Are You in Your Dream Job?

A Message of HOPE (Hearing Other People’s Experiences) –

Are You in Your Dream Job?

Will you trust God to lead you to your dream job?  Years ago when I worked in educational administration at Teachers College Columbia University, I interviewed a woman who had recently lost her high paying job in banking.  She had survived a decade’s worth of bank mergers.  On a Friday morning after the publicly announced merger between Manufacturers Hanover Trust and Chemical Bank, she was summoned to a meeting to learn that her job had been eliminated.  Her reaction to this news and the receipt of her severance package startled her colleagues.  In retrospect, she actually surprised herself.  She paused, breathed, took the document and serenely and simply said, “Thank you.” 

Upon returning to her office, she immediately picked up the phone and made the call to the Admissions Office.  Later, she shared with me that she did not trust herself to proceed toward the weekend without making that call.  By Friday evening, she suspected that she would have called at least three corporate headhunters.  Definitely by Sunday afternoon, she would have been back in the “rat race.”  Nonetheless, the lost of her job afforded her the opportunity to transition to the ideal job for her.  For more than a decade, she knew that her heart’s desire was to teach English literature to high school students.  She simply could not pull herself away from the money although she had long since resigned the job emotionally and existentially.  Fears relating to paying a monthly mortgage, maintaining her lifestyle and having enough money paralyzed her.  Of her own strength, she was unable to leave the corporate world.  Ultimately, she saw the lost of her job in the merger as one of her life’s greatest blessings.  She concluded that God did for her what she could not do for herself!  Her termination from the corporate world became an ironic beginning to a new life. 

After the interview, she applied successfully to the Master of Arts in Teaching program in English and Language Arts.  The following fall, she enrolled; the next spring, she earned her teaching credential enroute to certification in the State of New York.  Today, as I write, she starts her thirteenth year of teaching and working within her heartfelt passion.  She had to have been a very good banker; otherwise she would not have survived a decade’s worth of mergers.  Chances are she has become an excellent teacher.  When one works out of passion, one generally excels.  “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”  Summarily, this woman’s story offers hope to anyone who lingers within the daily grind of an unfulfilling job.  Trust Almighty God to orchestrate the details of your life and transition you to your dream job.