RSS
Home
Do you need a career and life change? Educate yourself on managing personal growth
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
When I first saw that my employer offered a class called “Managing Personal Growth,” it sounded like a seminar that would help me to obtain a promotion.
Advancement. Economic security. Stability. The American Dream.
.jpg)
Just what I wanted out of life.
However, strange things happened when the “pre-workshop test” forced me to rank my life values in order of importance.
The values I ranked most important turned out to be love, family, religion, health, inner harmony and freedom. Every one of my high-ranking values was contrary to the life I lived.
I had built my career and my life around avoiding time to promote these values.
Some of the values I ranked the lowest on the “test” included wealth, advancement, stability and conformity.
Yet those were the areas where I spent most of my waking hours. These values were false gods, yet I worshipped them constantly.
The top three values on my list were all related: love, family and God.
Love and affection was the value I ranked the highest. Yet I spent a small fraction of my time actually practicing love and affection. I certainly loved no one at work, and my work schedule forced me to spend minimal time with the family and friends that I loved.
Family ranked second on my list of values. Not only did I barely see my immediate family, I often made excuses to avoid going to any family functions. If I did show up, I left as early as possible. Life was too stressful to linger.
Religion, third on my list, was a real joke. I constantly vowed to give my life to God, yet sometimes didn’t think about Him all day. Hardly ever did I feel like going to church. After all, I worked hard and deserved to sleep in late on Sunday.
Fourth on my list of values was health. I knew what I should and should not eat, drink and smoke, yet junk food continued to dominate my life, and I never refused an offer of a glass of wine or beer. I let my self get stressed out every day, and often opted for television over exercise.
The fifth most important value on my list was inner harmony. What a fantastic concept! Somewhat foreign, though.
Will I never be happy until I obtain inner harmony? It’s sort of a vicious circle. If no happiness, then no inner harmony. Yet if no inner harmony, then no happiness.
No wonder humanity is always torn by the devil taunting us with negativity.
Freedom was my sixth highest value. Yet I chose a profession that chained me to a desk that I detested. Most of my “to do list” was based on someone else’s ideas of what was important. Freedom to be my own boss remained a dream due to self imposed barriers.
In addition, I found that the values I ranked lowest on the test were those that I was committed to the most.
The value I ranked lowest was money, yet it was something I thought of quite often. How to make more, how to spend less, how to buy all of the things I wanted.
Advancement or promotion also ranked low on my list. Yet dreams of the boss’s job and plotting how to advance took more time than dreaming of my so called priorities.
Conformity was the final value that I ranked low. If it was so unimportant, why did I often nod in agreement when I didn’t agree, or long for the material goods of someone else?
It’s strange that God chose a work related training course to finally let me see what’s really important.
And it wasn’t my job.
==============================================================================================
Over fifteen years ago, author Donna Gundle-Krieg walked away from her stressful human resource management career.
Since then, her children, one and two years old at the time, have inspired her to develop a successful at-home writing business.
She wrote the article below about her life transformation, and it was published in 2005 in a book called "Conscious Women, Conscious Lives."
Other authors with stories in the book include Marianne Williamson, Dr. Georgina Cannon, and primary author Darlene Montgomery.
Click here for more information about the author.
Note: if you would like to receive regular updates on what’s happening in Michigan education, click on the Subscribe icon below to sign up for once-a-day spam-free emails.
Related Articles:
Comments
There is actually a college in the United States that does not charge tuition. Instead, College of the Ozarks in Missouri requires students to …
Educators can now buy and sell gently used classroom supplies as well as new overstocked educational resouces on a new website called Hoot of Loot. …
- Barack Obama's Letter to His Daughters Emphasizes Education
- Have Teachers' Unions Been Betrayed by Obama?
- How Will Obama's Stimulus Plan Affect College Students?
- Obama Stimulus Plan: $100 Billion Education Dollars
- Text of Obama's Education Speech Released
- What Should Obama Tell Us About Childhood Obesity and Health Care?
- Are Charter Schools Good for Our Children?
- Charter School List Grows in Metro Detroit Area
- Charter School Pays College Costs for Graduates Who Agree to Help City
- Charter Schools Enroll 1.4 Million Nationwide While Demand Rises
- Charter Schools Key to School Reform
- Detroit Billionaire Works With New Mayor Bing to Open Charter School
- Sharpton, Gingrich Join to Challenge Educational Establishment, Promote Charter Schools
- ACT Versus SAT: Which College Exam Should You Take?
- Buying Textbooks Online: Save Money
- Choosing a College
- College Students Can Get $2500 Tax Credit Under Stimulus Plan
- Finding Scholarships
- How Should Parents Communicate With Their College Students?
- Renting Calculators to Save Money
- Renting College Textbooks
- Students Pay No Tuition But Work for Campus Businesses at College of the Ozarks
- Watching Your Teen Pack for Freshman Year of College
- Why Do So Many College Students Drop Out?
- Divorce and Homeschooling
- Homeschoolers are Successful in College
- Homeschoolers Score Higher Than 86% of Peers
- Homeschooling Numbers Double in a Decade
- Homeschool Statistics and Laws
- Talented and Hilarious Homeschooling Moms Sing to Their Neighbors
- Top 10 Reasons to Criminalize Home Schooling
- Unschooling is Homeschooling that Fits Many Familes
- Do Public School Really Need More Money?
- Lawsuit Against No Child Left Behind Dismissed
- Should Inmates Earn Diplomas in Prison?
- Should Parents Receive Tax Rebates for Private School Tuition?
- States Turn Back on Race to the Top Funds Due to Educator Concerns
- Why is the US Public School System Struggling?
- ACORN Receives Millions From Teachers' Unions
- Retired Educator Bravely Gives Opinion on Teacher Unions
- Should School District Union Negotiations be Public?
- Should Schools Implement Merit Pay for Teachers?
- Should Teachers Strike Illegally?
- Should Teachers' Union Dues Pay for Politics?
- Survey Says Teacher Satisfaction Has Risen
- Teachers and Homeschools can Buy and Sell Used Supplies on New Website
- Teachers' Union Discourages Members from Volunteering at School
- Teachers' Unions Stuggle During Recession
- Will Teachers Lose Their Union-Owned Health Insurance?
- 26.8% of Students in Detroit Graduate
- 29 Detroit Schools Will Close; 40 Failing Schools Will Restructure
- Bill Cosby to Help Robert Bobb Promot Desperate Detroit Schools
- Detroit Public Schools Request Disaster Funding from US Education Department
- Millions of Stimulus Dollars to Pay for Massive Academic Overhaul of Detroit Schools
- Power Control at Issue as Detroit School Board Sues State Manager
- Will Detroit Public Schools Declare Bankruptcy?
