This morning as I headed out the door for church, I sensed something and knew to open the mailbox. Sure, the post office delivered on Saturday and I hadn't checked it yesterday, but I knew that as soon as I opened that mailbox this morning, I would find a letter addressed to me from my place of work at Benedictine University at Springfield.
Sure enough as I opened it, there was the letter that I had been waiting for. I had visualized this moment happening and there it played out for me.
I flashbacked to a moment when I received a similar letter from Illinois State University when I was eighteen year's old. Now, at age forty, this comparable letter gave me a sense of déjà vu as it was once again my acceptance into college. This time around, it notified me that I was accepted into Benedictine University at Springfield where I'm now officially enrolled in the accelerated Master of Science in Management and Communications program.
I'm going to officially be a student again.
I do feel the weight of this all and have mixed feelings on this day. I do feel joy, excitement and a sense of accomplishment (for just getting myself to this point of acceptance), but I also feel a bit of trepidation and anxiety. I am proud that I am going to be a Benedictine student and future alum. I have already vested a part of my soul into this place as a member of the faculty and part of the staff. I do take pride in my work and want to see the Springfield campus grow and succeed. That is part of my own personal mission. I had re-dedicated myself during the changes that began in October 2009 and embraced the new opportunities presented to me by Benedictine University. I will now experience Benedictine in a different light as a student where I hope the experience will allow me to come out of the other end much stronger than I am today. I hope to be a positive person of influence for the institution and those people who I come in contact with at the University and in other areas of my life.
I know there are going to be days ahead when I'm going to feel that I've bitten off more than I can chew. There is already a small voice in the back of my head wondering why in the heck am I'm adding something more to my plate when I'm already pulled at in all directions by work, karate, family, comics and my interests. I also think about past regrets. For years, I've felt that I should have already gone to grad school and already earned my master's degree, but I accept the decisions that I've made in my life where I've done the things that I've had to do. If that makes any sense to anyone reading this. It makes clear sense to me knowing what I've endured.
Yet having these feelings, my martial arts instincts kick in and cancels the negativity. As I get in touch more and more with my budō spirit, the more noticeable I watch myself appear numb to it all. It just seems a matter of fact. Deal with it and don't overthink it. That is the karate mindset.
I found a moment of quietness recently where I thought about things going on in my life and how I got to this point. The direction my life has taken. How my skills have strengthened. How I've acquired an array of personal experience. I'm all over the map it seems. Especially starting out of a fine arts background where I found myself drifting over into the marketing and communications field. Yet, somehow, while this point where Management and Organizational Behavior may seem miles away from any profession in art and/or where some others may think I should be somewhere different � I know I'm in the place in my life where I need to be at this moment in time. This will round out some areas I need to focus in on myself.
And now perhaps I may finally earn that elusive master's degree in 13 months that I've put off for nearly two decades.
I'm recording my thoughts today. I want to remember the excitement and anxiety, yet there is a calmness that I'm feeling also that cancels both out. It is what it is. I'm moving through a moment and I'm neither overwhelmed nor taking this lightly. But I do feel a sense of pressure now to once again succeed. I want to do so with an empty cup that will allow itself to be filled.
Yoshukai (�秀会) kanji translates "training hall of continuous improvement" in Japanese. Though I'm "officially" a student again, I've always been a student. I'm always moving up the mountain just a little further. This is another formality that is testing me.
This 13-month program is a weekend format. Just about every third weekend, I will spend in the classroom. I will be reading, studying and writing several papers. Interacting with others. I'll buckle down. I'll still be able to work my day job and will juggle the rest. I'll do it. Some things may need to go to the backburner for a year, but it'll be worth it as I walk through that door and earn my degree while hopefully coming out the other end of this experience with new tools and a refined perspective to help myself be able to help others in a position of leadership.
Change management is a field that I've found myself drawn to lately. My mindset has been molded by a mantra that in life we're presented with three choices when it comes to making a difficult crossroads type decision: to keep it status quo, to change, or to quit. In life, being able to adapt and manage that change is something I feel that I'm mentally equipped to do in my troubleshooter mindset. We'll see where this journey takes me further down the road.
And in the back of my mind, I also know that right after I finish this 13-month program, I may be testing for my nidan (second degree black belt) rank in karate. I need to stay on target.
Over the next fifteen months, I need to focus on one word to get me through this challenge. I need to persevere. (忍耐)
I realize now after writing this, this isn't really a blog entry written specifically for YOU, though you may end up taking something from it. As I write this, it is a letter that I'm writing to myself and you're getting to glimpse what I'm contemplating at this moment of time.
Hopefully, in December 2012 I will remember to re-read this again and tell myself mission accomplished. Someone will hopefully remind me.
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