Matthew Petro

Time to fill the blank page

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I was reading all of the comments on yesterday’s blog post and I am deeply grateful for all of the great individuals and supportive community here in Phoenix. The fact that so many people care was overwhelming to me, and I thank all of you for everything you had to say.

When I attended LaidOffCamp a couple of weeks ago, I had one main question in mind: How do I find the motivation to make a significant change in my life without the impetus of being laid off? To rephrase the tagline from Eric Proulx’s short film Lemonade, how do I hand myself a blank page if no one’s handing me a pink slip?

For me, yesterday’s blog post was that blank page. I needed to sharply focus what it was I wanted to do, and I needed to publicly state it. Even if no one read it, I wanted to it to be out there.

Will I take drastic action like quitting my job tomorrow? No. Quitting my job and hoping I’ll make it isn’t a strategy, it’s stupid. What I will do is take any steps I can to get to where I want to be as quickly as possible. As Pam Slim said and Wendy Coneybeer pointed out in a comment, sometimes you need to have a job for “right now” so you can work towards the “right” job. But I don’t want “right now” to last too long.

Thinking about changing things, having plans and setting personal goals are great. Often, it’s sufficient to be accountable only to yourself for making things happen. But sometimes, accountability to others is what’s needed to push us into action.

Now I’m accountable to more than just me. I’m accountable to my wife and #petrokid. And I’m accountable to you, Phoenix. Don’t let me slack off.