finding happiness

A few months ago I wasn’t very happy. I didn’t think that I loved my life very much and I was trying to figure out why. I used to spend my days off watching my twin nieces I did it for two days a week, 10 hour days, week after week after week. I loved being able to see them and the extra money allowed me to pay off a good part of my debt.  It was a win win except for the fact that I didn’t get much time off on my days off from my real job. I stopped watching them in August and was suddenly thrown back into the wonderful world of 3 days weekends. I should have been thrilled instead I found myself being miserable.  I thought that it was my job that was bothering me. I mean I do a very specific thing with such a small group of people that if the work place balance is off there you can really feel the shift.  I really just thought that I was growing kind of bored of the mundane parts of my job and maybe craving something more exciting like going back to emergency work.  I so thought that this was the case, that I went as far as have interviews and get offers at other places in town.  I never ended up taking any of those jobs and thank god I didn’t. See what I realized is that it wasn’t my job I was bored with, it was the fact that I had allowed my job to be the only thing going on in my life, and so when that went bad it meant my life went bad.  Does that make sense?

See I went to work all day did the same kind of stuff every day. I made great friends with my co-workers; one of my co-workers became one of my very close friends, you know the kind of friend who you do the friend stuff with like get drinks,  see movies, and meet up with when you’re bored. When I wasn’t working I talked to my co-workers, I sat at home and surfed the web or watched movies.  I would try to date but most of them were met with disastrous results and I would go lament about those bad dates to my co-workers. I don’t make enough money to take many weekend trips but when I would it was either alone or with my mom going camping.  I don’t seem have all that many friends outside of my work place, and the few that I do have are in other states or have more of a life then I did.  I was allowing my job to be my everything, and I didn’t even realize it. And the fact that I spent so many months having two of my three days off be all about more work. (Well watching two babies) I started to find myself becoming resentful about my job.

But like I said,  it wasn’t my job that I hated, it was that fact that all I had in my life was this job. Once I realized this I knew that I had to figure out a way to get myself involved in other kinds of things to make myself happy and meet people outside of my work place. Luckily I never took any of those other jobs because then I would have been more miserable. Instead I really took a long and hard look at what I wanted in the upcoming years. I started taking steps to reach those goals. So I enrolled in classes that I needed and made appointments to have conversations with people involved in the areas I wanted to join in.  I tried to find a few places to do some volunteer work at. I have always liked doing volunteer work, and I have always gotten such positive rewards for giving just your time to a worthy cause. I found a place in the area that does wild life rehab (I mentioned this once before) I started to spend my Tuesday mornings there. I found a place where you help disabled kids and adults incorporate horse riding into therapy sessions and I started to spend my Monday mornings there.  I found a great group of people who work doing ferret rescue at a shelter close by where they currently have 80+ ferrets for adoption., Most of them are given up for the same kind of reasons that turtles are and they just need people who are willing to spend a few hours a week to socialize and help clean cages. I started helping out here every other Sunday for a few hours.  I am also trying to see my little sister weekly in the afternoons after her schools out.

I have found in the last few months that I now have a super full schedule. I have to constantly check my p0hone’s calendar to figure out what I am doing and when. But what I have also done is found a whole bunch of people who I talk and socialize with who are not co-workers. I am no longer just thinking about my horrid dating life. Actually I have pretty much stopped dating and don’t really miss it. I mean when do I have time to date right now?  I have met some really amazing people who I can now consider friends. And because of this I am really enjoying my job again. See now that my job isn’t my everything…when I have a bad day at work ,or when something bad happens, or someone pisses me off,  I can take it for what it really truly is… Just a bad day at work. I am better now at my work because it’s just that, its just work. Not my world… It’s a place that I go to and when I leave I leave.  I love my job again, I love what I do again,  I love it that when I have a day off I am so busy that I don’t have time to worry about work. I love that I have friends who are not co-workers. I love that I surround myself with people who have similar interests and share the same philosophy as I do now both at work and not at work.  I love that when I get to come back to work it’s a chance to be involved in something that I love doing and away from all my other crazy activities.

 I am busy I’ll admit. Sometimes like today I leave the house at 7:30 and have non stop things until 7 pm when I came home tonight.  Or tomorrow where things look to be shaping up the same way. It’s not always relaxing anymore to have a day off. Actually it’s not relaxing at all because all these volunteer places are very very physically demanding. But they are making me find fulfillment, and therefore I am ecstatic. It’s a great balance and I truly found happiness with all these activities that I have immersed myself in.   I have out side activities that are important, fulfilling, and satisfying. And I have a job that I love to go to, love who I work with, and is important, fulfilling and satisfying.