These past few months, I’ve allowed myself to be stressed over quotas, data analysis, and metrics. I felt defeated and repeatedly told myself that I can’t work in this environment anymore. There were times when I felt strangled and my nervous system refused to settle down. I was mentally speeding through a dark tunnel without direction nor a speck of light.
In reality, I was driving a 2025 Lincoln, with air conditioning for when it’s blazing hot outside and heated seats when the temperatures plumet below freezing. I put 82,000 miles on my company car in a year and a half, but don’t pay a cent for gas. I spend countless nights away from home, in four-star hotels.
I complain and carry on, but then I read a book or watch a movie about the people before me who worked tirelessly in horrific conditions or lost their lives for me to have a job, and suddenly the pressure cooker loses its steam.
I cease complaining about my working conditions when I think of the broken backs on which I stand. The job I have today is because of the early advocates during the AIDS epidemic. It is because of their sleepless nights, loss of life, and unbridled determination that we have medicines to treat and prevent HIV.
I need to push back on the yakety yak in my skull and not let nonsensical thoughts take over my cranium.
Amid yet another intense morning, I was driving to a meeting where my marketing knowledge and performance skills needed to be impeccable. Ruminating on the details, I almost snapped under pressure. Then a gift from the universe re-directed my thoughts to my children and grandchildren and how they matter more to me than any job that I let suck the life out of me.
When I realized the power was within, and I thought about those who worked themselves to the bones and risked life and limb and lung for me to be able to work, I took a deep breath and redirected my mind to what really matters. For me, it is spending time with my family and friends, enjoying the ordinary, being curious, and noticing the small stuff, and how delightful it is that my grandchildren laugh hysterically when I honk like a goose while blowing my nose.
Best work advice: calm down, breathe, be real, and honk when necessary.
