I Quit

For approximately the past 21 months I've had the pleasure of working at [an unnamed search engine]. I thoroughly enjoyed my role there, so it was very difficult to leave my position this past Friday.

Why did I leave?

Because, for some delightfully frustrating reason, I have an itch to pursue a career in journalism that I want to scratch. So, I will be attending [an unnamed graduate school] this coming fall to obtain a Master of Science in Journalism.

I don't particularly enjoy the spot I'm in. To be very honest, I don't think I'll ever find another job that is as accommodating, relaxing, and peaceful as the one I just left. The main thing I'm trying to aim for is a more fulfilling career path through the lens of journalism.

So, Friday was a sad day. I have never had to leave a job that I loved, so it was a strange feeling. It's akin to the feeling of meeting a pretty girl during the summer, only to find that sometime in late August you both have to part ways and head back to your separate realities at your respective schools and homes. I hope that's an allusion that some of you will get.

Leaving my job does make it easier to look forward to graduate school. Once one bridge is burned, the other one begins to look mighty appealing. But for the next few weeks I'll be in a strange limbo, and I'm not looking forward to it.

Alas, my stay at [unnamed search engine] is over, and on Monday I will not be heading into the office to sit at my desk. I am no longer employed there; I am not their employee anymore, and they are no longer my employer. Our relationship is now kaput.

But what if, knowingly or unknowingly, I actually head back to the office on Monday morning and sit at my desk? My co-workers would probably look at me funny and ask me why the heck I was there, and I'd feel and look like a certified schmuck.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
Romans 6:1, 2 (ESV)

I've essentially died to my job. My laptop and corporate key card have been returned, my last paycheck was handed to me, and soon my e-mail account, directory listing, and insurance benefits will be done away with. I'm dead to [unnamed search engine].

If I did return on Monday, or any day after that, I'd be a fool.

Yet I find myself continually returning to the offices of sin, though I've already given them a firm notice of my permanent departure. I told them that I quit, for good, that I am moving on to greener, higher ground, but I embarrass myself over and over again by walking back to that same damned desk. Sometimes I know what I'm doing, while other times I find myself sleepwalking there, as if I'm still profoundly connected with my former station.

So, as I wait upon that next phase to come, it appears that I will be repeating the words "I quit" over and over again until that beautiful day when they will finally and truly be fulfilled.

(The photo above has nothing to do with this post. It was just a scene I saw in my backyard today that gave me great joy. I wanted to share it with you.)

Prodigal Miser

I have a dirty little secret.

But if I share this with you, you have to promise me that you'll keep it on the hush-hush.

Ready?

I use a lot of printer paper at work, and none of it for my actual job.

For example, I eat lunch every day at around 2 p.m. At around 1:50 p.m. I begin perusing some of my favorite Web sites for interesting articles that I can print out so that I can read them during my lunch break. I have been doing this since my first week at work, which was over a year and a half ago. During the NBA season, most of the articles I print will be basketball-related, but during the offseason I'll print maybe one or two basketball articles, then print out a couple more articles originating from various news sites. On average, I print out approximately 8-10 pages of content every afternoon.

This past week, I had to print out 100 copies of something that was not work-related. I printed 50 pages at one printer, and 50 at another. One of the printers kept on getting jammed, so every sixth or seventh sheet would get crumpled up in the printer and would have to be thrown out. Alas, it took about 10 minutes to print out all 100 pages. A tragedy, I know.

I began thinking about my liberal use of company paper (in addition to various other company resources, including napkins, plastic utensils, drinks, and toilet paper [this last one could be another entry by itself] among others) and realized that the reason why it is so easy for me to print things out is because I do not pay for the printer paper. In fact, I do not pay for a single thing I use at work.

Would I ever print out 100 pages of anything at home? No! And why is that? Yes, because I'm cheap, but also because...well, I'm cheap. I mean, c'mon, do you know how much printer ink costs these days? It's ridiculous.

Now, I began mulling this over on my drive home today. I don't know why exactly. I'm sure part of it stemmed from guilt, and part of it from sheer 'the-drive-home-after-work' boredom.

But I realized this: though my liberal printing habits at work is a fairly appalling offense, the idea behind it does not have to be.

The way I see it, (get ready for a trite statement) there are basically two types of people: those that think that their life is their own, and those that do not. To dig even further into the latter group of people, they can be further split into two groups: those that believe their life belongs to those around them, their fellow man, and those that believe their life belongs to a higher being.

I'm a Christian, so I will speak from that perspective.

As a Christian, I believe (among many other things) that my life belongs to God. Not in any shallow, vanilla sense either. To be more specific, I believe that my life has been ransomed, purchased, redeemed, etc. by God, and that this fact is evidenced by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So, in a very real sense, it is my firm conviction that everything in my life (my time, my energy, my words, my thoughts, my body, my resources, my personality, my pains, my joys, my passions, my strengths, my weaknesses, my likes, my dislikes, my past, my present, my future, etc.) is not my own, but God's, because in ransoming my life he has come to possess all of me. Like Paul says in Romans 6:22, I am now God's slave.

I have not paid a single cent for anything I have had, anything I have now, or anything I will have in the future, nor have I paid a single cent for anything and everything that I am (and am not) today. Nothing that I would call "mine" in human vernacular is really mine.

I have paid nothing for it; I have paid nothing for anything.

Here is the point of the entry where that incessant confabulator named Conscience begins to murmur something in my ear.

Why, then, is it so difficult for you to be liberal with it all?

Tomorrow, at around 2 p.m., I shall feel utterly penurious.