I am an exhibitionist.
No, not the one you're thinking of. I'm the guy that does the wild and crazy things: that dresses up in the kilt or kamishimo and comes to work, who randomly sings out loud or occasionally just goes crazy in the middle of a work hallway.
I've been like this for many many years. Only now am I starting to question why I am like this.
Why the question? Because I'm finding there's a disconnect in my life between the exhibitionist and the producer.
A fairly brilliant fellow (that'd be me) came up with the comment "Being known for flair alone doesn't last; being known for accomplishment does." I came to that thought after looking at myself - again, measuring the exhibitionist against the producer.
Here's the unhappy reality for me: I am an exhibitionist because I am not the best producer.
Growing up I did very well indeed in school. I loved reading, loved studying. However, those things that as school goes tend to get attention - sports, drama, music - I was not nearly as good in. Some of it was due to physical (I was not the most co-ordinated kid), some of it was due to commitment (my procrastination has gotten better), but some of it was due to the fact that I had high achievers as friends. The problem with high achievers is that someone ends up playing the second violin position, that of the ever loyal support personnel, the second trumpet to the first, the butler to the lead. In the light of the sun, the moon becomes a pale reflection.
It's okay for a while. It grinds on you year after year when you are second or third in everything in a world where first is rewarded.
The response? Exhibitionism - attention getting - becomes more and more important. Why? Because it's a way to recapture that attention not based on achievement or ability alone but on actions, which are easy to do and instantly gratifying.
However, I think the difficulty comes when the actions overcome the achievement: when the flair is the first thing displayed and the actions come later, or when the flair is much more pronounced than the actions.
The world of entertainment has an analogy: eccentricities in stars are excused/tolerated when they are at the top of the game. When they have lost their prime position, these habits or display suddenly appear silly or vulgar. What it demonstrates is that there was no "there" there.
And that's where I find myself: in fear that my behavior passes the point of cute or unusual or entertaining and is just a liability, highlighting my failures rather than accentuating my successes.
But then, my inner self yells at me, we are left with the accomplishment. And let's talk accomplishment, it says: It's a long process of mostly mind numbingly boring work which will be noticed by no-one. The reality is you're not the most talented or brightest, so you will be back to the role of second violin. Hours of long study and work to get where others get effortlessly in something that doesn't matter anyway. And unfortunately, second violin is not a well compensated or well recognized role in society. To bank on accomplishment is to lose the gratification of being noticed often and wildly; it is to settle into the gray twilight of doing that which needs to be done well without any guarantee that anyone will notice.
But what is the other option, O inner self? To continue to self immolate, to become a caricature of one's self, to be the equivalent of the village idiot: always good for a laugh, never expected to actually accomplish anything?
If I want to be remembered, is it as the guy with swashbuckling flair that actually contributed nothing or as the guy who got things done, even if no-one noticed until after he was gone?
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Nagging Feeling
I'm struggling with that small nagging voice again.
It happened yesterday as I spoke to someone about another opportunity. The conversation was fine, the individual nice, the opportunity real - but as I walked away, I was unsettled by that small still sense of...something.
I don't really know what to make of that. They seem to be coming more and more in the last two weeks or so - this sense of going in a direction that I should not be, of being somewhat dislocated in my life even as I try to make my way forward.
There is a definite sense of not being happy in my employment - but there is not a sense of being led to be anywhere else right now. It's almost as if I feel like a fraud every time I talk to someone about an opportunity, but at the same time knowing that I need to find another opportunity.
And then the fear comes up - the lack of faith, the sense of "If I don't do something I'll be stuck here forever, unhappy and angry."
How do I resolve the counterforces of wanting to go yet not feeling led to?
It happened yesterday as I spoke to someone about another opportunity. The conversation was fine, the individual nice, the opportunity real - but as I walked away, I was unsettled by that small still sense of...something.
I don't really know what to make of that. They seem to be coming more and more in the last two weeks or so - this sense of going in a direction that I should not be, of being somewhat dislocated in my life even as I try to make my way forward.
There is a definite sense of not being happy in my employment - but there is not a sense of being led to be anywhere else right now. It's almost as if I feel like a fraud every time I talk to someone about an opportunity, but at the same time knowing that I need to find another opportunity.
And then the fear comes up - the lack of faith, the sense of "If I don't do something I'll be stuck here forever, unhappy and angry."
