(Minghui.org) I am a 26-year-old practitioner living outside China. I have practiced Falun Dafa for 5 years. I graduated from college about 4 years ago, so I have been in the workforce for only a short period of time.
I recently began looking for a new job. While doing so, I had many opportunities to find my shortcomings and better understand conforming to ordinary society. I also had the chance to clarify the truth to those I met. I learned how to better balance doing well in my career while being free of pursuit and attachments to fame or gain.
While I ultimately left my employer on good terms because of my inadequate performance, I was scheduled to be demoted from my position as a business analyst and become a salesperson again. This was a very stressful situation for me for several reasons. The job market in my country is very difficult for young people and I had only 1 year of experience as an analyst, while the majority of such jobs require more than 2 years. If I failed to get a new job before being demoted to salesperson, it would make my job history look bad and I feared this would make me unable to work in my preferred field.
This put me in a difficult position. I was already training my replacement and had agreed to step down from my position, but because I was still just wrapping up loose ends, my job title remained the same. While I was interviewing for new positions, I would often be asked if I was still working as a business analyst.
I didn’t dare to lie since I knew that cultivators must not do so. But I felt pressure from my attachments to self, fame, and fear of loss, so I looked for every way I could to justify not fully explaining the situation. My title was still the same in the company’s computer system, I was still doing those types of tasks, etc. I would deflect their question or answer it in an ambiguous way so that on the surface I was not lying, but I was concealing the real situation.
After going through two particular interviews and sharing with a practitioner about it I realized how a cultivator should look at the situation.
When I was preparing for an interview with company A, it was hard to memorize the names of the people I was scheduled to speak with. I did poorly on the interview and did not get the position.
For the job at company B, a recruiter walked me through everything. I memorized the names of my interviewers almost immediately. The whole affair was simple and they offered me the job same-day.
In Lecture Seven of Zhuan Falun, it says:
“We have also observed this situation: When a person is born, a profile of his whole life will exist in a specific dimension. In other words, where he is in his life and what he should do are all included in it. Who has arranged his life? It is obviously done by a higher life. For instance, in our ordinary human society, after birth one belongs to a certain family, a certain school, and upon growing up a certain workplace; various contacts in society are made through a person’s job. That is, the layout of the entire society has been planned this way.”
I realized that my poor performance in the interview with company A was not the real reason for being denied a job, this was merely something on the surface. Although I tried to do my best, I did not have a sufficient predestined relationship with the people at company A, so this could explain why things did not go smoothly with them.
Similarly, the ease of memorizing the interviewer’s names and the natural way that the job with company B was offered to me made me realize I did indeed have a predestined relationship with the people there and that was why I was able to do well on the interview and was ultimately offered the job.
Ordinary people often lie during interviews and falsify their credentials believing they will gain a better chance of employment. Wasn’t I trying to do the exact same thing? In reality, I should have been direct and honest in all my interviews about my strengths as well as my weaknesses, while still presenting myself in a professional manner that is acceptable in the present day society.
Ultimately, it is Master who decides my road of cultivation and everything else on the surface is just an illusion. I just need to walk well the path that Teacher has laid out for me with a high xinxing standard.
This is my current understanding. If there is anything improper in my sharing, please point it out.
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Category: Improving Oneself
