In 2008 I was laid off from my job as a program manager for a large non-profit in San Francisco. The non-profit primarily served and continues to serve people living with HIV/AIDS.
When I was laid off, my salary was approx. $85,000 annually. This figure also included a small remuneration I received for counseling work that was done on the side. Between two and six weeks after this lay off, I was offered a total of 4 different professional jobs. Each job offer came in an unsolicited manner. The job offers were made by friends and associates I had met through over 10 years of professional relationship building and networking. I turned down each of these jobs. The job offer with the highest salary/compensation would have paid me approximately $110,000 annually. Since that time I have been offered three additional professional jobs, all of which were in the same approximate salary range. I have turned these down as well.
Why did I turn down all these jobs and in "this economy?"
As soon as I was laid off in 2008, I realized something quite profound and equally frightening. I, with this lay off, realized I was being given what at the time, appeared to me to be a once in a lifetime opportunity. That opportunity was one where it seemed I would finally get a chance to go after my dream of making a major impact on the world, in the very specific ways I then envisioned.
Although the type of work I had done for over 20 years placed me in a position where I literally had saved dozens of people lives during those years, I knew it was time to move on. It was not debatable that I had made a difference in many people's lives through that work; I helped people in very direct and evidenced based, observed and provable ways. I had not spent all those years working in greed based, avarice laced, self absorbed professional career pursuits that essentially served myself and few others. That was not at all my professional M.O. I lessened people's pain. I directed programs that were designed to make people's lives easier in concrete, tangible, and very real ways. There are many, many people---social workers, case managers, program directors, psychotherapists, drug and addiction counselors, nurses, nurses aids, all kinds of good people working in the "helping professions" who are still making a huge and positive impact in the lives of countless community members through their work. I honor them. I salute them. I know all the stress, long hours, lack of appreciation, corporate inspired bullshit they must endure. I see them. I know who they are. I was one of them for over two decades. However, after my lay off in 2008, I realized my calling in this life was different. In truth, I had been aware of this truth for many years. I had simply become too comfortable and too complacent to take the needed risks necessary, to truly go after what I wanted; my dreams, my deepest desires, to follow my bliss. The lay off gave me the incentive and opportunity to do all of that. And I took it. I may not have initially run with it. Now however, I am in full sprint.
And there are consequences in this out of balance world for making decisions that go directly against the status quo, that are about personal dreams, actions that awaken one from a near universal zombie sleep.
Although the type of work I had done for over 20 years placed me in a position where I literally had saved dozens of people lives during those years, I knew it was time to move on. It was not debatable that I had made a difference in many people's lives through that work; I helped people in very direct and evidenced based, observed and provable ways. I had not spent all those years working in greed based, avarice laced, self absorbed professional career pursuits that essentially served myself and few others. That was not at all my professional M.O. I lessened people's pain. I directed programs that were designed to make people's lives easier in concrete, tangible, and very real ways. There are many, many people---social workers, case managers, program directors, psychotherapists, drug and addiction counselors, nurses, nurses aids, all kinds of good people working in the "helping professions" who are still making a huge and positive impact in the lives of countless community members through their work. I honor them. I salute them. I know all the stress, long hours, lack of appreciation, corporate inspired bullshit they must endure. I see them. I know who they are. I was one of them for over two decades. However, after my lay off in 2008, I realized my calling in this life was different. In truth, I had been aware of this truth for many years. I had simply become too comfortable and too complacent to take the needed risks necessary, to truly go after what I wanted; my dreams, my deepest desires, to follow my bliss. The lay off gave me the incentive and opportunity to do all of that. And I took it. I may not have initially run with it. Now however, I am in full sprint.
And there are consequences in this out of balance world for making decisions that go directly against the status quo, that are about personal dreams, actions that awaken one from a near universal zombie sleep.
As a result of following my bliss, my annual income in 2008 went from roughly $85,000 a year to less than $22,000 a year in 2010 when I was still receiving unemployment compensation and to less than $3,500 a year (in 2011) when I was no longer eligible for unemployment compensation.
I have lost the relative assurance that comes with having a home I know I can return to, as my partner and I have moved more than 25 times in the last 2.5 years because of financial constraints and other negative factors.
I lost my very good, job based medical and health insurance. And as a result, my health has significantly deteriorated.
The list could become endless if I wanted it to be. I don't.
And...I am happier, in many ways, than I've been in perhaps my entire life.
With all these challenges has come the opportunity to direct my life in the ways I desire. I am shaping the life I want. And what much of that looks like is that I am beginning my emergence in the realms of spiritual leadership, community involvement, environmental and housing sustainability work, volunteering for local and state politicians from third party's who are authentically devoted to changing the world in a positive way and doing things on my own terms, initiating the development of my own programs, actions and not abdicating to the terms that some job dictates.