How do I resolve the counterforces of wanting to go yet not feeling led to?
Monday, November 15, 2010
Uisdean Ruadh
And so another Monday begins.
I'd do my typical long sigh about another Monday and having to go to my job - but at least I have a job.
Uisdean Ruadh needs your prayers -he's been laid off again.
I've been calculating - In 28 months, he has been laid off three times (16 months looking for work), in each case not his fault but a drive by victim of a bad economy. To say this would be disheartening is an understatement to say the least.
I spoke with him on Saturday night. He was discouraged - as if somehow someone magically would not be discouraged - but realistic as to his future and what he needs to do to get going. One interview last week, one interview this week.
I'm sure he'd appreciate any prayers or just plain good wishes you have for him - not only for his job hunt, but for his spirits as well.
And for those of us that have jobs - even if we fail to always be thankful for them.
I'd do my typical long sigh about another Monday and having to go to my job - but at least I have a job.
Uisdean Ruadh needs your prayers -he's been laid off again.
I've been calculating - In 28 months, he has been laid off three times (16 months looking for work), in each case not his fault but a drive by victim of a bad economy. To say this would be disheartening is an understatement to say the least.
I spoke with him on Saturday night. He was discouraged - as if somehow someone magically would not be discouraged - but realistic as to his future and what he needs to do to get going. One interview last week, one interview this week.
I'm sure he'd appreciate any prayers or just plain good wishes you have for him - not only for his job hunt, but for his spirits as well.
And for those of us that have jobs - even if we fail to always be thankful for them.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Speed and Focus
Two separate events occurred yesterday at work - not end of the world bad, but bad enough that it made me take a moment and look at what I did - personally - to not catch them.
As I reviewed the situation, what I realized is that it relates to two factors: speed and focus.
The reality is that in this current economic clime, doing more with less - the "lean manufacturing" concept - is all the rage. This, in turn, leads to each individual being required to do more, more quickly. What this then leads to - inevitably -is that less time is available to do the same amount of tasks; therefore less focus is given to each individual task. Instead, even as task is being worked on the mind is racing to the next responsibility to be performed.
Again, I'm starting with myself. The reality is, I can't change my place of employment or their attitudes. All I can change is how I do my work - speed, intensity, focus. Unfortunately, getting all three of these in one package requires resources - people, time, tools: the very thing that is anathema to so much of the industry. And this too is something that is beyond my control to magically make appear.
So what am I going to do this morning? And tomorrow? And the next day?
Simple. I'm going to starting making myself very unpopular by taking the time, by doing one thing at a time - and ensuring that it is done right.
They can argue with the turnaround time, they can argue with the priorities - but they cannot argue with work done right.
As I reviewed the situation, what I realized is that it relates to two factors: speed and focus.
The reality is that in this current economic clime, doing more with less - the "lean manufacturing" concept - is all the rage. This, in turn, leads to each individual being required to do more, more quickly. What this then leads to - inevitably -is that less time is available to do the same amount of tasks; therefore less focus is given to each individual task. Instead, even as task is being worked on the mind is racing to the next responsibility to be performed.
Again, I'm starting with myself. The reality is, I can't change my place of employment or their attitudes. All I can change is how I do my work - speed, intensity, focus. Unfortunately, getting all three of these in one package requires resources - people, time, tools: the very thing that is anathema to so much of the industry. And this too is something that is beyond my control to magically make appear.
So what am I going to do this morning? And tomorrow? And the next day?
Simple. I'm going to starting making myself very unpopular by taking the time, by doing one thing at a time - and ensuring that it is done right.
They can argue with the turnaround time, they can argue with the priorities - but they cannot argue with work done right.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Authority, Responsibility, Accountability
I had an argument with my boss yesterday.
I was discussing with him the challenges of doing my job based on the decreased resourcing we are currently experiencing. He was challenging me on a response that I had written, that they represented either a failure of my department or malicious intent and that it needed to be significantly strengthened in order to appear to be serious.
"Resources" I said. "I need resources. This is written based on what I can do."
"You are the Management Rep" was the response. "You have the authority to do this."
At this point I became a bit feisty.
"I have no authority" I retorted.
"That's not true! You're the management rep" was the response.
"When you and two other senior management types get in a room together and within 10 minutes decide to do something which in the opinion of three departments ought not to be done, I have no authority!"
