Rose, Thorn, Bud
12-21-2020
Sitting alone in a woods cabin by a fireplace, I find myself contemplating literally every aspect of my life. I mean, what else are you going to do when left alone at a cabin in the woods? Quarantining while preparing to go home for Christmas, I’m praying for a negative covid test so I can hug my mom after a year away. During these past few months, I’ve been reflecting on many things. More specifically, on where I’m currently at in my work.
Busy season has kept me on my toes and challenged me, but I haven’t felt fulfilled or motivated by my hard work. I’m someone who desperately wants to feel motivated in my work and create something that I can be proud of. I haven’t been feeling that recently, which brought me to trying out an exercise my sister introduced me to a few days back. It’s called the Rose Thorn Bud exercise. Essentially, you write down a topic and take 3 different colors of post its: Roses (pink) are the successes, what you like about the topic, thorns (blue) are the challenges, the things you're not enjoying that hurt (that make you want to do this exercise in the first place), and buds (green) are potential, opportunities the topic presents you could take advantage of moving forward. I practiced this exercise for my current job and it was definitely tough seeing the sheer amount of thorns I identified. See below for my results.
I came to notice that my identified roses were culture based: how it was working at a big firm rather than a small one, the people I've met, and the extracurriculars I participate in. I looked at the thorns and noticed that it was my work: the tasks I'm actually doing, the ones I’m sitting at my laptop and working on as a deliverable. That work was where all my thorns were, which is a significant point of interest when evaluating where I'm trying to go in my career. It was rough, but gave me lots to think about.
Last night, my sister and I watched The Wind Rises, a Hayao Miyazaki film from Studio Ghibli. The film follows the story of Jiro, a plane engineer back in WW2 era whose dream was to design and create planes since he was a kid. It was his passion, inspiration, everything he wanted to do. He carried through the movie as this amazing person who was kind to those around him, who loved the people in his life dearly, and never lost sight of what he was working for. He was able to give himself so fully to others since he had such a strong understanding of himself, especially through his work. He had found his Ikigai, a Japanese principle around work fulfilment. It’s essentially the thing that gets you up in the morning, the work you're more than happy to do. I think we're all seeking something like that in our lives. We desire that thing we feel inspired to get up and do, not something that drives us out of bed because we need a paycheck. Ideally, you find the thing that inspires you and also gives you a paycheck, hopefully a good one! At least that's what I look for.
Now I'm left at this weird point where I don't know what the next step is but I know that a step needs to be taken. Does anyone else feel that way? You understand the current situation but don't know where to go from there? I think that this exercise was a good place to start, and I'm pretty happy with where that just brought me. I feel like I have a better grasp of my own situation as a whole because I was able to look outside of myself into what was actually in front of me. I’m not caught up in my day to day issues, where each identified thorn may have taken up a different day’s worth of grievances for me. I was able to lay all of them out on paper to get a holistic view of where I'm currently at. Even though I don't completely know what my next move is, I feel like I just took a huge first step toward figuring it out, much farther than I would be if I just sat in front of my computer and thought 'What other job do I wanna do?' I would know, I tried that yesterday.
It's strange how those moments of reflection can be so critical. I don't know where it's gonna take me, but I'm excited to move forward equipped with my own understanding and feelings about my situation. At the end of the day, that will point me in the right direction toward passion. I want all of those things I notice as thorns to now be seen as things I know I need out of my work to move toward channeling my passion. Maybe I'll start notching each one of those off and consider work in my past where those didn't feel like thorns. I will take my past and present experiences, mix them with my future goals, and establish my firm foundation for my career based in this exercise. I'm looking forward to it. I think that the career journey we all face in our lives is actually a beautiful thing, we just can't give up on it. It's a journey, where you're at today isn't where you're going to be forever. We have the materials in front of us, not it’s our job to shape them into the career journey that we want for ourselves, and each day of it is something to cherish. You get to own your story, and I think I'm finally starting to embrace that.
Optimistically,
Jon
