The greatest accomplishments of my life have been evolutionary. I went to college after high school. I got married after college. I had children after getting married. I was hired in a district role after working in a school. There is nothing revolutionary about any of those moves. They were safe, almost expected. Sure, I did them with my own little flair, but I don’t think that anyone would consider that too extravagant of a path. Sure, I enjoyed every minute, but I don’t think that makes for a particularly good movie of the week.
Now there is something inside of me saying that I should attempt a coup.
There is something that is driving me to reach for more than an evolutionary step would allow. It is telling me that now is the time curing which I need to take all that I have learned and created and try to stack in such a way that I could jump up and grab what is just out of reach.
In middle school I thought that there was a metaphorical casino for popularity. You got so many chips to start and depending on how you played, you could win more or lose everything. I believed that if you cashed out at just the right time you would walk home without a better girlfriend or an invitation to the right party. Needless to say, I was not at all popular in those days. By viewing the world in this way, I could make everything a gamble without any kind of relationship setup or long term interest in the actions of making friends or having interesting conversations. As I got older, I started to notice the give and take of popularity and value. I noticed that it didn’t really matter which community I was a part of, so long as I felt supported and loved.
The casino metaphor is highly limiting in that it only relies on the social capital that you yourself have raised. It does not take into account that we are all the sum of the connections we maintain. And that is why I feel I have a coup brewing within me. It isn’t so much that I know it is time to move on, it is that all of the other people in my life know this for me. They are bracing themselves for a coup and not an evolutionary step.
I don’t think that a job reclassification is going to do it. It must be something that disrupts the hierarchy that I have been working in to the point that others question what they are doing and why they didn’t think to attempt the coup themselves. It will leaves those who trust in the status quo for their information and power with an uneasy sense that their expectations are about to be swept away.
Words like director, founder, owner and consultant keep filling my head. They are supported by everyone feeding me ideas and fulfilling the part of me that senses the shift coming. It isn’t an attempt at vanity or at wishful thinking. I know that those words don’t work for wishes. Coups don’t come to those who wait. They are in themselves single acts that have been contemplated and reworked until the plans are perfect.
I think mine is a pretty good one, but the one thing about coups is that you never know that they have happened until they are over. Mine is no different.
Your new set up for your website is very aesthetically appealing and inspirational—love that! Okay…for your post…I have my two cents…yeah, go figure. First things first, you may have followed the “traditional” ways step-wise, but you didn’t as far how you went about them. I didn’t know you in college, so I can vote there. I didn’t know you when you got married; however, I do know you as a husband…and you are a supportive one and the two of you communicate. I would like to think that is the norm, but when I read the divorce statistics I think hmmm. Then you had kids…but you are an involved, loving father. Again, would love for that to be the norm but 12 years in education I can guarantee it is not. I didn’t know you as a teacher, but I knew you as a part-time tech guy and a full-time tech go to guy (sorry your actual title is escaping my mind at the moment), and I can tell you in 12 years of teaching you ARE NOT like a regular tech guy AT ALL. For starters, you house an unbelievable amount of passion, knowledge, and willingness to share. Secondly, if you don’t know you’ll figure it out. Most importantly, you realize everyone is human. You always help – making sure they don’t feel stupid. You understand that everyone forgets information or steps at times, so you create resources for people to refer to whenever they desire. You would teach us information that was helpful and if we asked to learn more about any topic (regardless if we were using it in our current jobs) you always taught us. So, perhaps you took the “traditional” steps, but you definitely didn’t do it with a normal day by day attitude! nnI understand and agree with your entire blurb on our social surroundings. I agree with what those around you are saying…to an extent…sometimes those around you focus on one facet of your life (aka your career potential) and forget that it is important to you to be a doting husband, loving father, supportive son/brother/friend etc. No matter what occurs in life – I believe balance is key. YOU will know when it is time to move on. YOU will feel not only the fire inside of you but the room around you within the other realms of your life. I always encourage you to be the best man you can be, but I ask you to always remember the WHOLE man that you desire to be. You’ll know when it is time, Ben – just make sure it is the person in the mirror who makes the final decision.
I’m so glad that you love the new layout. I worked on it quite a bit to makernsure that it really matched what I was looking for. To me, it is much morernprofessional and current. The last one I had was the same since 2007… timernfor a change.rnrnThank you so much for the positive encouragement. It isn’t that I want torndisavow all of the things that I have done, but rather I would like to havernthem all add up to more than just those things. I was trying to be a littlernmore vague than I really should have because the plan that I am working onrnrequires a bit of secrecy (especially if it doesn’t work out).rnrnYou recently made some pretty big life decisions and I would say that yournstaged your own coup. I hope to do the same in a very short amount of timernand I think you are right about making sure that I am doing it for all ofrnthe right reasons. You point about being a whole person in making careerrndecisions is a good one. It really does affect everything else, but it isn’trneverything.