My Reality Check Bounced! - Jason Ryan Dorsey [72]
Concentrating, Sara finally understood what her mom was saying. She was at a restaurant in Florida and Alan Jackson,
Sara’s favorite singer, was eating dinner there. To everyone’s surprise, he spontaneously decided to put on a show. Sara’s mom held the phone in the air so Sara could hear Alan Jackson singing “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere.”
Sara smiled, momentarily lost in the music. Then her mom told her she had to go because she was about to dance! Sara said good-bye and looked out her large office window at the twinkling lights of Chicago. She could see cars streaming along the highway. She imagined the people in those cars heading to dinner with friends, a ballgame with family, or a movie with a date. She was alone looking at spreadsheets at 8:30 on a Friday night.
That was the moment. Sara saved her work and turned off her computer. One by one she picked up the pictures on her desk and looked at the memories. She would come back for the pictures later. Tonight she was going home for a long overdue night with her friends.
For the first time since landing her prestigious job, Sara turned off the lights in her office without feeling guilty about having more work to do. She was starting to see that being in a hurry wasn’t necessarily success, but being happy with your life was. It was finally five o’clock for Sara.
A month later, Sara, the previously nonstop high-flying star-to-be, was on a lazy beach in south Florida. I know because she called me. She and her mom were working on their suntans. A few job offers were trickling in, but she wasn’t rushing into anything. She needed to reconnect with herself first, so she could find out what to do with her life next.
Note: At the time of this writing, Sara has been out of the corporate sprint for one year. She tried a few jobs and then settled into one that she absolutely loves: high school science teacher. It was a big cut in pay but a huge raise in fulfillment.
BEWARE THE BUSY BINGERS
For many twentysomethings like Sara, being busy is their drug. Being busy makes them feel good on the outside because it keeps them from looking inside. The busier they are, the more important, valued, and successful they feel. As overwhelming as their life can appear to an outsider, they refuse vacations because they can’t stand the thought of just hanging out doing nothing on a beach for a week.
These overworked twentysomethings care more about staying busy than being fulfilled because, the truth is, fulfillment comes from having a life not from a twenty-four-hour job.
I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I know this because two years ago I was living in a hurry. I was twenty-five years old and wrapped up in my career and the image of success that I thought being busy projected. I felt I had to prove what I could achieve. I’d even pull all-nighters to make sure important projects were done my way.
I lived for my job 24/7, 365. This was fine until I started getting sick. It got to the point that I was getting sick about once a month. It was never some horrible sickness, but I would catch a cold and feel run down for a week. No matter how much I slept on airplanes or gobbled vitamin C, I never felt totally healthy.
I don’t know if I was getting sick because I was shaking so many people’s hands after seminars; if I was simply getting older, and my body couldn’t hold up like it once did; if I was eating too much prepackaged airport food; or if I just needed more time in my own bed. But I could not deny I was feeling off my game and it was only getting worse.
When the circles under my eyes got so dark that strangers asked if I was feeling okay, I swallowed my youthful pride and went to my doctor. I didn’t like what he said so I went to a different doctor. When he said