I have found that people take certain elements of all those experiences I've recounted here and focus on them, funnel them through their own limited and other hued filters. Which, of course, is the only funnel most of us have conscious access to.
People who desire to avoid the painful aspects of life and/or still steadfastly wear their designer prescription rose colored glasses, will focus on the fact that I have survived it all, in tact and with my beautiful spirit continuing to flourish. They don't want to look at the trials, tribulations and intense challenges. They mostly won't acknowledge those aspects. Their glasses would be offended by that.
Others desire to focus on the fact that I have given up what they perceive to be prime opportunities by turning down so many well paying jobs during a time when people with PhDs are working as shift managers at McDonalds in large urban centers. Their emotional inner response is often a down low type of criticism and judgment that silently revels in the belief that I have suffered in ways that I duly deserved.
Activists will often focus on the trials and tribulations, ignore everything else and simply use my story as another front from which they can fight their numerous anti-establishment battles. Raven/Sage the person gets lost in those battles. I become merely a statistic that serves as another temporary balm for their wounded and agitated souls. I become a projectile in the deepest meaning of that word.
No judgment there, just awareness.
And still I rise.
I have lost the relative assurance that comes with having a home I know I can return to, as my partner and I have moved more than 25 times in the last 2.5 years because of financial constraints and other negative factors.
I lost my very good, job based medical and health insurance. And as a result, my health has significantly deteriorated.
The list could become endless if I wanted it to be. I don't.
And...I am happier, in many ways, than I've been in perhaps my entire life.
With all these challenges has come the opportunity to direct my life in the ways I desire. I am shaping the life I want. And what much of that looks like is that I am beginning my emergence in the realms of spiritual leadership, community involvement, environmental and housing sustainability work, volunteering for local and state politicians from third party's who are authentically devoted to changing the world in a positive way and doing things on my own terms, initiating the development of my own programs, actions and not abdicating to the terms that some job dictates.
I have found that people take certain elements of all those experiences I've recounted here and focus on them, funnel them through their own limited and other hued filters. Which, of course, is the only funnel most of us have conscious access to.
People who desire to avoid the painful aspects of life and/or still steadfastly wear their designer prescription rose colored glasses, will focus on the fact that I have survived it all, in tact and with my beautiful spirit continuing to flourish. They don't want to look at the trials, tribulations and intense challenges. They mostly won't acknowledge those aspects. Their glasses would be offended by that.
Others desire to focus on the fact that I have given up what they perceive to be prime opportunities by turning down so many well paying jobs during a time when people with PhDs are working as shift managers at McDonalds in large urban centers. Their emotional inner response is often a down low type of criticism and judgment that silently revels in the belief that I have suffered in ways that I duly deserved.
Activists will often focus on the trials and tribulations, ignore everything else and simply use my story as another front from which they can fight their numerous anti-establishment battles. Raven/Sage the person gets lost in those battles. I become merely a statistic that serves as another temporary balm for their wounded and agitated souls. I become a projectile in the deepest meaning of that word.
No judgment there, just awareness.
And still I rise.
The very first really tangible action I took in 2010 on my 50th birthday, that indicated my personal liberation, was to claim ownership of the wisdom, pain, lessons, knowledge, mistakes and perseverance I have participated in and earned as a vibrant, incredible, black, same gender loving, spiritually conscious and awake, yes by God, awake, I'm claiming it, man that I am. I did this in a very specific way. However, a little more needs to be said before I get to that.
I am a black, same gender loving man who has seen huge numbers of my peers and brothers and contemporaries die of AIDS, die of addiction to crack cocaine and other drugs both "illicit" and "legal," become a solid part of the industrial prison complex, succumb to a life of depression and anxiety, participating in a zombie like grasping for a long bygone youth in any way possible, still believing that sex, drugs and rock and roll is the appropriate top and main agenda for men in their 50s and beyond. There is no blame nor judgment in any of that. I am simply stating socially observable truth. I claimed my power and wisdom on my 50th birthday as both a response to and reaction to all of that.
On my 50th birthday, in 2010, I took on the name Sage as a chosen name. I've earned it. Yes. And I'm still earning it. Raven, the trickster, is still around and present. I'm not concerned with what you call me.
I know who I AM.
On my 50th birthday, in 2010, I took on the name Sage as a chosen name. I've earned it. Yes. And I'm still earning it. Raven, the trickster, is still around and present. I'm not concerned with what you call me.
I know who I AM.
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