Not by works

I'm trying to do too much and not doing most of it well.

For example, i forgot to make a phone call today. Not only forgot to make it, but forgot i was supposed to make it. Make that two important phone calls.

I need to learn to start saying no and not picking up things simply because they are enjoyable. When doing too much, nothing is enjoyable anymore and i become undependable. I don't want to be that person.

Here's to change. In August.

Frustrations of misperception

Last week my new boss was explaining how office relationships operate--"We have to like each other in order to work together, but we can't be friends at work"--confusing things like that. Negotiating what that means with the help of an engineer, somewhere later in the conversation he said, "Don't worry. I've got you pegged."

As laughingly i related this to a friend, she said, "Oh no, you're hard to pin down. He's in for some surprises." She's an insightful friend, and while she's probably aghast at me sometimes, she has known me several years in various shades so what she says is probably true.

That said, it drives me bonkers that in some ways i feel like my new boss--of a week and a half--knows parts of me better than some do who should know me better.

It's bad enough that i usually feel like a gangling fourteen year old without someone thinking i still am that person. And yes, i do act goofy, i don't act my age--but heck, i pay my rent, hold down two jobs, earned two degrees with a third in process, and i'm paying--or promissory noting--my own way through. I've lived in Africa on my own and traveled around the world alone, attended a variety of social situations and handled myself quite okay, and while i second guess everything, i can make good decisions. Sure, i have fears: I hate making telephone calls; i get a little stage fright. They hardly cramp my style.

I hate those pointless arguments-in-germ of "You are this way". If i say that isn't accurate, and they repeat it, "Yes you are", it's crazy to mention it again. If i live down to their expectations that's stupid, but it's equally twisted and unhealthy to drive myself to prove them wrong.

Grrr, grrrr, GRRRRR. What is the God-honoring response here and how will i ever find the grace to do it!?

Ambition...

...I don't have much. Grabbing a bite to eat this week, one of my new colleague-supervisors asked why i wanted that job, and i didn't have a good answer: because it sounded fun?

I REALLY need to take that First Peter admonishment to heart about having a good reason for my hope, and everything else, and think more and be caught off guard less!

Because it is a good deed sort of job, one that can do some public good. Because i want to help be a good steward of the few open spaces left around Los Angeles, and help keep the natural resources (that includes views) open for people to enjoy and have a place to let off steam from the city. Because i need experience and i can't see myself surviving as an intern in an Irvine-corporate kind of firm. Because i don't want to design housing tracts. Because i needed a second job for the summer. Because my immediate supervisor is a great person, whom i already respect, and i could tell i'd thrive working for him. Because i want to be involved in habitat restoration. Because i want to be able to work outside sometimes. Because i hope it could maybe turn into a permanent job in the future and i wanted to be a ranger when i was a little girl--not to steal my supervisor's job, but to work alongside.

Because this is my Father's world. Because Christians should have remained on the forefront of the environmental movement as a God-honoring means of obeying His mandate to tend the earth and rule over it as His regents, and a means of loving their neighbors, instead of abdicating their responsibility and cowering in enclaves of anti-nature or acting like King John à la Robin Hood.

That's all. To be promoted is to be stuck managing people or dealing with even more politics in Washington. I'd rather be outside in the dust and the mountains, sniffing pine trees to see what species they are, cataloging old fire pits, figuring out how to preserve a view when re-opening a picnic area, researching light fixtures, tagging along as the geeky side-kick, and learning a ton.