Diving Back In?

The moment of truth has arrived. After 9 relatively blissful weeks away from Corporate America, tomorrow I'm throwing myself back into the fire pit. I'm nervous. Not about the people or the work, because I think the people will actually turn out to be quite nice and the work should be far more interesting and engaging then the work at my previous firm.

What I'm nervous about, perhaps irrationally but I think understandably, is finding myself back in the type of toxic, soul destroying environment that caused me to leave my last firm. The fear is irrational because I did my research on this new firm and everything I know about it leads me to believe that it will be a million times better than my old firm on just about every level. For example, my last firm expected associates to be at their beck and call around the clock. At the new place, most people leave by 7 pm each night, and almost no one works on the weekends.

But, it's still a law firm, and I'm still going to be doing work that's not my true passion. I worry - despite my strong conviction that worrying is absolutely pointless - that the new place won't be different enough, that in starting this job I'm putting myself back in a situation that will wear down my spirit and lead me to become despondent and depressed once again.

Even as I write this, I know that my concerns are unfounded because I would never again allow myself to get to the place that I was a year or six months ago. I'd see the warning signs - both in my professional and personal life - and this time I would get out long before my spirit was crushed into the ground and ripped into a thousand tiny pieces. I'm confident in my strength and in the lessons that I learned during the last year.

Despite my concerns, I'm trying to maintain a positive attitude and hoping for the best. I would like to believe that I could actually enjoy this new job, and I'm excited about starting my new life free of all of the negativity of the past. However, having been ripped apart once, I think it makes sense that I would feel cautious about starting something new. The new firm doesn't appear to be run by demons with steel tipped talons, but I really won't know until after I've begun working there.

Either way, demons or not, I know it's going to be OK. I survived an incredibly toxic work situation and a destructive relationship at the same time. This time around, there's no relationship negativity to wear me down, and there's no way that any work situation (short of digging trenches in India in the summer) could be as bad as the one I had working for Dragon Lady. So, really, there is nothing to worry about. If it turns out to be horrible, I'll leave. I've done it once and I can do it again. But, hopefully I won't have to.

Photo: Demons trying to distract the Buddha, painted on a temple wall in Darjeeling.