On the hunt

Job searching is an interesting thing. You make your resume, and spend countless time perfecting the margins and the font size and the content. Every word has to be perfectly chosen and appropriate and placed within the perfect sentances, all in the attempt to make yourself look exactly like whatever type of person the employer is looking for. Its a very involved process. Then when you know you have highlighted every strength and tactfully concealed every weakness, the Career Services person marks it up with red ink like she was recreating the 4th of July fireworks show on paper. So you go back to your computer and try to eek out more, from both your resume and yourself.

The whole time you have the questions running through your head: Do you want me?? Am I good enough? Will you have me?? Will you make it worth my time?

Then you apply and wait for calls. They come, and you are respectful and curteous, kind and considerate with a little bit of humor and zest thrown in for flavoring...you want them to remember you, of course. You must be honest about things so they know you are a real person. They like your resume (YES!!...resounds your silent exultation). They seem to like you. All goes well.

The salary topic comes up, as well as benefits. Oh so much delicacy is required here. Careful now, lest they think you are too assuming. But it is a quick conversation, generally. They either offer you what you want, so you are good to go. Or they don't, and you have the choice to politely debate, or turn it down. You can't budge in terms of your minimum unless they thrown in something nice, like extra time off or something. Gas is still expensive, no matter what you say.

Then they say "Thank you for your time, you seem like a great candidate for this position. We will be calling you."

And they do. And they offer you the job.

But I didn't take it. They weren't going to pay me enough. Gas is, like I said, expensive. And they lived too far away.

Good Better Best

I think it is safe to say that we all learned from a very tender age that there was an hierarchy in the world. The pecking order was well established on means of health, wealth, beauty and success. As kids we learned that its better to be faster, smarter, prettier, funnier...no matter the skill, as long as it was better. Good was ok, but who wanted to settle for mediocrity? We were all trained to strive for better....for the best. I saw nothing wrong with that... until it definitely wasn't cool to be the tallest girl, or until all of a sudden school was more challenging than it was rewarding, or until suddenly the whole world seemed an endless parade of girls worthy of a magazine cover. Being the best was quickly subverted for simply working towards being better. And better-ness can be a precarious position for those who deem mere good-ness as unacceptable. Its a constant battle to “be enough”. I think we even go deeper and play the game with ourselves to the point that we condescend to be merely good at some things if it ensures us the better or best title in another. I suppose in that case its about priorities.

But it all begs the question, by whose standard have we lived our lives? I learned that if I wanted to be a Sparky in Awana, I had to learn all my Bible verses to perfection...reference and all. If I wanted to be a starter on the basketball team, I had to do more than rely on my height and raw talent. If I wanted to be the lead in the musical I had to work hard and train. But then, how did I learn to want those things in the first place? I think basic human nature, as well as my personality, longs for recognition and worth. And again, I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting those things.

I think, however, that the rub therein lies with the dissatisfaction of achieving the good or better when one was hoping for the best. Does the little boy who got runner up in the spelling bee not cry? Are there not tears for the second place team at the championship? Yes, of course there are. Hope deferred makes a heart sick. But what I'm driving at is our terms of success on a more basic level..

The standard, at large, is dictated by our culture. We are taught that our worth lies in our “best” areas. But what if I don't have “best” areas, or no longer want to be defined by the ones I have? The man who only ever talks of his “glory days” of high school football, or the woman who relives her homecoming crowning daily; what sad, empty existences! I think the most interesting and life-giving people are the ones who live by their own standard of “best-ness”, or better yet (no pun intended), by God's.

I don't have to be what you think I should be. I think being a PTA is just fine in comparison to being a PT. Actually, I think being a PTA is best for me, even though by the world's reconing being a PT is better. And no, I don't need to make 80k a year to be happy. 40K is just fine thank you...its better, in fact, lest I become too independent and forget to rely on my Provider. And come to think of it, my life will yet endure if I never have the money to afford a brand new car, or a lake house, or even a perfect complexion and body.

So forgive me World, but I think I'm better off not trying to live up to your standards. Because in some areas, you just don't even hold a candle to me. And in others where you think I'm not your ideal, then that's fine with me. I'm a flawed creation moving towards true Perfection, and nothing you do will hinder me because HE is my standard.