I was looking for a blog post tonight to write, then I read an eMail from Matt at the Life Without Pants blog. Last Spring he sent out request for other Bloggers to write a blog article for the Inconvenience of Change project. I wrote a blog for for the project and it was published as part of an eBook he completed recently.
Here is a link to the ebook download site, there are 38 other authors and I just read them again. The words in this ebook are powerful and I wanted to share them with you. If you want to read my part of this project it starts on page 46 (I know it is a bit self-serving but…).
The Inconvenience of Change from mattChevy on Vimeo.
…I am just a little bit proud of this, first time for me 
.
When I re-read the blog article, I found that in retrospect this blog article was rather prophetic for me personally. At the time I wrote it, I was working as the Maine State AmeriCorps Program Officer and really wasn’t really happy with the type of work I was doing. “Change” is extremely scary and I had a solid job, earning decent money with a great mission, but I was still extremely unhappy. To be honest I was scared of changing my job after such a short time, I hadn’t been in the job a year and couldn’t imagine changing jobs at that point, but I guess even then knew it wasn’t the job for me.
I made it through the summer and when my supervisor came back from surgery in early September, I told her that I would be looking for a new position, that I really wanted to go back to education and that it would probably be a year or so to get back into it because the normal teacher hiring season was over. The next day, the position I am currently in suddenly opened up and here I am back to being a Special Education teacher again. I was extremely lucky that it happened so quickly and exactly when I was looking for it and then to actually get was just amazing.
So participating in that project and writing the blog article was a subconscious turning point for me, I knew I was unhappy and had to make some changes in my life, but wasn’t consciously aware of how much I needed to make those changes at that point
This is where I want to be and where I should be – being a teacher. Being a Special Education teacher is a tough job (I knew that going in) and it is the most satisfying thing that I could be doing.
Since coming back to education I now go to bed at night and sleep a lot better than I ever did in my other job. I also know that because of this change in my professional life, that my personal stress level has been reduced considerably and that I am doing my small part to effect a positive change in the students I am serving. If I can reach just one student to make a positive difference in their life, then I have done the right thing.
For me facing the “Inconvenience of Change” was a life changing experience, it wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but I believe it was the right thing.
As always “do the right thing for the right reasons – today and tomorrow.
Matt Cheuvront
November 21, 2009
Hi Harold. It’s been a long time since we’ve spoke but I was thrilled to see that you had downloaded, read, and written about “The Inconvenience of Change”. Thank you again for being a part of this project. I think one of the most interesting things is to look back in retrospect and see how much things have changed – at least for me personally – in only 6 months.
It’s a privilege for me to compile all of this and offer it to everyone. I sincerely hope you enjoyed. Be in touch!
-Matt
resource220
November 21, 2009
Thanks Matt. As I said I really think that participating in your project set me on the road to change in my personal life. A lot has changed for a many of us who participated in the project, it would be interesting to contact the other writers and have a follow-up on what changes the others have had in their lives.
Harold