Well, it looks like that change I spoke about a few weeks ago is coming sooner than I thought.

So I’ve been at my current job in South Korea for 9 months. My contract was slated to end in mid August and I was not planning to renew. Last week, my boss came to tell me that because he doesn’t really have enough students for the English program, that he was going to shut it down, and he was ending my contract 2 months early.

This was definitely a blow. It essentially means that all of the benefits that I would get for a contract completion were gone, even though it was not my fault. (I did speak with the ministry of unemployment and labor, and because of his reasons he can actually do this.) I would also be losing two months’ salary.

However, I also didn’t like the job, and had thought about breaking the contract myself. And, in all honesty, I couldn’t figure out he was keeping the doors open anyway – most of my classes only have one student, and the most full one has 4.

So I’ve chosen not to fight it, and I did push to get at least a few of the benefits that I should get at the end of the contract. But I’m really very much at loose ends and feel a bit apprehensive about the near future, and I’m, frankly, rather scared.

However, with very good reason, I also have an immense amount of faith.

Now, I’m an atheist, so I am not speaking of faith in God. I am speaking about faith in myself.

I have been in extremely stressful situations where something dropped into my life and basically blew everything up, and I had to make pretty fast decisions with no idea of what my next move should be, and I have always survived. Often I’ve come out better than before. Rarely have things become worse, but I’ve always survived, and I’ve always been able to move forward. 

Even if I’m a little disoriented initially like I am now.

I guess what I’m calling faith, faith in myself, can also be construed as self-reliance. Faith is considered belief in something that cannot be proven – well, I can prove from past actions that I have survived some really messed up stuff. I am choosing to continue to have faith in myself, that I will survive this as well.

I’ve written these affirmations to remind us that we have reasons to have faith.

Side note: One of my students had me watch this video – their class is learning this song for a program. Totally fits my current situation – and my faith.