Life Remote Control?

Today someone posted this little image on Facebook stating "Life has no remote. Get up and change it yourself!!"  It reminded me of a blog that I wrote on another website a few months ago, and since I've pretty much integrated myself to only blogging here I thought I would transfer it over to share with you.  Life may not always be easy, but that is the beauty of it, to go through the good the bad and the ugly and to grow and make a life for yourself.


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Luck, Fate, Dedication and a lot of Gumption. ~Written by Me on 9/1/11 

Today was my last day at the job I was at for little over a year.  When I took the position the pay was fine, however I was in a relationship and there were two incomes.  Supporting yourself is not so easy on a low wage.  Over the past several months I realized that though I loved my job and my coworkers it was time to move on for bigger and better things.  I tried working my way up in the department I was in, unfortunately I was unable to.  There was a lot of frustration and heartbreak involved in the process.  I then began applying for promotions within the university in other departments.

After weeks of applying for positions I was called in for an interview!  It happened to be with the first department that I had applied for and the night that I applied it was the last night that the posting was available to apply for.  I then did more in depth research as to what the department actually did.  I sat down carefully thought out questions that I wanted to ask the people who would be interviewing me and wrote them down.  I also went through the job posting and reviewed the listed job duties and preferred qualifications and wrote down everything that I felt would show myself as an asset as pointers to glance at when in the interview in case I had a loss for words.

Sell yourself as someone that they feel like they need to have working for them and then you will be a front runner candidate.

Before even applying for positions I put together a carefully thought out and professional resume.  I also like to ask supervisors when I am leaving a job, or when they are perhaps leaving, for a letter of recommendation.  A great resume, cover letter, and letters of recommendation are what sell you to even land you the interview.  Out of 105 candidates I was chosen for the 10 that they brought in for interviews.  After giving the interviewers a good idea of who I was and selling myself as the valuable employee that I truly am, I was then chosen for the top 2 to come back and interview again with the head honcho.  It felt like I was on Survivor!

Would I be voted off the island or would I win the grand prize?

Out of 105 candidates I ended up being NUMBER 1!!!  I cannot wait to start tomorrow.   The promotion in position of course comes with a pay raise, that was the whole purpose of this process to begin with so that as a single person I could live a better quality of life, and stop depending upon Top Ramen to sustain me, the department I am transferring to also has a few added perks that I did not have in the old one.

This long story to get to about 8:05 this morning.  I was walking through the office and a coworker at the job I was leaving was standing there talking to someone else, looks at me and says “Barbara today is your last day.” and I say “Yep it sure is!” as I’m walking away I hear her saying to the other person “I really hate lucky people.”  This truly struck a nerve within me. 

“I really hate lucky people.”

• Luck: Success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one’s own actions.
• Fate: The development of events outside a person’s control.
• Dedication: The quality of being dedicated or committed to a task or purpose.
• Gumption: Shrewd or spirited initiative and resourcefulness.

Perhaps some of the process that happened was a little luck, perhaps some was fate, but if it were not for my dedication and determination to find a better job to improve my life it would not have happened.  It was not like I sat there for years moaning about my situation never doing anything to fix it and was just walking down the street one day and BLAM new job offered to me just out of the blue.  That would be truly lucky.  No I truly struggled, and had some “bad luck” in the process as well. I persevered and saw what I was trying to accomplish through until I achieved success.

If you are a person who finds yourself quoting that same line of hating the lucky look at the circumstances that got the person there.  What effort did they actually put in to get to where they are, or have, or whatever it is you may be coveting that they have going in their life that you do not?  Make a goal, come up with a plan, deal with the obstacles, be flexible, vent when things aren’t going your way but keep going, and in the end make a better life for yourself.  Being “lucky” isn’t always just happenstance by itself and it’s not always easy.

When you achieve success do not forget to thank those who helped get you there even if all they did was lend you an ear (or read your rantings on Facebook). 


“Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.”
~Friedrich Nietzsche

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And just an update, if you are wondering, I LOVE my new job and department even after 3 months of being there.  Taking the reigns of you own life is a good thing.

Much Love!