Silence. "Well, if you make that decision I would support you. You are the management rep. You have the responsibility and accountability." The word "authority" was carefully hanging on the air, never spoken.
Can you have authority without responsibility and accountability? This was the question I was left with as I left his office, smouldering in anger. To be held responsible and accountable for something over which you have no really authority to make decisions seems to me like a fool's bargain, like being set up to become the next "reason things went terribly wrong here" guy.
Often I think the problems is reversed - people get authority and they push the responsibility and accountability away on others, the "ability" to make decisions and see that they are nor carried out or occur, a sort of "Management by Fiat" in which I wish things into existence but am not responsible for making them occur.
I find myself in the other area however, the realm of trying to hold together the remnants of my responsibility without the authority to actually make anything happen. It's an uncomfortable thing - an untenable thing, in the long run.
Without authority, responsibility and accountability merely become two ends of the rope that are used to hang someone.
I was discussing with him the challenges of doing my job based on the decreased resourcing we are currently experiencing. He was challenging me on a response that I had written, that they represented either a failure of my department or malicious intent and that it needed to be significantly strengthened in order to appear to be serious.
"Resources" I said. "I need resources. This is written based on what I can do."
"You are the Management Rep" was the response. "You have the authority to do this."
At this point I became a bit feisty.
"I have no authority" I retorted.
"That's not true! You're the management rep" was the response.
"When you and two other senior management types get in a room together and within 10 minutes decide to do something which in the opinion of three departments ought not to be done, I have no authority!"
Silence. "Well, if you make that decision I would support you. You are the management rep. You have the responsibility and accountability." The word "authority" was carefully hanging on the air, never spoken.
Can you have authority without responsibility and accountability? This was the question I was left with as I left his office, smouldering in anger. To be held responsible and accountable for something over which you have no really authority to make decisions seems to me like a fool's bargain, like being set up to become the next "reason things went terribly wrong here" guy.
Often I think the problems is reversed - people get authority and they push the responsibility and accountability away on others, the "ability" to make decisions and see that they are nor carried out or occur, a sort of "Management by Fiat" in which I wish things into existence but am not responsible for making them occur.
I find myself in the other area however, the realm of trying to hold together the remnants of my responsibility without the authority to actually make anything happen. It's an uncomfortable thing - an untenable thing, in the long run.
Without authority, responsibility and accountability merely become two ends of the rope that are used to hang someone.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Waiting
I hate waiting.
I absolutely do. There is nothing worse than patiently waiting for wheels to turn and time to pass until something gets accomplished.
The reality is although we can be incredibly active, that we can move things forward a great deal (much more than most of us believe possible), at some point things simply pass out of our hands or our ability to influence them. And so we wait.
But waiting (I am forced to admit) brings benefits along with it, benefits which do not accrue to the impatient but only to the patient - because it is not just the fact that we wait, it's how we wait that matters. Impatiently waiting will result in taking opportunities that are less than what they could be, of becoming bitter and angry as we wonder why things aren't going faster and how much we are suffering, of grasping the thing instead of being grateful for it when it finally arrives.
The benefits?
- We can evaluate opportunities and take the best, instead of taking the first.
- We learn to manage to live in day to day life while waiting.
- We learn that discipline of repetition, of doing the same thing and building our skills in those things while we wait.
- We become truly grateful when those things that we are waiting for occur - and okay when they don't.
Don't misinterpret me - I'm no more a fan of waiting than I ever was. But just because I am not a fan doesn't mean I can't realize the benefits of it.
I just have to be patient.
I absolutely do. There is nothing worse than patiently waiting for wheels to turn and time to pass until something gets accomplished.
The reality is although we can be incredibly active, that we can move things forward a great deal (much more than most of us believe possible), at some point things simply pass out of our hands or our ability to influence them. And so we wait.
But waiting (I am forced to admit) brings benefits along with it, benefits which do not accrue to the impatient but only to the patient - because it is not just the fact that we wait, it's how we wait that matters. Impatiently waiting will result in taking opportunities that are less than what they could be, of becoming bitter and angry as we wonder why things aren't going faster and how much we are suffering, of grasping the thing instead of being grateful for it when it finally arrives.
The benefits?
- We can evaluate opportunities and take the best, instead of taking the first.
- We learn to manage to live in day to day life while waiting.
