Ten days ago I was thinking I'd have July off.
I pictured myself visiting Paris's sites and monuments with few tourists, dining at restaurants I'd been wanting to try, walking aimlessly through the city streets, and, of course, figuring out what I want to do with my life. I wasn't thrilled at the prospect of not having a job, but my three-month contract had come to an end and I'd been told it could not be extended. I was upset, felt like a failure, worried I hadn't done a good enough job, and cried. I felt my feelings, let them go, and figured I'd figure it out - it would all be OK. This was the right thing.
And in the meantime I'd have the chance to reflect, soul search, and enjoy the calm of a tourist-free Paris. I'd even booked a holiday to the beach in July, thinking it'd be ideal to escape the city and enjoy the ocean. All this, before possibly moving back to the US at the end of July or beginning of August, as I speculated in my previous post.
You know what they say about the best laid plans, though...
On Friday, my boss put a call on the diary, but her schedule got so busy that we didn't connect until Monday. She had found some projects for me to work on, and could I stay on into July if I hadn't accepted any other offers? Of course I told her I could, except for the dates I'm going away, and on July 15 (after my mini-break to the coast and France's Bastille Day holiday) I will work for another month with this team.
[Side note: You know what's funny? I haven't actually met any of my team members in person - except for my boss, whom I met at my last interview back in October, and another member I ran into on the street when I recognized his voice from the countless Zoom calls we've had. For me, it's been a bit strange and unsettling to work with people I've never met - though freelancers and WFH-ers have been doing this since...forever. And it's likely to be the new normal for at least the rest of the year. In fact, I may never work in my company's offices...!]
With this contract extension, I understood that I had worried and projected negative energy onto the situation and myself for absolutely no reason at all.
I'd taken something that wasn't personal, and made it personal.
But it's not about me. It was a business decision. At the time, it wasn't possible to keep me on. But we all know, things change. Things change hour to hour, minute to minute, second to second. Why wouldn't they change from one day to 10 days later, too?
I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity to work with the team for another month, and hopefully make more of an impact. I am excited about the projects that I'm slated to work on - they will offer the chance to demonstrate my skills and also learn new skills. I'm glad to get to work with my colleagues for longer, as I feel I've only really scratched the surface of understanding their capabilities and what we can all achieve together.
One thing I've noticed in recent years is that I can tend to be quite structured. I like routine. I like having a plan. If the plan needs to change, usually I can be amenable to it, but sometimes I'm less flexible. I'd often thought of myself as flexible and adaptable, able to go with the flow, given that my family moved around all the time when my brother and I we were kids. But this latest change - which would usually be seen as a good thing: a contract extension, another month of a salary! - threw me for a loop. I didn't anticipate this outcome, and it threw off my plan for July. In fact, I'd grown attached to the outcome of a free and easy July where I figured out my next steps, and when this objectively good opportunity to extend the contract arose, it took a while for my brain to reboot and adjust the synapses. But letting go of outcomes is something I've been working on this year, and this situation is an example I'll come back to the next time I find myself attached to one thing, but something else happens.
In fact, that's exactly how some opportunities get missed. I can get so focused on one particular outcome that I fail to notice other opportunities around me. In some cases it's good to have a goal, a dream, an objective, something to strive for. I wouldn't have gotten London, then business school, then Paris without setting those objectives for myself. And I have to do the work - though I do believe that luck or timing is involved to a certain degree, dreams and opportunities are not just going to land in my lap. I have to go out and work toward them.
Coming back to my current situation and this new outcome for July, I wondered how it could be true that the right thing for me to do in July was to wander and reflect, and also that I work for the month of July?
Well, as I've seen in multiple examples recently, they don't have to be mutually exclusive. They can both be the right thing.
It's not an either/or, but an and.
In fact, when I think about it, I have managed to have the best of both worlds with this setup. I have two weeks to relax and reflect, AND a month to work on these projects.
What will happen after August 11? Who knows. But I am open to the possibilities. And while I do intend to set some goals, think about what could be next for me, and lay at least a few plans down, I also want to be sure that I accept everything, reject nothing, and enjoy every moment.
