Blog For Free!
Archives
Home
2004 June
My Links
Everything about Toronto
Island Artist Blog - beautiful!!
tBlog
My Profile
Send tMail
My tFriends
My Images
Sponsored
Blog
|
| Courage for happiness |
| 06.05.04 (5:30 am) [edit] |
Yesterday I received the first ever response on my journal. That was unexpected and very … hmmm… new to me, and very nice indeed! The commentator and I actually shared the same primary personality, and that made the comment even more heart-warming.
The commentator pointed out that people needed to first resolve basic needs before they thought about other things. This is quite true. As a matter of fact, some scholar ([url=http://web.utk.edu/~gwynne/maslow.HTM]Maslow[/url] ) has pointed out that a regular person seems to go through the following stages of need to reach the sense of fulfillment: solving the basic needs, finding security, feeling accepted or belonged, gaining self-respect and self-esteem, and finally, reaching one’s potential. And the key word I find in this theory, is ‘seem to be’, as fulfillment didn’t quite happen in the same order for this lady, Tisa, in the following story:
[i]Fresh out of graduate school, Tisa had dreams of a bright future awaiting her as a counsellor. She had trained her collegiate life for this and had earned her MA degree in Educational Psychology and Counselling. But in the summer of 1979 shortly after graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, Tisa was in a car accident that wrecked her body, leaving her paralysed as a quadriplegic with a little motion in her right hand. She worked for a short time as an advocate for the disabled out of the concern for those worse off than her, but she never forgot her dream of being a counsellor. She went to the Department of Rehabilitation, thinking they could help her find work. She explained that she had a degree in counselling and asked them to help with employment in this field. They responded “we will help you get a job but not in counselling because it's too difficult, too competitive, and you won't stand a chance.” Unknowingly, they also broke her spirit. Feeling desperate and thinking this is better than sitting at home, Tisa left the office that day with a job as a representative for State Disability Employment Insurance. Her job was to sit at a computer and process claim forms for deceased people. She struggled with the routine of doing the same old thing every day for 8 hours. After a year she was so bored and depressed the she knew she could not continue to do this work. She told her employer that she was going to quit and they said “if you quit, you're on your own.” This may have been enough to discourage many in her condition but not Tisa. She was not about to let her physical limitations limit her. All the security in the world was not worth her sacrificing her passion. She did quit and began to pursue a counselling job on her own. When I first met Tisa she was volunteering for the Special Resources Centre for people with disabilities at the college where I was working as a counsellor. I was so impressed with her skills that I invited her to a True Colours workshop. She did the personality assessment and I could see that she was an Orange-Blue personality [/i](dps102 note: in short, think of Orange as a personality of spontaneity/active/ variety, and Blue as caring/human relationship/harmony/spir itual growth). [i]Gold [/i](dps102 note: Gold is personality of safety/control/predictabi lity/commitment/execution ) [i]was her last colour and this was the kind of work the Rehab office had assigned her to. Looking back at her job with State Disability Employment Insurance, the skills required for her job processing claim forms are strengths for the Gold colour. Yet, Gold is her last colour [/i](dps102 note: meaning this personality trait is the weakest in her overall personality, which in theory is consisted of four personality traits)[i], representing her weaknesses. Is there any reason why she hated her job? She had to focus all day on doing tasks that she was not good at and had no interest in. Has this ever happened to you? I introduced Tisa to the person in charge of the counselling department and she was instantly hired as a part time counsellor because of her credentials. Now, she is doing academic and career counselling which is her dream. She loves being active so she didn't stop there. She is also teaching career classes, speaking at conferences and doing workshop presentations. Currently she is developing an on-line career development class. Today Tisa is living the life of her true self -- the Orange personality -- with all the variety, fun, and excitement that she needs to keep her interested. Her body was broken but her spirit wasn't. If she had stayed in the job assigned to her, her spirit would have also been broken and the world would never have experienced the true gifts of this incredible woman.[/i]
Tisa actually compromised her sense of security financially and career-wise in order to reach her potential, and hence her happiness. That yearning of change, or that feeling of lacking, doesn’t seem to be an isolated incident. I suspect, the fact that there are not more people making the same kind of change even if they are not fulfilling at work, is because they either lack the courage, the opportunity, or they simply lack the understanding of themselves.
Another observation I make is that being ‘happy’ is such a broad term. Some people are happy at home but not at work/school, or they are happy with their work and not their marriage, or any other combination we can think of. Achieving an ‘all around’ happiness seems to be so idealistic that it is not even worth considering. Or is it? …
|
|
|
| |
|
|
