It’s like a climbing a ladder. Except with snakes.
Once upon a time, things were simple. You strived, and you got what you worked for. You reached the end of the ladder. Then, school came to an abrupt end and you got thrown into a whole new boardgame with dizzying checker-prints with slimy things connected to ends and beginnings of ladders.
Snakes and ladders. Or so, how work has been.
Since the end of the crazy hundred-hour work weeks of a fresh graduate out of medical school, work seems to have taken a more sane appearance. Yet, beneath the surface of efficient systems and compassionate care, come the sting of politics, the shock of injustice, and the sorrow of bitterness.
You expect to be recognized but you aren’t; you expect to be discovered for your unique abilities but find yourself buried; you expect your case to be brought to justice but find yourself mocked. Complaints. Gossip. And frightening smiles. So this is what they called Politics, the great “P” word I knew nothing about in my solitary world of myself and my books back at school.
I was hurt and embittered, bruised by the hard fall from a tall, steady ladder after the sting of a serpent. But hard knocks make good lessons.
So I am learning. To cut loose and let things go. Because the only way to stop sliding, really is to stop being in the game. No matter how viciously and determinedly one tries to stay afloat by chopping off the tails of serpents which deceive and bind, new tails grow instanteously, demonically, at alarming rates. And… there is no prize at the end of the boardgame but new dice for another round.
“That is why it is so important to let certain things go. To release them. To cut loose. People need to understand that no one is playing with marked cards; sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Don’t expect to get anything back, don’t expect recognition for your efforts, don’t expect your genius to be discovered or your love to be understood. Complete the circle. Not out of pride, inability or arrogance, but simply because whatever it is no longer fits in your life. Close the door, change the record, clean the house, get rid of the dust. Stop being who you were and become who you are.”
– Paul Coehlo
So I’ve decided, that the only decent way forward, is to plunder the indulgence of the wicked- not by returning tooth for tooth, eye for eye, but to let go, to cling loose, and to forgive. To walk away. To say it happened but didn’t matter, to say perhaps it mattered but didn’t stain.
For we work for God, and not for man.
We can choose not to be men, not markers, people, and not pawns.
What do you need to walk away from today?
“Work willingly at whatever you do,
as though you were working for God
rather than for people.”
–Colossians 3:23