career – Chloe J Sayers

Wacotown

I’m writing this from the comfort of my air mattress, the only spot to sit that isn’t floor in our apartment at the present. However, we’ve just crossed a major married life milestone: we finally bought furniture! It’s just not here yet.

Where is here? 2018 has seen us in 5 different countries and 4 different states so if you have no idea where in the world we are right now, you’re not alone. I’ve lost track myself a few times.

The Sayers have landed in Waco, Texas and given our new status of furniture – owners, we’re here to stay (for now). It’s been a week of Texas living so far and while it took some time to get used to the faint scent of barbecue in every breath of fresh air, we’re loving our new home.

Luke is beginning studies and work at Baylor University this summer as part of their English PhD program while I run a bookkeeping business from the comfort of our furniture free apartment (for now). We do have real non-air-filled furnishings on their way from Michigan but we’ll be roughing it for a few more days until they arrive.

I’m looking forward to sharing more about life in Texas and the new lessons and liturgies this season of life brings. Thank you to everyone who has supported us through the ups and downs of the last few months! We have an extra bedroom for the first time too and we’d love to host visitors.

Love from Waco,

Chloe

About Me, Social Media, Time

#Selfie

I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror this morning and it caught me by surprise. I hadn’t seen my face in a while. Since I don’t wear makeup and my hair doesn’t listen to me anyways, my morning routine doesn’t have me looking in the mirror very often.

My strategy for staying body-positive in our social media world has been to ignore how I look.I work out because I want to be strong and my capsule closet is an insurance plan to cover clashing so there’s no reason for me to spend much time examining my features.

Here’s what I discovered:

Looking at my face isn’t as scary as I thought
My eyes really are more green than brown
My hair really is out of control

I’ve found myself with more time for reflection (both literal and figurative) during this time in Russia. I don’t plan on becoming a millennial selfie queen but I am very grateful to be forced to take life a little more slowly.

In high school, I studied and volunteered and worked to fill out my college applications.

In college, I studied and volunteered and worked to fill out my resume.

In California, I studied and worked to fulfill my duties as an employee and make a living.

Here, I’m finally free to take a deep look in the mirror and learn more about what I actually enjoy doing. There are no more applications to live for, no more resumes that cry out to be updated.

For the last 10 years I’ve been running away from not being enough, not doing enough to get where I thought I needed to go. And now I’m finally able to look forward and whisper “Onward and upward!” and mean it. I walk slowly and cautiously as I explore what the future could look like.

Church Life

Career Counseling Ministry Expands To Include New Earth Job Training For Ministry Workers

DISCLAIMER: The following was written in complete jest. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Forward-thinking Elm Lane Church expands Career Coaching and Counseling Ministry to include positions in the afterlife for pastors whose services will no longer be in demand in the new heavens and new earth.

“For us, the expansion into New Earth job training for current pastors who are soon to be unemployed in the afterlife was a natural extension of our current mission and ministry,” said Career Coaching and Counseling Ministry Pastor Tim Brownlee.

The inspiration came from a Career Coaching volunteer after some Scripture typography paraphrasing 2 Peter 3:11 caught her eye on Instagram.

“It hit me as fast as I could double-tap that inspirational quote. We’ve been training folks for useful vocations in this earth but this earth might be gone tomorrow. What about all the pastors and parachurch ministry workers? What are they going to do in the new earth where there is no brokenness to heal and no community groups to organize? We need to be preparing them for the new heaven and earth where there services are no longer needed.”

The Career Coaching and Counseling Ministry is now offering the following services for any pastors or ministry workers looking to strengthen their afterlife vocational skill set:

Resumes After Revelation: Optimize your CV for Eternal Hireability
Everlasting Interview Tips: Top 10 Questions Saint Peter Will Ask
LinkedUp: Professional Networking Skills To Land Your Dream Job

Change, God, Life Lessons, Time

T of Death (3/3)

Gutenberg didn’t invent the printing press out of thin air. According to Where Good Ideas Come From, he recycled some of the technology involved in a wine press to invent the printing press. In its most simplified version, that’s the Adjacent Possible. Most new great ideas or inventions are only possible because there are adjacent to something that already exists. It’s like getting to a room on the 2nd floor by walking up the stairs and through a hallway. You can’t teleport there, but with the right combination of steps, you’ll get to that 2nd floor room.

The Adjacent Possible is a fascinating idea that’s great at explaining how we got from pressing grapes to printing books, but terrible when applied to one’s life path.

I like doing things. I was an Overly Involved High School Student who became an Overly Involved College Student. Like I’ve written in other posts, being overly vague in one’s skills or overly specialized can be paralyzing. So can walking aimlessly through open doors just because they’re open. Being an Overly Involved Person meant that I had a lot of different opportunities.

And being a believer in the Adjacent Possible meant I took 99% of them.

I thought I liked doing things, so it didn’t matter what work I did, as long as I was working. Turns out, it does matter what kind of work I’m doing. Evidently, just walking through the next open door might land you in a room that isn’t where you should be.

I’m just now learning that it’s okay to walk out. Climb through a window if you need to. Re-orient yourself, buy a map, chart a course, change those plans, make 3 year goals, 5 year goals, and adjust them all tomorrow. But if you know you’re in the wrong room, staying there longer won’t get you where you need to go. Keep moving and keep dreaming.

In other words, I quit my job last week.

Adios Adjacent Possible. I’d rather be known for who I was than having the longest resume around.

Until next time,
Chloe

Life Lessons, Travel

T of Death (2/3)

I used to enjoy merging. On long drives home from Grove City, I’d merge happily on the freeway to keep myself amused and awake.

I realized today that I have become a right lane rider. After months of passing gruesome wrecks on the highway, merging has become a gamble with death. There’s a downside to parking in the right side lane too often, though. You tend to get stuck. The traffic flow experts can correct me on this, but it does seem that the left lanes go faster. But it’s safe in the right lane.

Last post about the T of Death, I bewailed against being so broadly skilled that you aren’t skilled at all. This week, I want to spread my caution against getting too stuck doing the same thing forever.

Ironically, this is often the result of being too diverse in one’s interests at some point. You take every job and internship you can get. Of course, a wood-carving class tends to lead to wood-carving internships which leads to a wood-carving job and before you know it, you’ve spent your whole life as the human equivalent of a termite.

I just want to make sure I don’t live my entire life in the right lane, playing it safe only to find out that I’ll never get where I want to go. The merge might be scary, dangerous, and potentially life-threatening but I’d rather be moving in the right direction than idiling in the same spot.