My “Irresponsible Action”

821 Comments / Latest Update / By Ada Johnson

Tuesday September 30^th, 2014

There is still a lot I want to share with you all about my beautifully different life but a lot of people have been dying to hear about my “irresponsible action” so I am going to put them out of their misery and just say it already. As long as I live we will have more time to get to know who I am and how I became who I am. Or I should probably say as long as I blog. Ok. Here goes. Wait, before I start let me apologize for the delay on getting the pictures from last week to you. Still trying to up my technology game but you will get it, I promise.

Ok. Drumroll please J. Today September 30^th, 2014 is my last day on my first full time job, the only job I have had since college. This in itself is not irresponsible but the fact that I am walking out of a six figure job without a job lined up can start to paint the picture for you. So to put it simply, my irresponsible action is that I have decided to embrace joblessness as a gift from God and take an unplanned sabbatical for the next three months but that is not all, please read to the end to find out the worst. I have always felt cheated that I didn’t get to take my three months backpacking Euro trip after college. I was broke, 7 months pregnant and definitely in need of health insurance so walking out of college and into a good paying job was not only the responsible thing to do, it was the only thing to do, or so I thought.

Unfortunately I don’t have a backpacking Euro trip planned for the next three months so I guess I will still keep feeling cheated of that but what I look forward to this next 3 months is not having any deadlines, tasks and targets, meetings and engagements except the ones I set for myself and yes I have set some of those up already. Oh!! The pains of being hopelessly responsible!!! I am registered now for four classes at Rice University and I was actually going to register for one more class until I started my commute from the Energy corridor here in Houston to Rice University two weeks ago. Now I am already feeling over committed. The good thing though is that two of the classes I am registered for are going to be so much fun that most of the work will be making it through Houston traffic to class on time. My Artist’s Way class already started and its pure joy, I tell you! My short story writing class begins in two days and I am sooooooooo excited just thinking about it. For better for worse I would be taking a tiny baby step towards the burning desire I have had for years to write fiction. At this point my fellow engineering buddies and responsible adults are probably thinking I have completely lost it. I am sure they will be relieved to hear that I am also registered for a GMAT prep class and I have given myself a target to take the GMAT by late November. I am not even sure I want to go to Business school right now but unfortunately you can’t just completely turn off being responsible.

More than anything what I look forward to the next three months is being able to listen to God, without the noise of routine or the fear of having to quit my job because I believe he is calling me to do something else with my life. I am hoping that since I am now jobless, the fear of quitting won’t keep me too scared to move towards God’s Purpose for my life. Yea, I can hear some of my Naija people already blaming America for sowing all this lofty ideas into my head and yes some of us Americans take this “pursuit of happiness” thing too seriously J. It is one of the things I love most about being American. Knowing that not everyone would think you are crazy for wanting to leave a great job and a perceived great life in pursuit of happiness. Having lots of people who has stepped out in faith to pursue happiness and self fulfillment and succeeded in this great nation helps make the daunting task ahead of me easier but the fact that their story is not mine and their life is not mine still makes the road ahead me seem very rough, very untraveled.

I have enjoyed a rewarding engineering career these last few years and the lessons I have learned, the great friends and wonderful mentors and humbling mentees I have been blessed with, all combine to make me know that my career so far was not a misstep as I tell myself some of those times I call me a failure. I believe that the last few years have prepared me for something other than a traditional engineering career, I believe that God is calling me to be something other than a Petrophysicist. So what is my “Irresponsible Action” again? Leaving a cushy engineering job to pursue my passion, to pursue a career I am passionate about. What is this career you might ask? I don’t know; ask me in three months J! That is one of the questions I will be looking to God for an answer to these next three months. Some of the other answers I will be listening to God for are to questions like; should I start venturing into this new career with job hunting or graduate education? What graduate education should I pursue? I can already hear some answers but they are not quite clear just yet.

So to my 9 siblings and my 93 cousins, all my mentees and my adopted younger brothers and sisters I say this, I don’t really have it all figured out myself even though I feel like I should. For how else can I expect to be a good example to you all, how else can I expect to give you advice on your careers and your lives? I hope and pray that soon I will again be a wise counsel to you all, but you would have to excuse me for now, especially for the next three months because I will be busy being irresponsible J. Then again this means that I will have more time on my hands so you should definitely call me if you need to talk, because that is truly a part of my responsibility that I enjoy immensely.

Wishing everyone a fruitful 4th quarter of 2014!

God Bless