The Counterintuitive Fear of Loving Our Jobs
Earlier today I paused in between coaching sessions and thought, "I love my job." Counterintuitively, that very sentiment - the one so many of us search for - used to hold me back.
"I love my job" was a feeling that seeped through my being in quiet moments when I taught in higher ed. I'd be walking out of a seminar room after a rousing discussion, or a student had just left my office after a great conversation about thesis and life, or I'd have just read the most thought-provoking article in preparation for class and I'd catch my breath and feel the love of my job. "How lucky am I?" I'd think.
And then I'd shudder in fear.
Because what if I could never replicate that experience? What if teaching in this one institution in this one way was the only way I'd ever feel like I loved my job?
What if I decided I was ready to move on? Or, even worse, I was forced out?
Loving my job felt like the very thing that locked me in place. For 18 years! Those 18 years were absolutely wonderful in many respects. AND they were not developmentally healthy for me personally. The staying was born of clinging energy rather than abundance energy. It felt like the opposite of the dynamism that I wanted to embody.
I stayed put because I lacked imagination that there were *many* different scenarios in which I'd believe, with my whole heart, that I love my job. Lacking imagination held me back from pursuing opportunities that were a better fit for my goals, values, vision of impact, and family structure. The pandemic is the only thing that shook me loose and made me finally reimagine that good could exist in many different forms. In fact, "good" could become "even better." Which I'd *heard,* many times over, but never *believed.*
Now, with imagination behind me, I can say it: I love my job.
That's a privilege and an honor. I am grateful. And the gratitude no longer makes me shudder with fear.
Because now I recognize that even though you're fortunate enough to have it wonderful where you are in your work, you don't have to cling. Savor it, enjoy it, soak it up while it lasts - AND trust that when life shifts and you decide to make change, or when life decides to make the change for you, you can recapture that feeling.
Perhaps even with an added underscore.