How long will this job search take? Should I wait until after [bonus, performance review, acquisition, reorganization, insert other milestone] to start looking or should I get going now?
I know how much people want a feeling of certainty when it comes to predicting how long a professional pivot will take.
Instead of the easy answer that you’d prefer, I’m going to tell you a story about frogs.
Every spring, my son and I take part in a community science project called Maine Big Night. We record observations of amphibians who are crossing the road on their way to the vernal pool where they find mates. We’ve returned to the same road for the last 3 years.
It’s dull at first, and then suddenly we’re running here and there trying to catch up with salamanders and frogs.
Nothing…nothing…Then hopping, squirming, wiggly life all around. We scramble and squint to identify and record all the species. It’s magical to be surrounded by these elusive creatures. My son and I both love it.
What I appreciate about this experience is that it unfolds both predictably and unpredictably.
Friends who’d like to accompany us want to be told when we’re going. But it’s not something you can schedule.
The answer is: when it’s raining, dark, when the ground is free of snow, and when the temperature is 40 and 50 degrees. (And when it’s feasible for us to be awake.)
Those conditions didn’t coincide this year until quite late in the season.
This was not how I wanted it to go. I was watching vigilantly and grumbling when the weather forecast didn’t cooperate.
My impatience brought my son and I out a couple of times when there was still patchy snow on the ground. It was past the date on the calendar when I thought migration “should” happen. We trudged around wetly for two hours in the silent dark, and only saw two peepers. I was joyless and grumpy and worried that we were ‘behind’ somehow.
Three weeks later, though, we spent an hour busy, tallying up species we’d never gotten to see before. The frogs did not seem to care what the calendar date was.
Every year I do this, I re-learn an elusive lesson.
We can’t force things, no matter how impatient we are, or when we think they are “supposed” to occur. Life doesn’t unfold on our schedule, or for our convenience.
Instead we prepare, observe, and are ready to act when the conditions are right.
Another, harder lesson.
The migration is dangerous. We count dead amphibians as well as live ones. Survival requires these creatures to move and change, but they are delicate, and there are forces out there who are indifferent to their needs.
I wish things were different, and easier. I wish we could control the conditions for every necessary journey. Instead the best I can do is to show up, and stand ready to help in all the ways I can.
