There is no better time to "know thyself" than when you're looking for a new job. Well, maybe when you're walking down the aisle about to c-c-c-c-commit yourself to someone else; to enmesh your life with theirs, it would come in handy then as well.
This is especially true when you are moving ever so slightly, barely visibly, on the fringe of the 9-5. For example, you might know yourself well and internally the feelings inside will tell you whether you are doing the right thing for you. All those feelings could be saying, yes, absolutely, makes sense even when what you're doing might look a little strange from the outside looking in. But, given who you are, it's absolutely in line with what makes sense for you. I expect people who are not straight or who live some other "alternative lifestyle" know this feeling well.
When you are trying to make sense of what's right it helps to start being curious about other people's reactions and paying attention to those. It seems quite threatening for some people if they don't agree with how you're approaching a situation.
If there is one thing my father said to me that I have found very useful it's that "you can't live someone else's life. You can't spend their money". When you realize the truth in that statement, it's very freeing. It removes the tendency for your ego to compare your own situation to others which is truly a pointless exercise. You don't have their money. You aren't in their life. You can't even get into their head to the same degree they are in their own head. All we have is our own life. What are you going to do with yours? For me, lately, its more like, what am I going to do next week?
A couple of years ago I was at this event where there was a psychic. She did what she called psychometry - she took a piece of jewellery or some physical item such as rings, watches, glasses, necklaces from all the people in the audience and took them out one by one, asked who belonged to the item, and started doing a reading based solely on looking at you and feeling the energy from your personal item.
By the time she got to me, it was late. In fact, I was almost the last person to be read. She picked up my ring which had been my maternal grandmother's ring that had been passed down to my sister who left it to me when she died and said something along the lines of: Are you looking after someone? I'm getting that you're going to be caring for someone. "Well", I said "I'm kinda looking after my mother, she's elderly and she's not been very well but it hasn't been anything major as in major caregiving but she's the only one who comes to mind".
"No, I'm not getting that they will be elderly, necessarily," she said. "I just see that you caring for someone; looking after them. Children perhaps."
All the time she's saying this I'm thinking to myself, you must be picking up someone else's energy. I'm not a caregiver. I don't have any children. I'm not going to have children. That's not me at all. I don't want to look after anyone. I can barely look after myself. I'm the youngest in my family. You must have it all wrong lady. Maybe you're just tired.
Well, strangely enough, in the last few months, I keep thinking about what she said. It keeps coming back to me and I can't help but wonder why?
Because, it has not escaped my attention that the thing we most need to do but don't want to, is possibly the thing that will be brought into our reality to force us to do what we must to learn, to grow, to change, to face our fears, to take us to the place we need to be.
And, then there's the rent...!