A Path with Heart

 Several years ago, I was in a director-level communications position and really struggling with the politics of the place.  My husband, who was tired of my complaining, heard of a job at Microsoft (where he was working at the time) that we both knew I could do with two hands tied behind my back; I'd spent much of my career in similar positions.

So I blithely said, "Alright, I'll do it.  If I don't get the job, I'll just ... move to the San Juans and write a book!"

It was a joke, really; we both knew I'd get the job.  So I applied.  And they lost the application.  I printed up another and my husband hand-carried it to a friend in HR.  Who lost it again.  But the third time was the charm, and I soon found myself on the phone with a young man, probably half my age, who was interviewing me for the position.

At some point in the conversation, he asked, "If you were in a group with 100 people, where would you like to be positioned in that group?"  I thought about it for a milli-second or two, and then replied, "Number two."

"And why is that?" he asked. 

"I don't need to be number 1," I replied.  "I don't want to be dealing with all the politics: I just want to be the person who gets the job done and makes number 1 look good."

I never heard back from them, and we agreed that it was probably because the young man -- and the company -- were too young to understand the importance of hiring Number Twos.

I've been reading Deborah Tannen's book, Talking from Nine to Five: Women and Men at Work this week, and now I see that in offering to be Number Two I was probably making the same choice I've made repeatedly over the course of my life, the same choice most women -- or at least ones in my age range -- make, which is "not to blow your own horn."  It helps to understand that that is a sort of cultural imperative -- and one that probably needs to be overcome if women are ever to reach parity with men in the corporate world.

But what I also know is that, having lost that opportunity, I began to look more seriously at that joke I had spouted, and eventually I did just that: moved to the islands and wrote a book.  And my life has never been the same again -- and I mean that in a good way!  So why is that?  This morning I began reading Jack Kornfield's classic, A Path with Heart, and in the opening chapter he quotes Don Juan, in his teachings to Carlos Castaneda:

"Look at every path closely and deliberately.  Try it as many times as you think necessary.  Then ask yourself and yourself alone one question...Does this path have a heart?  If it does, the path is good.  If it doesn't, it is of no use."

"Of course!" I thought -- I had chosen the path with heart!

Last night another job came across my desk, and again, I changed my resume and began drafting a cover letter.  But I could feel resistance building in me, and before long it became apparent: this isn't really something I want to do right now.  And now, this morning, I am beginning to understand: I'm looking for a path with heart, and this one isn't it.

Riding the ferry a week or so ago, before I left for camp, I looked out my window and spotted this heart on the floor between the two cars next to me.  Hearts always seem a sort of cheap and easy symbol to me, but I leaned out and took a picture anyway.  And now I see why: something out there was determined to remind me: look for a path with heart.

And though job hunting is becoming a bit of an imperative at this point, I suspect that even though money is the driving force behind the hunt, finding a path with heart is really the most important aspect of this project.  Surely there will be a way for me to do what needs to be done that will also prove to be a path with heart.  I will just have to trust that way will emerge.