Monday, June 13, 2011

Creating Happiness

As some of you may know, I recently quit my job. Here's the story:

I had been feeling pretty down at work for a while. I had that job for four years and wondered "what the heck am I doing with my life?" I know we have all been there, but I was really just feeling useless. I would cry a lot, and I basically came home from work every day looking like this:


Yeah, pretty scary. And everyone that I knew told me that they had never seen me looking so stressed out and tired. I tried to play it off, but I really just felt miserable. I even had to drop my music class this semester because I was working so much that I couldn't keep up. My professor had told me that I was working too hard and that I shouldn't quit playing. I totally agreed with him, but I felt stuck :( It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.

I guess our life just hit a crossroads. Jon and I have made a lot of plans for the near future and we also had a lot of decisions coming up, so it really came down to 1) are we happy? 2) why do I have this job? and 3) what do we want out of life?

Then one day, I opened my lunchbox and found this:


Jon had put this fortune in my lunch (yes, he makes me lunch every day) and I realized that life is too short to hate what you do. Well, long story short, my job didn't really fit into our plans, and we both certainly were not happy. I was working way too much and doing way too little for our relationship, family and personal lives. Basically we decided it was better to invest in ourselves and make our lives awesome right now, to take the jump and live the lives we really want to instead of looking back in 40 years and regretting becoming work-a-holics in our early twenties and always wondering "what if?"

So we sat down and figured it out, and we're making it work! I'm grateful for all of Heavenly Father's blessings, but sometimes He gives you opportunities to change, and I think that my job had been all that I needed it to be for the time that I had it. Now it's time for something new!

So here we are. Friday was my last day of work. My guest services coworkers got me these awesome flowers :) I was so surprised when they were delivered!


Luckily I had my good camera with me that day, so I got some nice pictures of it:




AND it even came with an amazing smelling candle:


I of course had to get pictures with all my girls:

Steph & Noelle - BFFs

Bridget & Steph - GSRs
 
Me and Christa - my utility coordinator replacement
 
Steph & Emma - my Guest Services replacement
Seriously this was the best picture we were able to get. We were laughing so hard I was crying!

Our guest services team: Kacy, Noelle, Emma, Steph, Jill, Bridget and Christa
So now the rest of our lives begins. I've had some really good interviews at a couple other places, and hopefully that means another more awesome job will be starting here soon :) We will see!

Most importantly I have learned to not let anybody steal my joy, and also to live confidently and make the future that we have imagined. Oh, and don't forget to be awesome.

8 comments:

Judith Kester said...

Good for you, steph! Other and BETTER opportunities lie ahead :D

Lindsey and Jared said...

Wow! I had no idea. I am so happy that you left the work that was making you so unhappy. Good luck finding something that will bring you more joy! Hopefully this means that I will get to see you more :)

Steph said...

Thanks ladies! Yes, I definitely believe this was the right thing to do. I didn't really tell a lot of people that I was wanting a new job. I just tried to stay positive about it, and then we decided that it was time to make a change. Something low key that I can really get behind. We will for sure see more people now too. Lindsey, I see a joint FHE night in our future :)

merrilykaroly said...

This is so great! I hope it felt wonderful. I've made some big decisions in my life that seemed crazy, but looking back I felt AWESOME and that was all that mattered :) I hope you find something you enjoy doing!!

Brittany Lewis said...

Oh wow! I'm glad you decided to make a change for your own sake. I remember reading about how busy you were in the past and thinking you were crazy. :) I hope you find something you love--you deserve it!

Shilo and Betsy said...

Good luck with the job searching. I'm glad you're doing what makes you happy!

Steph said...

Thanks everyone, I appreciate the support! I definitely was crazy...

Maggie Muggins said...

I hope you're doing better now that the job isn't stressing you. Enjoy your time creating and have fun!