Escaping the World of Illusions

"Look only at possibilities and not at material illusions. You are powerful and can overcome any situation using a positive mindset."

--Doreen Virtue from her book Angel Numbers 101, entry #616

I got "written up" at work last week. Written up! I'm 41 years old and I have never once been written up at work, until now. 

During, I took it stoically, as my mid-Western up-bringing had taught. Then, all emotional hell broke loose.


First I was sad. I went back to my desk and cried quietly - despite my friend Karen's sage advice: NO TEARS AT WORK - tears dripping down my cheeks while I stared at my computer screen hoping no one would notice (and thanking God I don't wear mascara).

Then I got angry: "How dare they! I'm a good employee. Was that really necessary?"

Finally, underneath the sadness and the anger, I discovered the hurt. And that's what I am nursing now, the hurt.

And it's hard. Because I loved my job.  I still love my job, I think. But maybe not as much as I did before....

I work part-time as a teller at a local credit union to earn a bit of extra cash, get my health benefits paid for, and still have the physical and emotional resources left over at the end of the day to be there for my kids. 

It's not a glamorous job or anything I trained for, but it was - is? - perfect for the phase of life I am in right now: the post-baby, pre-teenager, the kids still need me, but not quite as much and oh, by the way, the industry my husband is in may just have the bottom fall out of it any day now, phase. 


So I'd like to keep my job, but I don't know if I can. I feel like I've lost that lovin' feelin' and my mojo all at the same time. 

I used to be completely confident that I would balance at the end of the day and I counted my till knowing it would be right on. And then.....there was the day a month ago when I was off one dollar. A measly dollar, but still, it stung. I was no longer batting a thousand. I wasn't perfect. I was human. 

But it was only a dollar and I was able to move on. 

And then there was the day - almost exactly a month later - when I was off by one hundred dollars. Not a measly amount. Enough to raise the eyebrows of my supervisors. Enough to get written up. 

Written up! Me! It just doesn't happen. But it did. 

And now I have to figure out how to deal with it. 

And, yes, there is a part of me that realizes spending even two minutes worrying about this is absolutely ridiculous. 

In the scope of a credit union teller's till one hundred dollars is a lot of money. In the scope of pretty much any other economic measure, it ain't much (As my loving husband said when I told him about it, "Don't even talk to me about a hundred bucks, we had to write off ten thousand last year.").

And this is before you even consider that as a believer in the New Age view of life, on some level I consider this whole thing an illusion created by my soul for my learning. This is nothing more than a morality play in which I am both actor and audience.


But old habits die hard and I wasn't raised to get written up at work. Or to take that well or lightly.

So what's the moral of the story? 

I guess it would be this quote. This is the "angel message" that I received when I left work that day, at 6:16 pm, "Look only at possibilities and not at material illusions. You are powerful and can overcome any situation using a positive mindset."

There are few - if any - material illusions in our culture stronger than work and money. And no doubt that what is called for here is a positive mindset. Or as my friend Jefferson said when I told him about it, "Let it go. Just....Let it go."

I'm trying Jefferson, I'm trying.....