Career
&
Employment: Know Your Ruling Star!
"Know
your Ruling Star. One man is
better received by one nation than another, or is one welcome by one
city than another. He finds more luck in one office or position than in
another, and all though his qualifications are equal or even identical.
Let each man know his luck as well as his talents. Follow your guiding
star and help it without mistaking any other for it. Know how to
transplant yourself. There are nations with whom one must cross their
borders to make one's value felt."
- Balthasar Gracian, (Spain, 1600's)
Have
you ever felt, "Here I am, best
job I ever had, good money, an excellent career move - but, what in the
world am I doing here where I feel so alone and out-of-place with my
surroundings? How did this happen to me?"
I've
been there, because someone
offered me a job and I accepted, knowing ahead-of-time, intuitively I
wouldn't feel at home in the town and surroundings.
Or -
maybe you love your location
but, sadly, are unable to find any openings in your field. I've been
there also. Looking back on my years in Austin, Texas, I can't believe
the number of short-term, soul-emptying jobs I tried very hard and
unsuccessfully do to. My job-duration ranged from only two hours (which
was long enough when you hate what you are doing!) to several months
(each day seeming like an eternity) before my opportunities in
broadcasting finally came.
It's
a rare person these days who is
able to say, "I love this community, love my home, love the work I do,
get along great with my business colleagues and supervisors. How do you
beat perfection?"
There
is a wonderful quote I
repeated to myself many, many times during my ups and downs in Texas.
"Hence
the first principle in
changing one's character is to seek another environment, to let new
forces play upon our unused chords, and draw from us a better music." -
Will Durant
That's
what I wanted! I wanted
another location - another place - where new forces could play upon my
unused chords and draw from me a better music.
"There
are nations with whom one
must cross their borders to make one's value felt." - Gracian
Yes!
Yes! Yes! That's what I wanted.
To cross borders and feel my native talents valued again.
"Know
your Ruling Star," the Spanish
priest Gracian wrote in The Art of Worldly Wisdom. "One man is better
received by one nation than another, or is one welcome by one city than
another. He finds more luck in one office or position than in another,
and all though his qualifications are equal or even identical."
We
are better received in certain
locations or areas than in others, welcomed when we show up, and we
most certainly do find more luck in one place than another.
"But
where, where, where is THAT
PLACE?" I wondered.
In
Texas, for every 100% plus I gave
in my career, the returns (feeling valued, appreciated, and being
monetarily rewarded), always fell short.
I
hosted a noon talk show for awhile
at an Austin TV station. Our ratings were great. The guests I booked
were top names in the literary, entertainment, self-improvement, and
political arenas.
After
our ratings came in one
spring, I couldn't believe how well the show was doing.
Several
days later, however, the
General Manager wanted to see me.
After
all the years of my show's
success, he said, "James, I can't complain about your ratings. That's
good for ad revenue, but I finally got a chance to see your show
yesterday. As you know I only have a tenth grade education, never
finished high school, started in sales, worked my way up to where I am
today." He beamed proudly, "I didn't understand it."
I
knew when he said, "I didn't
understand it," my show was doomed.
The
GM was the standard by which all
business decisions at our stations were made.
I
wanted to call him, "Idiot," but
restrained myself.
My
favorite line in Texas TV came
from a female news director who told me, "You have a master's degree.
We don't need people that smart to do the news." I never worked at that
station.
"Let
each man know his luck as well
as his talents. Follow your guiding star and help it without mistaking
any other for it. Know how to transplant yourself," Gracian reminds us.
Know
how to transplant yourself!
Finally,
I did transplant myself,
once again. It was time to move from the newsroom and go into teaching;
use, finally, that masters degree referred to earlier that wasn't
needed to report the news.
"There
is a simple answer to the
question 'What is the purpose of our individual lives?" A.J. Ayer
wrote. "They have whatever purpose we succeed in putting into them."
Yet,
if you believe you are being
guided by and toward a higher destiny, as I do, use what others know
(their gifts and resources) to inform and enlighten yourself.
I've
also successfully used
relocation astrology as an essential tool to follow my guiding star.
Through my sessions with Cait Benten, I'm finding, as we'd all like to
do, a balance of the "right place" and the "right work" combined.
"This
time, like all other times, is
a very good one, if we but know what to do with it." --Ralph Waldo
Emerson
http://www.astro-earth-relocation.com
About
The Author
Now,
after a career as an
award-winning media communicator and as a university professor, James
has shared meaning-filled conversations with film stars, recording
artists, US Presidents and first ladies, state governors, world-famous
authors, scientists, and people from most every walk of life
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