Something Breaks Before Something Else Can Begin

I had a job I absolutely loved. After more than a year of working via short-term contracts with The Author Incubator, I came on full time with them last February. It was intense. There was lots to learn. I was the primary contact for up to twelve authors at a time as they took their first drafts to published ebooks. I loved my authors, their desire to help, the fast pace, and my coworkers.

My association with the company ended on September 20th, when the CEO decided to use all local talent. As a remote employee, my gig was up.

I think the universe had to arrange that. I was serving my mission in various ways. (You can read the mission statement a couple posts below.) Each of our authors had a mission to help specific clients with a narrow problem, and by supporting those authors to helping their tribes, I was working to improve the world. However, it was not as direct a way to accomplish my mission as it could have been. None of the authors was working on reducing carbon emissions, which is the aspect of ensuring the vitality of the human game for the long term that feels most critical to me now. I'm working on a book that addresses that problem, which I could not attend to while working at TAI.

Between losing that job (and its income) and my next business, there's a confusing and scary place. When I gain enough perspective, I know that confusion and fear are normal when ending something old and starting something new. Other times, I am simply confused and scared.

It seems like the entire system of the United States – perhaps even the world – is in that dim and smoky place between one set-up that used to work and the one we need to meet new challenges. I wish us all a chance to find our way through.

Times of Change Are Times of Loss

I have been sad recently. It's possible that Doug and I will soon have a better situation than we have ever had before. And, at the moment, we are no longer employed and no longer home owners. I feel the loss of the systems that I built about myself in my home. They let me accomplish a lot, with my tools arrayed about me, and my habits cued by my surroundings. It's been much harder for me to take on tasks. I am grieving, not just the income, and the home, but the effectiveness I had. I am grieving the competent self I was.

I notice that I feel more like writing when I am sad. The movie Inside Out suggested that the use of sadness was to inspire help. It also inspires introspection and reflection. With my old systems broken down, I'm open to new systems, willing to step out of activities, habits, even ways of thinking that I didn't question when I was in place.

Rohan Rajiv recently speculated on his great daily blog, https://alearningaday.blog/, that we can write to the world or write for ourselves. I am writing for myself here. And it feels like I may do it regularly for a while.