Article May 21, 2007 Issue

A LESSON FROM A BALLOON

BY MARY FERDINAND

Holding a yellow balloon, I stood on the platform of a suburban train station in Surrey, in England, and thought about how far I had progressed in such a short time. Three weeks previously, I had come to the edge of a void, both financially and professionally. I was self-employed, but my business, supplemented for several years with temporary and evening shift work, seemed to have come to nothing.

I had avoided signs warning me that I needed to make a decision about the business. Now I was without alternatives or the resources to put whatever decision I might have made into practice. I felt a strong urge to stew in self-blame, to accept that I had neither the attitude nor the skills necessary to run a business. And finding employment at my age looked like a long, difficult struggle.

I have a friend who describes those moments—or months—of uncertainty as being like the cartoon figure who runs off the edge of a cliff and then hangs there, legs a blur of running-above-nothing, before dropping out of sight with a loud yell.