just Beth

What are you doing right now and are you enjoying it? Are you currently satisfied being where you are? Or both? Where are you going? Do you see how your current activities and interests lead to other things? That during a season you are fulfilled, but then you reach for more or different? Have you thought about it?

I have found that when I’m relaxed and in a groove I will enjoy it for a time, but I eventually want something new to do. Then, after changing gears and being busier and more productive, I long for some down time. (Down time is productive too though; we just have to give ourselves permission to accept it!) I am happy and very grateful that I enjoy my professional and educational life – meeting and conversing with new people on campus and online, working on my database labs and participating in class discussions, even helping my son and daughter with their school work and life in general – but after a while, I need to get away for alone and quiet time so that I can recharge.

I have gone through this in seasons of my life too, not just in daily or weekly activities. After I received my associate’s degree years ago, I worked as a systems analyst for 14 years and loved it. I left that life to run my own business and home-school my children for about 10 years. Now I am at school again with two new career focuses, basically starting a new life back in my hometown, and loving every minute of it.

I used to think that getting the “itch” to improve my life or just move on to something new meant that what I had done in the past was somehow inadequate, or I had lost the meaning in my current “place,” but that’s not it at all. What it means is I am continuing to learn and improve my life and myself, and I am continually evolving into who I am. We all are.

No matter where we are or what we are doing, we are not finished and never will be. I watch my parents in their 80s and see their continued transformation and influence on others. In being given the amazing opportunity to discuss my parents’ lives with them, I am able to see the meaning in our experiences, no matter how insignificant or negative they may appear to be at the time. I am encouraged that what is current, is meaningful and productive, but even more than that, it is a solid foundation for a future that will be even more rewarding.

Seasons change, and there is a time for, and meaning in, everything. What are you doing with your life right now? Do you see who you are now as compared with your identity many or a few years back? And, back to the questions I asked at first, where are you going, or are you currently satisfied being where you are, or both? Do you see how your current activities and interests are leading to other things?

Discussions going on here.

My new job with DeVry, even though I haven’t started it yet, will involve blogging and so much more. I can’t wait to head to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs with some people who I can already tell are going to be awesome to work with and to build positive relationships with. One of them just graduated from Keller yesterday and I feel very blessed to be meeting her soon. I am sure that we will all work well as a team and will enhance each others’ lives as we work to be the face of the DriVen Class.

Anyway, this is my first blog entry using just the iPad and a new app I just installed today. I am really enjoying learning how to use technology to reach out and communicate with others. I am also in the process of learning how to schedule and budget my time so that I am not feeling like because my devices are always with me that I have to always be using them to “work!”

Look out world, here I come!

I have been extremely busy with school and having a real life lately, which is a very good thing, but I have been neglecting my writing.  Let the procrastination continue… or procrastination avoidance; both seem accurate depending on how I look at it or maybe my mood.

I am looking for employment now and constantly seem to be updating my resume.  Also for my job search I am attempting to come up with a personal business card, complete with a slogan, which has me doing even more self-analysis.  I always want to write when I am back in the self-analysis mode, my skills, my education, my life.  Me. Me. Me.  Ugh.  It’s kinda like dieting – the more you want to avoid food the more you find yourself thinking about it.  I have learned so much about myself over the last couple of years, but I have also learned that I can be very selfish and self-absorbed, thinking I was just the opposite.  I find myself wondering more and more if I see reality, or do I just make it up as I go along?  Well, no time to philosophize right now, but I am sure I’ll have many more conversations with myself about myself soon.

Time to finish up this business card.  I like swords, but images associated with violence may not represent me accurately, as least not as far as how I would like potential employers to see me anyway.  And that brings me to – how much of myself is it OK to reveal on a public blog?  Ha ha.  Meh.  I’m probably giving too much thought again to my self-importance… wait, that’s the very definition of the word.  Can you say circular obsession?  Whosh…

# of I’s in this post = 21
# of myself’s = 6
I guess it is all about me.  … attempting to remedy that … please stay tuned.