the past 3 years. Every logical thought would say I should stay and move up the ladder and put my savings into a retirement fund. But I just can’t do it anymore. So at the age of almost 32 I am quitting my professional job and am going to travel the world for a year. For the first time in a while I am excited and happy. Maybe this lifestyle is not for everyone. But for me, I have realized that if you are not happy inside, it doesn’t matter what you have on the outside, it’s not worth it. If you wouldn’t have mentioned the “heavy feeling” maybe I would have advised you otherwise. But because I live with the “heavy feeling” I don’t want you to have to live with it.
And there had been one other email from another Peace Corps friend, Carolyn, who was older and wiser than me. This email was one of the first I’d received, and it was by far the simplest:
follow your heart. always. that is the only thing that matters in this world. be true to your heart, the source of love.
I remembered those two emails now, as I stared at the page in Offerings. And I began to smile.
I arrived back at Mom and Lanny’s house and took a shower, and caught myself singing in the shower for the first time all week. I felt overjoyed. I waltzed over to Mom and told her my news. “I’m gonna turn down the job.”
“Really!” She smiled, looking pleased. (She would have been pleased either way.)
“Yes!” I told her about my revelation in the yoga studio. It just wasn’t worth it to me to put off being truly happy. When I had realized that, a plan had formed in my mind. “I’ll turn this one down Monday morning. If I get offered the DNR job, I will take that one. It’s a lot closer to what I want to do, and it doesn’t give me the heavy feeling. And if I get turned down, I’ll also be happy, because I’ll take it as a sign that I should pursue writing over the next couple years. Ron and I don’t want to have kids quite yet. We can afford this, for now.”
“That’s great!”
My high lasted the rest of the day. No more dappled sunlight teasing me back in the other direction. No wavering at all, in fact. This time, the decision felt different.
It was the decision my heart had wanted all along, but my head had taken a lot of convincing. Now I’d finally convinced my head, too: If my heart’s not happy, I’m not doing good work for the world. I won’t do it as well; I won’t shine. The time to be happy is now, if I have a choice.
The fact that I felt so happy all day confirmed that I’d made the right decision.
I called my dad to tell him the verdict—he’d been following my saga from his home in Florida. He congratulated me on my choice, and said that he’d read an article recently about happiness. The article said that the happiest people are those who listen to their intuition. It seemed like yet another confirmation that I was on the right track.
The next morning was Sunday, and Mom and I went to church. “Church?” you ask, “I wouldn’t have expected your contra-dancing, yoga-teaching Portland family to be churchgoers.”
Ah, but this was a Unitarian Universalist church, and one of the most active churches in the country on issues like peace, poverty, and gay rights. It was a very Portland church.
I felt a deep connection to this church. Unlike some UU ministers, the ones here didn’t shy away from the wisdom of Jesus and from religious words like “God” (gasp). And like most UU ministers elsewhere, they also drew wisdom from all the great religions, and from spiritual teachers as diverse as Gandhi, Mary Oliver, and Chief Seattle. And the music was nothing short of divine.
Today’s sermon was called “Let it begin with me.” I sat in my pew feeling open-hearted and relaxed, still basking in happiness at my decision, and listened to Reverend Bill Sinkford preach.
He began by describing the violence forged by our country. Did you know, he asked, that our military spending equals that of the rest of the world combined, and that we’ve engaged in 111 armed conflicts since World War II?
“There has not been a year of my life,” he said, “when my nation has not been using force somewhere in the world. We have been perpetually at war.”
In his patient, warm, focused tone, Sinkford talked about the relationship between our nation’s violence and our spirits.
The ironic and the sad reality is that some of the angriest rhetoric I have ever heard has been at rallies for peace. How do we hold the anger, that impatience for justice, in our hearts, while at the same time holding gentleness and peacefulness? How do we prevent the confidence that we are right from slipping into righteousness? Is it possible to be both peaceful and purposeful at the same time? …
Think even of the violence we have come to accept in film, in music, in video games. Violence, not peace, pervades our culture…
Living in this culture that accepts violence so readily, how can we find peace?
In answer to his own question, he spoke of the need for peace to “begin with me,” for each of us to forge peace within ourselves in order to create a more peaceful nation. He pointed to our busy and frantic lives, and how this busyness prevents us from feeling at peace.
Thomas Merton describes busyness itself as a kind of violence, violence that we do to ourselves: “…The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace…” We need a new way as a nation, and we need a new way individually as well. Buddha said, “Peace comes from within; do not seek it without,” and I think he was right.
“Peace within can lead to that greater peace that we all seek,” he concluded. “Seek peace within yourself so that you can share and spread peace beyond yourself. This world, which is filled with so much violence, needs presence and voices for peace… Peace can begin with us.”
As he finished and we began to pray, I thought about how I was feeling so happy and at peace today. At peace with myself, at peace with the world.
The decision I had made this weekend had been more than just a personal decision. It was a decision about what I thought was most important in the world, in my world. It was an unconventional decision, foolhardy but brave. A decision that might lower my own personal GDP, but would definitely increase my happiness index.
Hearing the sermon, I understood that my decision had brought me peace of mind, and in that way, it would help the world. My inner peace would radiate out from me like beams of light, and it would help me do my part to forge peace among us all.
Tuesday morning I awoke excited. Today I’d been invited to take a call from my acquaintance on the DNR interview panel.
The panel had been thinking over the weekend, knowing that I was making my own decision about the farm job, and they’d said they’d try to make theirs as soon as possible. Monday, I had let them know that I had respectfully declined the farm job, which I thought would take the pressure off of them. But my contact had still emailed to ask if I could talk Tuesday.
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like he was going to offer me the job. Why else would he call so soon? I was excited—I might get a “real job” in water resources after all!
I was flying back to Madison Tuesday morning, and I told him I could only talk during my layover in Colorado. Before leaving for the airport, I checked email one last time and got a message from him. He said he’d hoped to tell me on the phone, but it looked like that wouldn’t work out: they had decided not to offer me the job.
“Oh, no!” exclaimed my stepdad Lanny when I went downstairs and told him.
But I was laughing. Although I’d been excited at the prospect of getting this job, I found that I also wasn’t the least bit disappointed. It meant I could go on to Plan B: finishing my current work projects and then leaving the DNR to write. I would continue to earn very little, but I relished the thought of taking this course.
And the fact that I’d been excited was yet another sign that I’d made the right decision about the farm job. Excited was how I should have felt, how I’d wanted to feel, about that one, too. But for whatever reason, I just couldn’t make myself feel that way.
It hadn’t been fear of change. For whatever mysterious reason, I had dreaded the job itself.
And so I bid my family goodbye and hopped on the plane back to Madison, returning to the same life and job I’d had when I left.
I knew now why all of this had happened. Through all my thinking and deliberating, I was able to get my priorities sorted out. I had learned the value of happiness. I had realized what makes me happy, and that I wanted to live my dream now, not later.
Returning to life in Madison, the world suddenly looked a little different. A little better.
