Transition is a journey of self discovery in more ways than I, at first, imagined. For sure you have to
discover who you are, how strong you are and find your self confidence. But I have realized that it is also
a journey to discover what drives you, what makes you content and what you truly want out of life, not
just personally, but in your working life too.
For example, pre transition I was one to push myself hard to advance through a company. My first job
was a basic accounting clerk. I spent 12 years at this company, pushing myself to try different
departments, to get promoted, lateral transfers and advance myself through the corporate hierarchy. I
was always searching for the next challenge, thinking that the next position would be the one that
would provide satisfaction. Oh each position came with some challenges, and some learning, which is
always something I enjoy. Each position also had an element of creativity when it came to reporting, and
creative aspects of a job are always desired for me. But every single time I got a new position, mastered
it, I immediately set the bar higher and I was on an endless journey for that next goal. Don’t get me
wrong, there is nothing inherently wrong about this, if the jobs you are pursuing are what you want in a
career. For me they were not, and therein lay the problem. I never wanted, and still do not want a
career in Accounting. I just happen to be good at it, so climbing that corporate ladder was a waste of
time. Ultimately it landed me in a position that was just too much to handle, particularly at the
beginning of a transition. My transition was not the cause of the problem, no that lay with the employer
who had the mentality of pushing more work on less people, and I was the one who got landed with the
impossible workload. My transition only made it impossible for me to ignore the truth, as I so often had
in the past. At that point I was re-learning all my emotional states and had pretty much lost the usual
coping method I had, of burying everything and so, for a while, I fell apart. It forced me to look at what
was driving me, and to figure some things out.
But, that was not a one time lesson. I was recently forced to look at my driving factors again. Over the
past year, I have found a new company to work for and I was enjoying the position. But my old habits
took over and I tried to move into another position. I hated it. Oh I could have mastered it, I am sure.
But it was filled with duties I didn’t like and had no duties I did like, so was a bad move.
It was around this time that I was, once more, redefining who I am. I even looked into numerology, quite
an interesting subject actually. I found out my life number is 33 – when I read the description I was
surprised to see how accurate it was. For this you have to use your birth name – I did both names and
both have life number of 33 – Gia has somewhat different results for other aspects of numerology, but
the main number was the same. The life number defines your character and what motivates you.
The number 33 in numerology describes a person who can be very persuasive and that comes from a
combination of creative expression and optimism. People with this number are generally concerned
about others and are most often in positions of leadership. People with a 33 have a life that tends to
relate to home, health, harmony and creative expression. We feel a need to help and influence people in
various ways. They derive great satisfaction from this
I found all this to be true now, and when I look at my past, it was true then. The parts of my various
positions I enjoyed the most were when I was helping people to understand a system, or a job function,
or helping people navigate a software they hated. I enjoyed training team members and I did enjoy
being a supervisor.
The new position I moved to had none of the helping people. It was all processing stuff. I quickly realized
that my previous position had more aspects that worked with my personality. Normally in the past, I
would have just grit my teeth and pushed on. But for the first time in my life, I swallowed my pride and
asked to move back to my old position.
I moved back for several reasons. Upon reflection I realized that, once again, I was trying to push myself
to work that corporate ladder and gain all the stress that goes with that. I was trying different positions,
not because I wanted them, but because I wanted to show off my ability to learn and master anything.
Once again I was being driven by my ego. And I saw that one of my motivations was envy, because a
couple of team members were being told to go for other opportunities, and I felt left out. Because I am
so brilliant, I should be given all the opportunities. Yes, at times, my ego is indeed that big, or one could
say delicate. I can laugh at it now, but dealing with my ego has, and always will be, an ongoing challenge.
The new position also had more deadlines, some days every month that I could not take off and several
other restrictions. All of that I had to deal with in my previous employment. I had already done all the
stress of closing weeks etc, etc and I have found that I was completely over it. That kind of challenge no
longer appeals to me. What appeals more is positively influencing people in even a small way. That can
best be achieved in my current position where I have a day without too much stress, the ability to help
people and time to think about my other interests, such as my writing. I may not be the best writer
around, but I have a story to tell and I a desire to tell it.
Anyway this path of self-discovery has taught me what I truly value in life. Oh, I do value a good job and
decent pay check, but mostly I value being able to help people. Once again my position involves helping
people navigate a system that is new to them and that very few like. In fact it is almost universally hated
by the people in the field, but I get satisfaction in helping them make the best of it. I also have chances
to train new team members and my creativity can be expressed by editing various reports.
Over the years I have found that the corporate struggle matters less and less to me. If it was a career
that might be different, but my interests in career lie outside the corporate structure. This is basically
the ole 9-5 job and that’s that. So for that, I want something where I can go to work and do a job well
and have opportunities to help people in some fashion.
Previously I was able to ignore what truly motivated me, and fool myself into thinking that climbing a
corporate ladder would provide satisfaction. Since beginning my transition I find I can no longer ignore
these feelings. I need to be more content. I need to be happier in my daily life and I get both of those
feelings from acknowledging what drives me and atleast fulfilling part of those drivers
All of this self-discovery is a result of constantly analyzing my life, my emotional state and looking deep
within myself to see what path I should be walking. If I had not started transition I don’t think I would
have discovered what truly drives me to excel in life, or what I truly want to achieve.
All of these lessons go hand in hand with another I have recently figured out. Be content with what you
have before striving for something more. Oh you have to dream, that’s always given and one should
always pursue and strive to achieve their dreams. But if you are not content with what you have, you
will never be content with what you achieve. Working incessantly on book one of my saga has taught me
that. I continually go back and edit it, rewrite parts of it and change other parts. I have been driven to try
and perfect this book, and have not been seeing results, since people invariably stop reading it around
page 100. I have tried and tried and tried to improve upon it. But recently I figured it was time to be
content with it the way it was and to move on to book 2. I am now trying to write my story my way for
myself and if others don’t like it, too bad. I need to be content with what I have, before I can work
towards more.
Once again I have been reminded that a job does not define you. You define the job.
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