While there are positive rituals or daily habits, like drinking tea, or sitting down with a partner and talking about your day. I have to own up to a negative daily ritual I created.
It started a year into my new job. I had moved to this job with ambition, energy and expectation. A year later, I realised that what had seemed like open doors and opportunities for personal and professional growth were actually just illusions of openness, carrots to keep this donkey walking down a certain track. While accepting this was one thing, processing it was another.
I had become friends with a colleague who had been excited and expectant of change and fresh ideas and new momentum when I first joined the company. When we both realised that our dreams were going nowhere, we began this daily ritual. We didn’t intend to, or purposefully choose to. But now 20 months later I can see that we created a ritual. Every afternoon when our boss left for gym we would meet under a tree and exchange frustrations about the day. Sounds impossible, to have something to complain about every day for 20 months, but we managed to do it.
And for me, it didn’t stop there. When I got home, I recounted the frustrations to my husband. We wasted hours talking about a situation that we were powerless to change. Some days there seemed like glimmers of hope and this only fueled further discussion and what ifs…
I’ve been on leave and I go back to this job for 3 months, before I move on to a place where this donkey can have her carrot and eat it. So I have to purposefully choose to create a new ritual with my colleague. We enjoy each other’s company, but we have to choose to ….
let go …
walk away…
and stop doing.
If we are going to enjoy the last few months of working together.
I’m going to make a good thoughts jar so when I go home from work every day, I can write down one good thought about my current work place and put it in the jar. It will be my daily cue to avoid falling back into my bad habit. Who knows, I may just surprise myself and it may be easier than I imagine. I think I will give the jar to my colleague when I leave in December and encourage her to keep filling it.
Here’s to new possibilities …
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