For me, this has been the year of the yard and gardening. I have loved to garden since I was a little girl and this house we have lived in for the last 18 years, is on two lots and it is a “ginormous” yard. There’s a huge rock bed in front and sidebeds of perennials all over the yard as well as this tiered vegetable garden in the back.
My summers for the last decade have been spent working on the whitewater course downtown and neglecting my garden and yard, especially the last two years when more than 30 days were spent on the course during the prime summer months. I didn’t even finish planting the garden in 2008 and 2009 much less keep up on the weeding.
Yesterday I was out there building a new bed next to the rocks and as I used the pitchfork to build the berm and relocated some of the rocks, I unearthed a colony of ants. The eggs were very visible. What happened next, I will tell you in pictures.
Right after I disturbed their home
Saving the eggs
Just a few left
Only one left
These shots were taken in rapid succession.
- Almost as fast as I could refocus the camera, the ants decided on a strategy.
- Allocated their resources to determine where to move.
- Selected and engaged their best team members from their network for help.
- Executed the plan
- Kept it in motion until the objective was reached, all the exposed eggs were back under cover.
They didn’t:
- hesitate
- bemoan their loss
- cry about the problem.
They took action. Many people and yes, many job seekers or career changers are much less industrious than the ants.
If you approach your job search with this same intensity as the ants, determine your strategy, allocate your resources, select and engage your best network connections, execute your plan and don’t backslide, your objective will be reached. You will find yourself with a new position and being able to continue with your other life goals.
It takes a special kind of wisdom to see one thing and find guidance in it.
Thank you, Ed, what a blessing you are… a born encourager! If I could manage to record my thoughts in the yard, I’d have a book, ideas flow so easily out there.
Julie,
LOVE the analogy. Applicable to all the challenges life presents in all the roles we have in our lives.
.-= Ali Davies´s last blog ..Time Management – the REAL reason you don’t have enough time =-.
Thanks, Ali, and you are so right and it looks like I better run over and read your blog soon!
Brilliant photos of the ants! Is there no end to your talents? Maybe we should put some of our gardening blogs together and create a book of life! Thanks for your inspiration, Julie!
My camera was my gift to me last summer mainly for the blog but also because I find that I see different through the camera’s eyes, Jane. Thank you for stopping by and yes, we could have a really great book. You’ll inspire me.
Julie, do you have a Flickr account? I think you would like it.
This post was inspiring–thank you!
I do have a Flickr account, Anna. I only put a few of my pics up there recently but if you read backwards in the blog you will see many Flickr photos all with credit to the photographers. My brother is a published freelance photographer so he has been the photo person in the family for years. I bought the little Canon last year and love playing with it! Hope your job search is going well!
.-= Julie Walraven | Resume Services´s last blog ..Are you as Industrious as Ants? =-.
When I was younger, I was fascinated with ants. Would have been pretty interesting to have studied them in more detail. Maybe I ‘should’ have had my own ant colony. Don’t think mom would have been keen though. She found enough squashed caterpillars in my bed.
.-= Davina´s last blog ..This is How You Don’t Skip Rocks =-.
You would love this then, Davina, when I was 20 or so, I worked in a savings and loan. Someone had peonies on their desk but they wouldn’t open so I brought 4 or so ants back from lunch. For years, I knew that after ants crawled on the peonies they always opened. What I didn’t think of is the possible consequences but I learned quick when I proudly showed my experiment to Eddie the maintenance person… he almost freaked out…
.-= Julie Walraven | Resume Services´s last blog ..Are you as Industrious as Ants? =-.
What a great post, Julie. Saying a big YES to getting on with what needs to be done and a big NO to wasting your energy on whinging! Helpful to job seekers … and many, many more! Thanks,
Gee
Gee Backhouse recently posted..Bury Your Feet in the Sand
Thanks, Gee! Good take-aways! We all need that reminder often.
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