Adjusting My Sails

A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner. – English proverb

I asked, in a rhetorical Tweet the other week, “Are the winds changing yet?”

By the end of the day the next day, coincidentally, I had scheduled two job interviews. Both were for jobs that I, for lack of better words, really would like to land. Two very different institutions, one very wonderful metro area, and so far, two workplaces staffed with great people.

Now that I have broken through my first set of student affairs job interviews, I am even more anxious to see what lies ahead. I have talked at length with some of my students about both the positions I’ve interviewed for, and they are excited for me–although in some cases, they are still trying to convince me to stay at OSU so I can help them through their entire college career!

If I paid no attention to what I have learned over the past couple of years, I would be fighting the wind, trying to–by any means possible–land my boat on a preconceived point, a place where I’ve told myself is paradise, absolutely perfect, and exactly what I need and want. But I know now that this journey isn’t that simple. A change in the breeze can lift the fog in the distance, and if I let the wind suggest a new destination, maybe I will find something beyond my wildest dreams.