Saturday, March 19, 2011

Equanimity (?)

It's been a rather stupidly busy week - mostly unpaid, but hectic - of fixing up appointments and then having them shifted all over the place, doing 'demo classes', attending pitch meetings... and, yesterday, enduring a job interview.

One of the most important job interviews in my life.  Possibly the most important - in that it is a very good job, and (hopefully) will provide a steady and reasonably lucrative (but, above all, steady) income... at a time in my life that has come to seem to me particularly precarious... when, indeed, I have seriously questioned whether my position in China is any longer tenable.  I've had two-and-a-half very lean years since the world economy collapsed.  A steady job now - especially a job that's only 'half-time', but for a rather prestigious employer - could prove to be a life-saver.

This is one of only a handful of 'serious' job interviews I've ever attended in my life, and only the second in China.  (I was actually successful in that previous one; but the job imploded within 6 months.)


I should, by rights, be quite nervous about my prospects.  I should have been keyed up about attending the interview.  I should be obsessively reviewing the pros and cons of my performance.

But I'm not.  I don't think I've ever felt so blissfully indifferent about something important (not without the benefit of powerful painkilling drugs, anyway).  I don't think I'm quite ready to make the step up to being a bodhisattva.  But I've experienced something this week that gives me an insulating sense of perspective, something that reminds me that a job isn't that important at all.


Ah, they said 'NO'. Or rather, 'NON' - with a Gaullist dismissive hauteur. I am trying very hard to be disappointed, and even a little pissed off - but I just don't have the emotional resources at the moment. Instead, I shrug and sigh and think... Kismet... plenty more fish.... their loss. I am a duck's back.


4 comments:

justrecently said...

It's good to know that you are not nervous. That leads nowhere. To be a working, well-paid bodhisattva would, of course, be ideal.
Anyway, keep going. The good thing about job interviews, compared with seeing a dentist, is that in a job interview, there's nothing to lose.

Froog said...

Nothing to lose - apart from hope.

But thanks for the encouragement.

Anonymous said...

Best of luck with the job.

" I've experienced something this week that gives me an insulating sense of perspective"

Cryptic, unless I missed something? Anything you can share? Sounds rather interesting.

Froog said...

Not all that 'interesting', HF. I had a nasty turn on Tuesday. Probably just a TIA, but it scared the crap out of me - and I am mightily relieved just to be still here, and not a vegetable.