The Hunt

While running errands this morning, I shared the story of my job search with a salesperson where he and I’d developed a healthy rapport. He offered encouragement and I recounted the different opportunities in the pipeline. As I was leaving, an email arrived informing me that I was no longer being considered for a role following a screen call last Friday. The role had sounded exciting, working with intelligent search incorporating machine learning for recommendations, and I’d really enjoyed the conversation. However, it wasn’t meant to be. Then I saw another message that told essentially the same tale from a different company.

I believe both organizations were genuine in their interest and there’s deep appreciation in their willingness to speak with me. Appreciation aside and to be fully transparent, seeing these messages in succession took my breath away. Just for a moment. I really wanted to pursue these opportunities further. But of course I did. I applied, so there was an obvious foundation of desire.

Regardless of what we want, events happen around us that frequently override our individual intent. To varying degrees, we can choose to contest this flow of events or go along with them. This choice is sometimes hard to view except in the former sense. The latter can sound weak or lacking in dedication. It’s also easy to paint a picture of the contestant unnecessarily bristling over circumstances well beyond their control. Neither slant is superior. They are equally potent and simultaneously meaningless, as the world will move on either way.

So, it would seem a strategy invoking a focus on a high-level objective held in relatively persistent fashion would serve us best. At times, we may find ourselves more contentious, while in others moving fluidly. Both states serve a purpose, an appropriate state for a moment in time. If we review the progression of events nothing else could have happened because nothing else did. All possibilities collapsed in the present and fade in time to distillations we keep on record in memory, cognitive, digital, etc.

There’s a feeling of balance occurring in my perception. Other opportunities are still in play, some I’ve identified, and many more I’ll never notice. This dreamy vignette of threads from the journey I’m recording… Well, I trust it will offer someone else a sense of peace. Much as I found when I contentiously took my next breath. This after the last one had been stolen by unexpected news. Taking this intentional action, unsurprisingly new breaths continue to present themselves. Strange feels of synchronicity. Happy Monday, everyone!