Shedding of the Skin

I have been writing new blogs all week - usually while at work - and saving them all as drafts. While I would begin each entry with a purpose, they each ended up as a rant that I had to stop before I began to name names.

I have deleted each and every one of those drafts.

To post those entries would be parallel to sending an email to a coworker or loved one while in an uncommonly emotional state. Nothing good would come of it and, more importantly, they rarely make sense anyhow.

So I now sit at my computer at 3:08AM Saturday morning, starting my first day of liberation from Gallagher Bassett (former employer), not as a bitter employee, rather a more rational human being.

Each of my previous rants quickly digressed into a detailed description of the problems at that job, the industry, and the entire corporate culture. Hey, many of my points were valid! But they are also very self explanatory, and were drastically inflated by my disdain of being there any longer.

Look - in all honest, GB gave me so much of what I desire. I relished in the sense of importance I felt in doing a good job. I have no doubt that were I to stick to this industry, I could gain success. I grew up learning about insurance, enjoying the war stories that my Father told (and still tells) about the business. Everyday is a battle, and what member of the male race does not enjoy a good battle from time to time?

It was the battle that kept me in the business world for 3 years, starting from the age of 17. The battle is what made it one of the hardest (although necessary) decisions to throw away a potentially successful career for an education and new life, which might mean a step down from my possible earning ability in the next 20 years. I could have risen from the ranks of a lowly private to a figurative field general in insurance. Hell, even as I write these words, my mind tells me that I should go back, that GB is where I belong!

But more than anything, my overly logical mind urges me to return for one reason - Gallagher is a great security blanket for my future, an almost fullproof guarantee that I could live in relative comfort and happiness.

Don't be mistaken - I understand that there are absolutely no guarantees in life (save the one from the Christ), but Gallagher offers the closest thing I have ever seen.

But what kind of battle is one which you know you will win?

What adventure is there in a place where I know that with only about 50% effort, I could jump up the ranks and gain a place among the highest paid individuals in a high paying industry? To what greater cause or purpose would I be contributing were I to return and evolve a career by managing worker's compensation claims, or managing those who manage said claims?

None whatsoever.

My role was a superficial, imagined reality. Sure, there was a fight everyday, something to resolve, a fire to put out. And in one year at the company I had already created a name for myself - my coworkers depended on me to help them with their responsibility, my immediate supervisors needed me to complete their essential duties. Moreover, as I understand it, my name was even beginning to circulate in home office among some of the vice presidents.

For God's sake, I had a broker in New York call me up when I told him that I was leaving because he wanted to hire me!!! He settled by giving me his cell phone and telling me to call when I left school.

I accomplished nothing!! I do love the battle, the feeling of importance and dependency. But my soul has been striving for something more.

The one lacking aspect that I yearned - what did I have to fight for? This is a consumer's world, and I was in a consumer's industry. I was not giving anything back to help the common man, help the earth, or even show God how much I love him! Nothing I did was productive - I simply ran duties and got paid.

Tonna, my old boss and Father's girlfriend, has told me (in response to my habit of sleeping in), that I " am more than capable of waking up on time when I feel like it and want to. It's the regular days that you sleep in."

So what?!?!? Shouldn't we all strive to have something that we wake up for? Shouldn't we go to sleep every single night with the knowledge that something truly outstanding and good will be waiting for us in the morning? I don't know if everyone needs such excitement, just that I do. I will not be satisfied with what I do unless I know that in some way it is useful.

I don't know yet what my cause will be, where God wants me to make a difference for someone or something. I only know that he does.

And I will look forward to that moment from here on out.