One Hundred Eighty Degrees.
As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve made some changes in my life. The last year’s journey has been long and arduous, and I still have not reached my destination… However, life is not about the destination, it is about the journey and I finally feel like I am walking the right path.
Let me lay this all out for you (I’ll try to be brief, because I could probably write a book about this all…) so that you have some idea of what has transpired to get me from the wrong path to the right one and to where I am now:
Right out of highschool I intended to go to culinary arts school. I let my parents talk me out of it. I went to 4 year college, got my degree in molecular biology (I was good at science, and it was interesting enough). I knew somewhere in me that it wasn’t the right place for me, so I applied to become an officer in the United States Marine Corps. I was accepted and began training. Twelve days into training I was injured (torn rotator cuff) and discharged.
This was a huge blow - I was devastated at the beginning but in the next year or so (summer 2008-summer 2009) I learned that everything happens for a reason. Everything.
In that year I worked my first job as a scientist. I hated it. It was luckily only a six month contract, so at the end I declined the permanant job offer and moved on to my second job in science. This one was better, but still not right.
Eighteen months later, something still just felt out of place. I started thinking about reapplying to the USMC, or perhaps the Navy. Didn’t feel right. Started looking for other jobs in science, didn’t feel right.
Then I started looking at culinary schools and it started feeling right. I talked to a friend who was looking for a line cook for their kitchen, started feeling more right. Got accepted to culinary school, got the job in the kitchen, started feeling even more right. Two months ago, I walked away from my (high paying) science job and into the kitchen, and felt home. Home.
I have never felt as at home in a workplace as I do in the kitchen. I’ve never felt like everything was so … in sync before.
…There were a million steps in between where I was and where I am now, who I was and who I am now. Don’t get me wrong, I am at my core the same person - I have the same values, same morals, same sense of family, happiness, doing the right thing, honor, integrity… perhaps I have even found a stronger conviction in those things. But I am (ask any of my friends) different. The last two months have changed me. I can’t put my finger on what exactly is different, but something is.
In the concrete sense, the only thing I have changed about my life is my job and having decided to go back to school. Yes, I have moved, but it’s not like I moved across the country and had to start a whole new life. I have the same friends, the same interests, etc. etc. etc. So what is so different? The key, my friends, is finding what makes you happy and doing it every single day. That feeling of “home” in the kitchen - it impacts everything I do, every moment of every day of my life. I am less stressed out about work, therefore I am more relaxed in every other part of my life… I find more joy in simple, everyday things. I find that I have more love to give. I have rediscovered passion and excitement.
I know a lot of people will preach “a job is a job and nothing more than a paycheck” but let’s be real people - most of us spend more than half of our waking hours at our jobs, so if you aren’t happy at your job, you are unhappy for more than HALF of your life! It takes a toll on you. You start finding less enjoyment in everything because you simply don’t remember how to be happy anymore.
Being happy… it’s a positive feedback cycle; the happier you are, more of the time, the happier you are, more of the time. It works the same with being unhappy, but it drags you down instead of building you up. I was broken. Unhappy. I’ve built myself back up. This building is stronger and more beautiful than the one before it. Happiness is beautiful, my friends.
Now that you have the back story, you can start following my new story.
