In case you’re short on time, I’ll sum up part one of Jen’s Story: Part One. The very short version is that I searched high and low in an attempt to figure out what I was supposed to do with my life. I chased the answer like I would an oasis in the Sahara and tried all of the traditional approaches (books, test, career counselor). These approaches simply did not work (part one offers a more entertaining version of this quest).
At this point a more sane person may have given up. Not me. Nope. I walked into work the Monday morning after my husband shipped out for Bosnia, went to talk to the coworkers (aka friends) who provided my worklife sanity at the time, only to find that not one, not two, but three of them had decided to go on vacation at the same time. Normally I would have simply focused on my work–however, at the time we had a shortage of work in our department and I was bored (very, very bored).
If you’re here, you probably know very well what happens when you’re bored at work–you become even more obsessed with figuring out what to do with your life.
And obsessed I was. I wanted to leave. I wanted a change. I searched high and low for the answer on the web, typing in everything from “tell me what to do with my life” to “help me, please!” (ok, not really, but close). A few friends and my cousin had told me about a place called Kripalu, in Lenox, Massachusetts. I’d visited their site before and was curious about it, but it seemed a little out there. But now I was desperate. My husband was gone. I had no one to distract me from how miserable I was at my job*. The out there options seemed more appealing. Riding a cow across South Dakota in a December blizzard began to be an attractive option if it meant I could leave my job.
So I checked out the site once more to learn that they were offering a workshop called “Finding Your Life’s Mission” that very week! Do I call? Don’t I call? If you can’t sleep one night and want a secret remedy, let me know and I’ll tell you more about my deliberations over whether or not to call. I called. They told me they had a few spots left and one bed. Seemed like it was meant to be. So with much fear and excitement and what I am getting myself intoness, I headed to Kripalu for the first time on a Thursday in August in search of my life’s mission. Did I find it? Yes. and No. More in part three.
