Taking a Stand
By Suzanne Bird-Harris • Sep 29th, 2008 • Category: Motivational Monday •
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I spent my twenties working at a company where I was the youngest employee by 15 years and the first EVER female in a technical position (computer programmer, then later, Data Processing Manager.) I was constantly being told I was still “a pup” and “wet behind the ears” and all manner of other condescending crap. Even after I was promoted to Manager, running the computer operations for the main office/warehouse and two satellite office/warehouses, one in Joplin, Mo., and one in Oklahoma City, I never did feel I was taken seriously as a professional in my field, simply because of my age and the gap between mine and everyone else’s.
Shortly before I turned 30, I took a position at what turned into the #3 long distance telephone company in the world and in the first two years there, was promoted 7 times. No doubt getting out from under the “kid” stigma and starting fresh in a new company facilitated this quick rise through the ranks, but I also had an entertaining time finding my footing as this smart professional they perceived me to be. In my thirties, my challenge was living up to my “billing”, almost the polar opposite of the problem I’d had at the previous company.
Then in 2002, I was laid off in the big gutting that happened to that company and I decided that I’d had enough of working for someone else and hung out my shingle and became self-employed. As I approached my fortieth birthday, I felt the pendulum beginning to settle somewhere back in the middle, between the extremes that had been the previous two decades. Facing the realization that there is no such thing as “job security” as most people define it, I crafted my own definition rooted in the security I was finally beginning to feel as a result of honoring who I am and what I’m here to do.
The great gift of turning 40 was two-fold: I was no longer perceived as a “pup” by anyone’s definition, and I no longer felt I had so much to prove. I am comfortable in my own skin, confident of my skills, talents and expertise, and feel for the first time that I really know who I am and where I stand on just about any topic you want to throw at me. I no longer require myself to “have all the answers” and am becoming more and more adept at operating in a world of ambiguity and perception. It seems a paradox, those statements back to back, but I’m finding that’s really what life is: one big paradox.
Recently, I came across this quote, and it smacked me right between the eyes:
“I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.
You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.
You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.
Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.
And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.
You died when you refused to stand up for right.
You died when you refused to stand up for truth.
You died when you refused to stand up for justice.”
-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
From the sermon “But, If Not” delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church on November 5, 1967.
I love the irony that 38 is when I “took my stand” and struck out on my own, turning my back on the so-called “safety” of employment. I stood up (scared sh*tless, as I was at the time) for what was right for me: to be here at home, in the thick of the lives of my children, to honor my real job as their mother, a single mother, at that. My “great cause” at this time in my life is making sure my kids don’t fall through the cracks…any of the cracks out there. And even as I type this, I realize that my “great cause” is becoming a catalyst for other “great causes” looming on my horizon. I am loving my forties, and am looking forward to the next decades and where they will take me.
So, I ask you, APOOO:
- How do you make sense of the paradoxes present in your life?
- Where do you take a stand?
- What is your “great cause”?
- And how do you celebrate your spirit?
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Suzanne Bird-Harris is a web designer, coach, blogger, speaker, mother, grandmother and student of life and living. She will "unass your website" so it works for you, not againstyou in a way that gives you autonomy you can grow into. She'll do the same thing for you by coaching you through the learning curves of creating the life you really want to live. Visit Suzanne and download your copy of her e-books, "WordPress: What's In It For Me?" and "Go to the Balcony to Get a Grip".
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Three years ago, when I was 38 years old, my oldest sister(she was 53 at the time) was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease…a disease that was starting to show in our mother who was already suffering from depression – she died ten years ago of pulmonary embolism instead. What I did not see in my mother, I see in my sister day by day, moment by moment.
In that timespan of my sister’s diagnosis, I was going through a rollercoaster of walking away from a personal relationship that was becoming verbally insulting; dealing with an editor who was out of a coo-coo’s nest(he eventually resigned) and ending two friendships that was definitely poison.
I am now 41 years old, celebrating my debut as an author…even though it is co-author’s credit it is a start of what I believe will be a successful author career. I am an advocate of alzheimer’s disease and finding a cure..as well as cancer prevention and depression of all levels, the latter is to make it more aware that depression is no longer a shameful secret. I am still learning and growing.
Suzanne, I am so with you. I spent the ENTIRE weekend working on a plan for what I call true independence. No matter what happens, my life will be forever changed, just because I took the chance. This was one of several signs that I’ve had today that I’m on the right track. Thanks mucho.
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Thanks for sharing this post. It was inspirational to a woman about to turn 37 in 9 days. In some ways I feel that my time to make a difference is over, but it’s not. It’s just beginning.
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