A Personal Story…

A Pin Cushion

During a handicraft class in my elementary school, one of our first projects consisted of knitting a pin-cushion.  It was a straight forward one piece knitting job that upon completion could be rolled up to become a pin cushion.

The project took us several weeks to complete but one of my class mates, Diane, dropped a stitch very early on in the process.  The dropped stitch created a small hole in her knitting work.  As I was sitting close to her, I suggested that she’d pick up the stitch, and so did other kids.  Diane ignored our advice  and instead of going back and picking up the slipped stitch, she stubbornly continued with her knitting work. The ignored stich created a bigger hole over time.

Diane carefully hid her project from our teacher by rolling up her work so that the hole would not be visible when our teacher checked our progress.  Diane was determined to finish her pin-cushion on time.  In spite of her efforts, on the due date of the project, Diane was forced to show our teacher her result.  Upon noticing the hole, our teacher told Diane to unravel her whole knitting work back to the dropped stitch and start over.

That day, Diane left the class crying and abandoned the project.  She never re-created the pin-cushion and received an F for her knitting work……..

If we do not take care of our problems early on, but instead choose to persistently continue a career path or direction that is not meant for us, life can become a pin-cushion with too many holes.  Have you ever felt ‘stuck’ this way? To evaluate your current situation, take a look at the following Employment Choices Quadrant.