Perfectly prepared for the path that you’re on

Last year, a young man stepped into a large and exciting assignment. The door that opened was not exactly the one he would have chosen. Yet, in spite of a vague sense of disappointment, he gave himself wholly to the work.

The position in which he landed required skills he hadn’t yet acquired. The pressure was intense. He had to learn on the run with management breathing blisters onto the back of his neck. On top of that, his work was expected to be flawless even while he was learning an entirely new skillset. He did it.

Meanwhile, as the department was wildly understaffed, he had to work seven days a week. Even when out grocery shopping in the few, stolen moments that were available, he carried his work with him. If a job came in, he would drop what he was doing and tend to the immediate demands, then carry on. As the assignment wound down, he found himself working 120 to 140 hours a week, often coming home at 5 in the morning, returning to the office at 9.

When the job was over, two things were true. First, it had been a smashing success. He had been part of history, an opportunity that few ever have. Secondly, he paid a price. It took months to regain his health and vitality, for he had left everything on the field of conquest.

I tell you this story today because of what happened a year later. A new door opened for him. Scarcely a week into the new assignment, he realized something amazing. The work he was now doing? It was second nature to him, because he had spent months strengthening that very set of skills at the prior workplace. And folks were noticing.

Years ago, when my husband was starting his business, I, too, learned a new skill. With a preschooler at the house and two in school, I enrolled in online classes for medical transcription. Upon completing the course, I took my first part-time job, working from home, for a tiny transcription company. For months, I labored for very little pay. The physician I was assigned was a general practitioner. Sometimes late at night after the boys were in bed, I’d be at my desk, plowing through the day’s dictation he had sent.

After some time went by, I applied for—and got—a much better paying job with a company in Virginia. One day, the manager called me. Did I have any experience, she wanted to know, with cardiology? I told her I hadn’t.

“We have a brand-new cardiologist coming onboard, and I’m going to send some of his work to three of you to try.” I settled in, typing for a soft-spoken physician far away. She called me again the next day. “You had the fewest blanks in your reports. I’m going to send you some more of his work.” I kept typing, surprised that the cardiac terminology and drugs felt familiar to me.

The third day, she called yet again. “He is asking for you. I’m assigning him to you from now on.”

The “he” of whom she spoke turned out to be the Chief of the Cardiology Department at Georgetown University Hospital. I was stunned. So well-known was he for his skills and abilities that employees of the World Bank in other countries would fly to visit him stateside. I marveled over the ease I felt as I typed his reports. And then I saw it.

That first, bottom-of-the-barrel job I had landed, transcribing for a general practitioner? It was in the great State of Florida where most of his patients (you will guess, I’m sure, where I’m going) were elderly. With heart problems. And so, without even knowing it, I was gaining experience in a specialty I hadn’t chosen, but which apparently chose me. For years after that, cardiology was one of my favorite specialties. Throughout my career, I had the happy privilege of transcribing thousands of reports for cardiologists I never met in the beautiful state of Virgina.

The moral of these stories today is that often, the challenging times and places in which we find ourselves are preparation for what comes next. Over and over, I have found this to be true.

What is also true is that much of the time, we don’t realize this truth when we’re in it. We cannot see the road ahead, and so our current situation makes no apparent sense. When a difficult job or circumstance drags on interminably with no end in sight, our spirits flag. Our courage falters, and we fall into, at the least, a dull resignation and, at the worst, despair.

“What can this possibly be good for?” Such is the cry of the heart.

Please allow this veteran of difficult times to reassure your anxious mind. If you are willing to learn and willing to grow, this hard thing will have something good in it for you. It truly is okay if you can’t see it, feel it, or believe it right now. I know it’s true.

The only way it will be wasted or unfruitful is if you refuse to learn, change, or grow. The last thing you should do is give up or give way. Do not give up, and do not give way to despair. Hold to the lifeline of hope that your present case is preparing you marvelously for your next chapter. Then wait and see what happens. I will wait beside you.

Every Saturday morning, America’s small, caffeinated mom joins James Golden, aka Bo Snerdley, on the nationally-syndicated James Golden Radio Show. You can find them on 77 WABC or one of the many affiliates across the country. Bring your coffee and listen in.