The board room is bright and colourful in your new office.

It’s been a good week, maybe even a great one.

You are currently in a meeting with your freshly formed team; the managers are outlining what will be happening over the upcoming month. It’s exciting. Your head is full of ideas about what the future could hold. This new position is brimming with potential. The room feels so alive right now.

Unfortunately, this feeling will be short-lived.

In a few moments a 15-minute conference call will bring everything to a grinding halt.

You will learn a new word.

Insolvency.

It is the inability for a business to pay its owed debt. And it describes the state that your employer has just entered.

It is irreversible.

During the conference call, everyone will be told to pack their bags and leave.

Four and a half days. That’s how long your ‘dream job’ will last.

On Monday, you will officially be made redundant.

There is a cruel sense of irony in writing about how life is frustratingly transient mere hours before your new job is prematurely terminated. Looking back, 18 months on, it is also a little funny.

What follows is confusion and tumult. You become closely acquainted with rejection. It will take 5 months and a relocation to an unknown land, but eventually you secure some work. While this is cause for celebration, you are also struck by some unexpected emotions. One would think that the deepest depression would come during rejection, but you come to realise that there are lower lows to uncover.

You see, when experiencing a long period of struggle, a key motivator is the belief that bigger and better things are in store. You hold onto the hope that great things are yet to come, it just requires persistence. But what happens when you reach the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, look around and are underwhelmed?

It’s not that the destination is bad. You are grateful to be where you are. It’s just unexpected. And, as the reality of the situation sinks in, you are left thinking, is this really what all that toil and pain was for?

The disappointment can bury itself deep beneath your skin.

But then days pass.

Those days turn into weeks and those weeks turn to months. While time may not heal all wounds, it does serve to provide perspective. You are once again reminded of the transient nature of life and slowly come to terms with the fact that you are not in fact at your final destination, but rather, you have just journeyed up a steep climb and reached a checkpoint. How things are, isn’t how they will always be. There is still so much more to come.

One key lesson in this season is that you are never quite sure how long any stage will last. You can’t hold yourself hostage, wishing for a tomorrow that has not been promised to you. Finding joy in the present is imperative.

Joy, not happiness.

Happiness is fleeting, it can change with the wind. It is impossible to be happy all the time. But you can find a deeper contentment in the midst of trouble without resigning yourself to complacency. It just takes intentionality.

It requires you to look for the good amidst the turmoil. To appreciate the blessings that come in the midst of the unexpected. From quality time with family to spontaneous trips with friends. You are able to strengthen relationships and invest time in that which truly matters to you. There are so many things that you would miss out on if that 15-minute conference call had never taken place.

While life is far from perfect, it is progressing. Day by day, moment by moment, step by step. Things are moving in a good direction, you think. You may be a little battered and bruised and have some trust issues with employers, but you are building some momentum. You’ve just got to keep on keeping on.

Now, all that’s left to do is return to that blog of yours and write.