Transition

Entering a rare period of major transition now. I'm leaving the job I've held for the last 20 years and moving on to a new one. At one point, I thought I'd be able to retire from where I am currently, but the outsourcing disease has hit the legal publishing industry now too. Americans have aspired to a better life for decades now, and have achieved it, but like all phenomena, it too possesses the quality of impermanence. CEOs think we're too expensive, and that they can get just as much quality from outside the border, for far less money. I can't help but want to see it fail spectacularly.

I was very nervous heading into this job in my mid-20s. I'd only worked in retail before that. Having a degree helped, but I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever get credit for it. I recall the opening days of this job, so many years ago. The first Bush was president and the first Gulf War was still a few months away. I got very comfortable in all that time. It really was a different era then.

I thought I would be more nervous now than I am.  I guess two decades in a corporate setting with some degree of success has a way of bestowing some confidence in a callow young man. The time just feels right for this. I can't escape that feeling, no matter how much I think about it. Until Feb. 1st, I have a week or so to relax, reflect, and prepare. It's time to bring a new job to the path...to regard it all as illusory, yet give forth my best effort. This dream of life continues.