April 09, 2003

Thank you

I would just like to say that although I am happy to leave, I will miss it here for reasons that none of you will ever know.

This job was perhaps the first time in my life when things did not go well and I stuck with it. In the past when things were going well I worked hard to make them better and when they turned I built them up in my head to be worse and cut them loose. It was like I didn't understand any of the emotions in between - it was either victory and confidence or a simple waste of my time and validation that I was worthless. One of the first ways that I realized this is whenever I would think about what my boss thought of me at any of my jobs I would always see the possibilities as either 'genius' or 'will soon be fired'. Nothing in-between. And I believed both stories.

But living in the middle has taught me the valuable lesson that I am the one who is in charge of how I react. When things happen around me they aren't strings pulling on my limbs, but tiny decisions to be made by me and me alone. No matter what happens the one thing that you are really in control of is what you think.

April 9, 2003 10:20 AM