The TRUTH Only Hurts for a Little While

I am sharing an experience I had twenty years ago in Florida during a time when businesses were starting up, struggling, and failing in an effort to become the next “new big thing”, and everybody involved were either jumping ship or floundering to survive. I had several educational degrees and many careers under my belt and had just taken a breather from 5 years of global traveling as a non-profit organization volunteer “getting my feet wet” in what was then called the New Age Movement. Years of following various mystic leaders, movers and shakers while trying to find my “nitch” had left me exhausted,, confused, and knowing that it was time I took life seriously and put some money in my pocket. If I was going to look to the future with any degree of certainty I had to buckle down and look for a REAL job!
One of the truths I had learned over the years was that I was a “people” person who needed to have excitement around me and a purpose to get up each morning. I interviewed for jobs and rejected many offers to work in the milieu of corporate craziness, not wanting to compromise my hard-gained personal principals of doing things well on my own terms. I had even worked for short periods of time with a few trade associations and what turned out to be “fly-by-night” ventures which had buckled under to economic pressure to stay afloat, no matter what the cost to employee relationships.
As serendipity would have it, I was hopelessly lost in rush hour on I-4 coming back from a job interview and I pulled into a hotel to ask directions that would take me out of a traffic nightmare so I could get back to where I was living 32 miles away. It was here that I met a young woman , who I will call Nancy, who owned a Guest Services business, managing tour and attraction centers in several hotels near Disneyworld, Orlando. Little did I know that two of her pearls of wisdom would stay with me to this day, and come to the forefront of my brain when I needed it most in the future.
Within the first 10 minutes of our connection, not only had Nancy given me an alternate driving route to get me home, but she had also related to me as if we had known each other all our lives and then offered me the job of running the Guest Services desk at that particular hotel. Finally, after all my interviews and frustrations about finding the perfect job fit for me, I was faced with the idea of having “fun” in my life again! Greeting and meeting people who’s intent was to have a great vacation with lots of excitement and adventure was my job and sole purpose, and I was elated, ready to meet all the challenges it entailed.
Every day for four months I visited Disneyworld and surrounding attractions to buy tickets to sell; I set up tour packages and discovered a new self-induced sense of humor, finding unique ways to attract tourists to my booth, enticing them to take advantage of special offers I would combine for their amusement. I met wonderful people from all over the world and delighted in sharing information about cities and countries we had in common through my years of global travel. I worked twelve hour days for weeks on end without a day off, setting new sales goals for myself and meeting sales challenges Nancy handed me as a way to earn financial bonuses when the tourist season was waning. It was tough and it was exhausting, but she was the best, most fair, caring, thoughtful boss I had ever had and that made all the hard work worthwhile.
When September came and sales commissions were starting to take a drastic dip due to drop in tourism, I knew I had to start thinking about finding a different job that would give me a steady flow in income so I could pay my rent and bills. I agonized about telling Nancy I would have to leave and my nights of fit-full sleep were becoming commonplace. She was the most intuitive person I had ever worked for and it didn’t take long for her to surmise that the tension I was exuding had something to do with her and the job.
Nancy walked into the hotel one day and handed me a beautiful large flowering plant. She told me that she had never had an employee like me who had so totally made the job “my own” and had taken each challenge with a smile and great attitude, even when the days were tough and I was hanging by a thread with exhaustion. Then, she took my hand and said, “I know you have something on your mind, and I just want to say one thing….’the Truth only hurts for a little while, and you are not responsible for other peoples’ disappointment in you by personal decisions you choose to make for your life’”
I looked at her and burst into tears. How could this young woman be so wise and so tuned in to what I was wrestling with? When I got control of myself, I told her that I needed to leave and find another job and that I hated to leave her in the lurch after all she had done for me-both as my employer, and my friend. I was really feeling guilty about it and I was feeling that I was letting her down. She told me that she knew I had to make the choice for me and assured me that I had more than contributed to the success of her business and she was very grateful for everything I had done for HER.
As a “sendoff” , she gave me a two-day trip to the Bahamas and wished me well.
To this day, I think of those pearls of wisdom and find them useful when I worry about other people’s reactions to my honesty when telling somebody how I feel or what I think, especially if those thoughts involve them directly. Sometimes I even preface my words by saying, “A wise woman once said to me, ’the TRUTH only hurts for a little while’.” Or, if I notice that something I have done or said makes a person uncomfortable or defensive, I say “I am not responsible for the way you are reacting or if you are disappointed in my decision about what’s right for ME.”
I know it is important for us to live our lives to be the best of our abilities and to be the most honest person we can be in this lifetime- to ourselves and those we care about. And it isn’t always easy. But knowing that we can make the conscious choice to be TRUE to ourselves, points us in the same direction to be TRUE to others in our efforts to live a life full of abundance and gratitude.

Thank you for letting me share these thoughts and this time with you. Please visit our website, www.fromme2youonline.com to read more “pearls of wisdom” from our family of readers and healers.

Gratefully Yours,
Laurie Jo