The World is my Oyster...pass the horseradish!

I am very fortunate that I have never been through a lay-off until now.  But my reaction hasn't been normal!  The first two or three days, I was pretty upset.  Most of the upset occurred when my friends were being wonderful.  Go figure!  They have been great.  No one let me spend a night alone last week.  The phone keeps ringing and the emails and cards of encouragement keep coming. 

I am wondering if I have lost my mind because I am SO INCREDIBLY ESTATIC that I don't have to work at The Company any more!

The economy is about to hit a nasty road bump so I should be pretty worried about not having a job, but for some crazy reason I'm not.  I chose to believe that this gift of time is important right now.  When I moved to my City, I moved for a J-O-B, right out of College.  Another friend was supposed to take the position but she got a better offer in her Home Town and decided to move there instead.  So, without any thought between, hey, that City sounds cool.  I don't have a job in College Town, Ok, I'll move.

For the past 10 years, I have been following other people's decisions.  It has landed me in an industry that I really love and a position that excites me.  However, very few decisions that placed me here were made by me.

I need to spend some time deciding if my unconscious decisions were the right ones for me or if I should take full advantage of the ability to make conscious decisions.  Let me give you an example.

In December, I started spending less time in the office.  Since I'm in Sales, I can get away with this, it's actually encouraged.  In early January, after returning from a trip to the Big Apple, I decided to spontaneously purchase a laptop - so I could work from Panera or Starbucks (until I found out they charge for it!) or Caribou or Bojangles.  I started doing all of these things that would make it really easy for me to change jobs without any conscious or planned decision to do so.  It's absolutely wild.

More to come...