Archangel, I get you.
I landed my dream job 9-years ago – deputy editor on a fishing mag – but slowly I got a bit wiser (read: jaded), lacked the time I wished for (read: got lazy) and generally wished I could do the thing that I wanted to do at the time, which was do a season in the Alps with my snowboard.
The boss sat me down one day and, not in crappy way, asked me if I wanted to still do my job. He said he'd felt like this before when he was younger and he's had to ake the decsion to stay or go. Of course I took it at the time as me against him and in my head, vowed to prove him wrong, although years later I realised he'd just been totally straight with his advice and had not wanted me out.
I knuckled down, did well and turned things around to the point where I was the darling. But then I got all sad and wanton again and then really didn't know what to do; the missus was pregnant, house prices had slumped so selling up wasn't an option and we didn't know what to do.
Fortunately, the boss once again had one of his epiphanies (based on a seed of an idea I'd given him four years before) and promoted me to photographic manager at the company. Now I get to shoot 5-day-a-week, I'm salaried and am in a pretty safe and stable position.
It sounds like a bit of a fairy tale when I look back on it and I suppose the key thing is all along I've been privileged; from getting into the angling industry, to becoming the youngest editor of a national fishing magazine, through to using the skills I spent three years at uni honing and putting them into practise in a job I know love.
I've had it easy I suppose with regard to the photography job, but there's a part of me that knows for sure the boss gave me the job because I was the best person he could have employed. Could I have made the step on my own? Maybe, maybe not but the change at a time when the economy was crumbling (stepping into a 'made-up' position is scary) was big and proved that the move was essential.
Whether someone hands the change to you on a plate or you have to make the first move, that's irrelevant; if things stack up right then what's to lose?