Devala has a lot of really good stories that he has lived, so I couldn't call this Devala's story. But it's one of his, and I wanted to capture it somehow. I thought, rather than sealing it away in a note somewhere, I'd share it, because I think it has some good lessons to teach.
I talked about my dear friend and spiritual brother in my last post. He has a lot of interesting features, but the two I'll mention here for context is that he has a really strong emotional immune system, by which I mean, he is almost always in a generally good mood, and even when really bad things happen, he tends to get over them quickly. The second is, perhaps related, he doesn't seem to have much filter between knowing that something is probably a good idea to do, and doing it. If he thinks it's a good idea, he tends to just do the thing, and not ruminate, vacillate, or procrastinate. I would actually call this simple habit/way of being a simple but very useful superpower, and if everyone had it their lives would probably be way better.
Since this is a semi-public forum, I'm gonna leave out some of the more personal elements of this story, thought they would probably make for an even more engaging one.
So, several years ago, One of Devala's closest friends suggested he take his love of researching and writing about Vedic and Hindu scriptures and such (also other things spiritual and esoteric, and even historical. Quite a wide range, but especially the Hindu realm), and start posting on Quora, using what had been dubbed by that friend "Deva-pedia" to answer people's obscure questions. He gave it a try, and really enjoyed doing this, and so it became one of his main pastimes. Researching and answering questions on these topics. He was prolific, and good at this. Over several years, he actually got a significant following. This was not a job, didn't pay anything, it was just what he loved to do. His day job was fine, content management, technical writing, at one point earlier on pizza delivery. Then he lost his job, right as the tech industry was utterly bombing, and found it near impossible to get another job that would pay enough. There were other elements of his life that went topsy-turvy around the same time, and he found himself living in his parents house, applying to (I think) literally hundreds of jobs, without success, over more than a year. He was looking for a job with a certain baseline level of pay, and then looking for a place he could live that had a high Hindu population, first on the list being Chicago, for that very reason.
One week, as we were chatting on the phone along with another friend, he mentioned that, at the suggestion of another friend who had done this, he was considering just moving to Chicago, without a job secured, and just making it work, going door to door looking for work and starting with a worse paying job and spartan living accommodations, that he would then work up from. We had often had conversations about his job search, sometimes we'd offered ideas and suggestions for finding work, and often Devala had already tried, or was doing, those suggestions. He was not resting on his laurels.
In any case, as he talked about this rather risky leap of faith, it reminded me of a quote I'd heard, that had stuck with me, though I had to look up the name of the source. It goes like this:
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”
― William Hutchison Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition
If memory serves, we talked about this twice, one week, he was considering it, and the next, he told us that he had decided to do it. That's when I shared the quote.
We don't have an exact timeline, but it was somewhere between later that day, and maybe 3 days later max, that a friend he had made, via his Quora presence, alerted him to a job opening they'd seen: the job was not website management or search optimization or technical writing, but literally researching and writing about Hindu stuff. Pretty much literally what he had been doing, unpaid, for years, on Quora, just because it was close to his favorite way to spend his time (at least when he wasn't playing with friends.) He applied. He got the interview. He got invited back for the second interview. He got invited back for the third interview. As one of his weekly (online) friend groups, we were on the edge of the seat, rooting for him each week, trying not to get our hopes up too much, but thinking, "I really hope he gets this, this is his dream job, he was made to do this job, this is better than anything he had been planning on doing or applying for previously." But we didn't want to expect anything, because it was so good, it would be such a let down if he didn't get it. And there had been previous times he'd gotten an interview or two, but eventually, it hadn't worked out.
He had even started thinking about going back to school. He had researched the best paying, most employable jobs that didn't require a long stretch of schooling, and picked from the top few the one that sounded like the best match for him. But, he admitted to us, perhaps during the same conversation, staying in Oregon felt kind of like he was stagnating, even doing the schooling, which would have kept him in Oregon for another 2 years, was starting to feel like he was wasting his time. Thus his impulse to just move to Chicago, trust the universe, and deal with the difficulties of a lower paying job and rudimentary housing, as he continued to network and search for a more sustainable job (meaning, something that actually met his minimum salary requirements he'd be happy with), while there.
By the 3rd interview, he had mentioned that, though he was going to move to Chicago regardless of whether he got the job or not, if he did get it, he was moving almost immediately. Well, he sent a message saying he would be in town next week, because he was moving to Chicago. And when games night came around, we all collectively cheered, when he confirmed it was because he had gotten the job. One of the interviewers had even met him previously for a short time, when they were both in Hawaii, and she admitted to binge-reading his Quora posts before the interview. Those posts clearly showed he was the perfect match we all knew he was, and he got offered the maximum from the salary range they had posted, right off the bat. NOW we could all throw our hats up and cheer.
I think this story is really dang moving for several reasons, one of which is perhaps personal to me and his other friend, who are all cheering for him. But additionally, he worked really hard. He did his thing where he didn't shy away from hard things (getting rejected over and over as he applied to job interviews), he kept learning and trying new things (rather than phoning it in) and going outside what would be most people's comfort zones, repeatedly (though I don't think it was actually outside his, but that's his emotional immune system I'd guess.)
And then, he did that William Hutchison Murray thing, he took that first step, he began something that certainly would have intimidated most people, when it felt right. He decided to move, without a job already set up. It would have been hard work and not comfortable living, for an indefinite period of time, without any certainty of success. He began it, certainly with boldness, and ultimately, it did seem to have magic within it.
As I talked with Devala about this, he added an important point, which was that in the end, it was his continual dedication to doing the thing he loved, researching and then sharing his knowledge with others, that ended up getting him the job. He had just been doing that, for years, because he loved it. That was where he met the person who mentioned the job to him (but he had been putting out that he was looking for a job, doing his own work) and it was pretty much certainly the vast volume of high-quality work that he had put out over the years, for the love if it, and as a service to others, that got him the job in the end.
I don't know about you, but I find that all pretty inspiring.
"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now"
Indeed.
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