Double Blessings

A little rest, a little folding of the hands is how William Shakespeare put it. Where do we go when the world piles up on us real life and/or virtual life?

The first time I started my own business I moved my desk right up beside my bed. That way, in the middle of the night if I remembered something I had to do, I could just lean over and work on it from my bed.

I was working way too many hours, So, one day I walked to my favourite bookstore, the Oxford Book Shop in Peachtree Battle Shopping Centre. It was the largest bookstore in the South East USA at the time (long before Borders decided to destroy all small bookstores with their mega-monopolies), boasting over one hundred thousand titles. And we computerised those titles from microfiche when I was there (what a task that was).

Nevertheless, I knew the store inside and out because as much as I enjoyed my work, I love books more. I also knew all the staff, so as I checked out the night manager was there and I asked him of the possibility of some part-time work. He gave me an application and I went home and filled it out for night work.

And viola, I had a part-time job of six hours on Saturdays and four hours three nights a week. This, I knew would be a vacation for me. To be surrounded by books (a generous lending plan and a 35% discount on purchases!) and there was even a wonderful coffee shop upstairs with the science and technical section.

Tilted Picture

What’s wrong with this picture? Well just that for all of it I hoped it would be more like a holiday, it didn’t take me long to be nominated as night and weekend manager. That meant my hours extended and I stayed late and closed the store and was in early every weekend to ensure the store was ready for shoppers.

I lived closest to the shop, so I was constantly being called out for any and every situation around, including a massive fire we had one very early morning that ended up being my challenge to manage. What fun that was!

Pattern Observed

Why am I telling you this, because it happens to me all the time. I even entered the virtual world thinking I would have a “holiday” and in less than two months I was on my way to more and more responsibility.

Someone in the virtual world recently told me I should relax and just go with the flow of the rushing river instead of fighting so hard to fix things and help others. It reminded me of something I’ve always believed from a poem from e e cummings:

“to be nobody-but-yourself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”

My Way Alone

Everyone else seems to be going in the other direction around me as I stop to help others along their path. I choose to walk the other way, to try not to bump into people along the way, to miss the mass marketing opportunities, the mob mentality, to walk alone if need be, etc. And every occasionally someone stops and turns around and begins to walk with me. Sometimes they walk with me for a long time, sometimes just until they bump into the first person who tells them they are walking in the wrong direction.

Personal Inventory

But it got me to questioning: What is wrong with me? I am competent, I am gentle and respectfully opinionated and I am right more times than I am wrong (you only need to be right 51% of the time to stay on top you know). I am moral, optimistic, have a strong personal code of ethics. I'm a creative and highly intuitive person who is humbled by the wonder of her life. Most of all, I care deeply for others, and usually at my own sacrifice. I have, and continue to live both lives this way.

And when I die, I know that like Frank Sinatra, I will have done it my way and even though that has isolated me from many people (except on superficial levels) for my own survival and protection, some will have been faithful friends and some have even loved me (and many I do not know love me still).

I like walking this way. And I know there are many who do turn and walk with me sometimes and that encourages me too. You see I live a blessed double-life.