Belittle me.

Today, when I was sending out the news of my job transfer to the Buckhead store to the majority of my friends, I concluded the note with this line:

To me, this is a big deal. Is that weird?

Most people wrote me back to let me know that it wasn't weird, that it was a big deal and that it's a pretty wonderful thing to move outside of your comfort zone and take risks.

But, talking with Black tonight about why I phrased it that way, I told him this, "Even though it matters to me, I know that it's just a bookstore job and that it's essentially the same job I'm already doing. And I thought, not to sound strange, that my life would be bigger than this."

I told him that, as soon as I found out I had the job and got excited about it, the first thing I did was think of it in comparison to former colleagues of mine. I thought of the fact that I'd probably end up waiting on some of them at one point. I thought about the other work that some Red & Black alumni are doing, working for the AP or what-not.

It reminded me of how, when some customer asks me where I went to college, I'm quick to assure them that my University of Georgia journalism degree didn't land me at Barnes & Noble - but that I choose to work there for fun, away from my "real" job at McGraw-Hill.

When I started at Barnes & Noble, I assured myself that I'd only really be there or need to be there for a couple weeks until my temp job went permanent or I got something real. It's been four years, and I'm still there.

And though my life now is better than it was when I worked at CNN or the Augusta Chronicle and that I'm more mature and happier and handle things better, I sometimes look at the scope of my life - what it is versus what I thought it would be - and get disappointed.

Black told me that was a natural impulse, yet he also told me that it was defeatist and wrong to do.

"The greatest poets and novelists in the world have all had jobs they had to take in order to get by," Black said. "And they worried about the humdrum and the minutae in their lives, just like the rest of us. When we study them, we don't study that. But everybody has small things to deal with. So, if something happens to you in your life and you feel good about it, don't question that or think of it in terms of what more you think you should be doing or say to yourself that it's just a bookstore or you're just doing the same job in a dfferent place. Just feel happy about it."

"If it's a big deal to you, that's OK," he concluded.

He told me that it was admirable that I'm doing well in my small jobs. He said it was even more admirable that I continued to believe that something better and bigger was going to come my way.

I think I owe myself an apology.