Happiness is found along the way, not at the end of the road

In June of this year I embarked on a journey to find something new.  I knew I had to close Nuada, the small retail business I loved.  The time had come, and I knew this would be tough.

When I started on this journey, I had no idea what was next.  I knew I needed to work, earn money, and pay the bills, and I wanted to do it as quickly as possible.  I was also finding it very hard to let Nuada go, but I didn’t know why.

A few months earlier, a friend recommended that I go to CTC, the Career Transitions Center of Chicago.  I thought it would be a good starting point, and I really wanted to take action.  I desperately wanted to move on.  At the first orientation meeting, Laura, the CTC Director of Programming, after listening to my particular story said to me, “You know, someone once told me that nothing is a waste, that everything leading up to this point was meant to happen.”  She also said to me, “You’re tired,” and I almost burst into tears.  Up to that point I was trying to pretend Nuada was over and that I was fine.  I wasn’t.  Holding onto Nuada and the sense of failure that came with closing it had so drained me that while I desperately wanted to move on, I didn’t know how--and I was tired.

For me, and I suspect for many others, opening my business was a manifestation of who I was and who I wanted to be.  I could be creative, which I never could in my previous jobs.  I could be interactive, meeting new people, introducing artists to customers, getting involved in community groups.  I could be strategic, making plans, searching for new products, holding events.  I loved it.  But now it was gone.

When we have a setback, lose a job, or “fail” in a business, the inclination is to reprimand ourselves, ask what we did wrong.  What we don’t do, or at least what I didn’t, is ask what I did right.  All I saw was something I needed to fix, a “failed” business and a lack of income and I needed to fix it fast.

I now know that there was nothing to fix.  Nuada wasn’t the goal; it was part of the journey.  It was an invaluable experience, one that has opened up all kinds of new and exciting opportunities, but closing Nuada was also part of the experience, and the part that has allowed me to move on.  Through taking the time to learn more about me, my strengths, and what I love to do, I have opened up my life to a whole new set of possibilities, but I could not have discovered those possibilities if I had not closed Nuada.

But it wasn’t easy.  I couldn’t move on from Nuada until I first acknowledged how much it had meant and how I really felt about losing it.  Be gentle with yourself.  When you lose something in your life, big or small, allow some time to grieve.  But remember that it’s all part of the journey, the good and the bad.  Each point on the journey serves a purpose.  Nothing is a waste.