Let's go back in time from my last post and explore a bit. In the late 80s I attended college in Anchorage, Alaska. I needed a job, and ended up working at a copy shop not too far down the street from the campus. I met a guy there who became my boyfriend and eventually we moved in together into a tiny cabin behind the hockey arena.
Life was good, for a while. We would walk to work together, worked the same shifts, even took lunch together. We didn't make much money, but each paycheck I would treat myself to some canvasses, or some new oil paints or brushes. I enjoyed painting, but I was really bad at it. I thought if I just had more time I could learn and do better. Thus enter my dissatisfaction. If only I had more time to paint!
I started imagining what my life would look like if I could paint more, daydreaming actually. What I really wanted was a job that I could do from home, that would afford me more time for painting and more money to buy supplies. I scoured the want ads in the papers, I looked into all those work at home opportunities, mostly arts and crafts ones. Nothing seemed to fit the bill, but I kept on looking, keeping my eyes open to any opportunity and imagining this happy life working from home and spending more time with my art.
One day at the copy shop a customer brought a bookmark up to me that had been left on one of the copiers. It was a picture of Lilith, with the caption "Feared and Fearless Lady of the Night." I told the customer that I'd hold on to it until someone came back for it. "No," he said, "you should just keep it. No one will be back for it, it's for you." Well, I showed it around the shop and folks said I should just keep it. This seemed really odd to me at the time. I couldn't get it off my mind, someone would surely be back for it.
A few days later a woman entered the store with a want ad. She was making copies and then asked me if there was somewhere I could post it in the shop. I told her we didn't have a job board, but asked her what the job was. She said it was for a home telephone answering service. "Working from home running a telephone answering service?" I asked, "Who do I have to kill? I'll take it'!" The woman was a little flustered, "Uh, uh, I have to interview you first."
So we sat right down at a table and had an interview. Turns out she needed someone to answer calls, set appointments and give out information for various businesses she owned and she didn't want to hire an existing service, she wanted to set someone up in a home business and teach them to do it her way. Is sounded perfect! However, she still had other folks to interview. She was also the owner of the orphaned bookmark, though she told me to keep it, she had lots of them. I held on to it and it was my reminder of this perfect job out there waiting for me, working nights, answering phones.
After a couple weeks and all her interviews, she hired me, the first interview she had given. I was thrilled! Within two weeks I had a telephone answering service set up for me, with all the training I needed and all the supplies, right in my own home. My prayers were answered far better than I had ever imagined.
The way the service worked, businesses forwarded their phones to me at closing time. This way after hours, customers would get a personal greeting and could still get in-depth information and even set appointments. I got to work from home, I made great money, my days were free and in the evenings I had plenty of time to paint paint paint. I took tele-classes from the college with plenty of time to study. I even got some exercise equipment and got into shape. See, some of the calls were coming in from 800 numbers for information and calls could come from any time zone, but really, there were some good long stretches through the wee hours when the phones just didn't ring. I stayed up until businesses opened and had all the phones forwarded back by 7 a.m. I slept while all my friends were at work, got up in the early afternoon to go to the health club and work out, and then met up for socializing until I had to get to work. My boyfriend even took the night shift at the copy shop so that we would stay on the same schedule.
Perfect.
Now when I look back on this, I have often wondered why this situation worked so perfectly and other times I haven't gotten what I wanted. With the reading I'm doing now, "Wealth Beyond Reason," by Bob Doyle, there are few things that jump out at me. First, I didn't constrain my wish by deciding that it had to come about in a certain way. For example, I didn't say what type of home business it had to be and I didn't say when it had to happen. I also didn't stress about it not coming to pass. I knew that I would find something eventually if I just kept looking and there was no negative emotion associated with not finding it. In fact, failure never even crossed my mind. I fantasized about this perfect situation and it was always a happy fantasy. Then I simply went on with my day. Eventually the opportunity appeared and I grabbed it.
Cheers!
Kelle
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