Approval Highway

When life stays on track, swift and smooth, we often put the obvious aside. This blog is about the integration in a new-old country so it sometimes explores the obvious, from a different perspective. If this is your first visit I encourage you to shift into reverse and read an article from a month or two back. You’ll see an interesting arc during a critical turning point in a person’s life.

Approval is a blessing we often take for granted. Oblivious to our flock nature, we feel lucky to be individuals. We’re all lucky one way or another, but social support makes us feel a heck of a lot luckier and gives expression to the individual in each one of us. When approval remains unseen, patience is the name of the game. Patience; don’t burn yourself out. And your mind is restless and you feel like you’ve just had it; again. Patience.

The more you’re being pushed over to the curb in the job-market highway, the more you lose grasp of gratitude and freedom. Sad but true. You can cruise a 160mph, positive as a witch on the highway to hell, but until you’re approved to pull off on the next exit, you’re a loose screw with one goal in mind and one goal alone: to dock in a new office and to be the awesomest worker ever. And other aspects in life feel the engine heating up.

During this two month ghost ride down the road to success, I’ve become more lonely than I’ve ever been. Approval goes a long way. Her ugly sister, disapproval, sinks deep and tries to play with my mind. Am I doing things right? Do the routines I choose really keep me on my game? What more can I do to bring results faster? Engine coughs and I find myself running on empty with no gas station in sight, given to the mercy of others.

Results do come, but do they matter? Until I dock down in that awaited parking spot, I keep on racing. I put out more writing material than ever, send emails, improve strategies. I think that I’m beginning to see the light, but only the results will say if it’s not just another temporary high. Like the nice woman in the Ministry of Absorption Office asked me this week when she saw me smiling: “Good news?” and I said: “Good people and good meetings. Good news will be when I stop seeing you.”