- We learn that discipline of repetition, of doing the same thing and building our skills in those things while we wait.
- We become truly grateful when those things that we are waiting for occur - and okay when they don't.
Don't misinterpret me - I'm no more a fan of waiting than I ever was. But just because I am not a fan doesn't mean I can't realize the benefits of it.
I just have to be patient.
Monday, November 08, 2010
Change
"Mr. Davis says that the only way things are going to change for you is when you change. What are you going to change that will in turn change your life? If you keep on living like the way you are now, you will continue to produce the same life you already have. That's the way it works." - Jim Rohn and Chris Widener, Twelve Pillars
I made a decision last night to not pursue a particular job opportunity.
For me this is a big thing - I hardly ever make hard and fast decisions. However, I actually bothered to give some thought last night to my family, what they wanted, and how what I have been doing has been assisting me (or not).
And then this quote came up this morning in today's morning reading.
For things to change in my life, I have to change.
That's hard - because it's humbling. It's hard to look at myself in the mirror thinking I am not doing all that badly and say "What you have has gotten you here - but it won't get you there." It's much easier to list outside influences and events which are keeping me back; in reality, it means that the most personal of things - my attitudes, my work ethic, how I do things and why - need to change.
And change of my own accord - not because it is forced on me by an outside source, not because my employer requires it, not because there is any guaranteed reward for it (although really there is) - but because I need to do it to move forward in my own life.
If I keep living as I have, I will continue to produce the same life I always have.
I need to produce a different life.
I made a decision last night to not pursue a particular job opportunity.
For me this is a big thing - I hardly ever make hard and fast decisions. However, I actually bothered to give some thought last night to my family, what they wanted, and how what I have been doing has been assisting me (or not).
And then this quote came up this morning in today's morning reading.
For things to change in my life, I have to change.
That's hard - because it's humbling. It's hard to look at myself in the mirror thinking I am not doing all that badly and say "What you have has gotten you here - but it won't get you there." It's much easier to list outside influences and events which are keeping me back; in reality, it means that the most personal of things - my attitudes, my work ethic, how I do things and why - need to change.
And change of my own accord - not because it is forced on me by an outside source, not because my employer requires it, not because there is any guaranteed reward for it (although really there is) - but because I need to do it to move forward in my own life.
If I keep living as I have, I will continue to produce the same life I always have.
I need to produce a different life.
Friday, November 05, 2010
A Morning Pet
As I am trying to write this morning, Syrah the Mighty is up.
This is a bit unusual for her - she is typically a slug-a-bed until 0630, sleeping in our room or patiently waiting in front of the door of Nighean Gheal until she gets up in the morning (because she is the one that feeds her). It is not that she wouldn't get up in case of emergency I guess - it's just that from her point of view there's really no need to get up before food's available.
But this morning for reasons unknown, she's up. You can hear her coming: clumping down the stairs, then the click-click of her nails as they come across laminate floor. She comes up to you, wagging her tail, both (I suppose) in greeting as well as in hopes that you might suddenly be overcome by the urge to play ball at 0600.
I let her out to do her business, then let her back in. I heard her go back up the stairs (click click click click, clump clump clump) to check if anyone was up, then the reverse of the sounds as she comes back down. Suddenly, as I'm sitting here looking at the blinking cursor on my screen she pushes her head under my elbow and I have a wet nose and big brown eyes looking up at me.
"Hi" she says. "Pet me".
I give her a pet or two followed by the two pats on the back indicating "I'm done" and she wanders off by the couch, where she lays back down (no doubt patiently waiting for the noises heralding the arrival of the Breakfast Fairy).
It is, I suppose, somewhat remarkable that in an age of instant communication and entertainment, in a time when so much is available to us for stimulation and education, that the simple love (and hopeful look!) of a dog continues to provide satisfaction and value.
In the midst of the complex, the simple still rules.
This is a bit unusual for her - she is typically a slug-a-bed until 0630, sleeping in our room or patiently waiting in front of the door of Nighean Gheal until she gets up in the morning (because she is the one that feeds her). It is not that she wouldn't get up in case of emergency I guess - it's just that from her point of view there's really no need to get up before food's available.
But this morning for reasons unknown, she's up. You can hear her coming: clumping down the stairs, then the click-click of her nails as they come across laminate floor. She comes up to you, wagging her tail, both (I suppose) in greeting as well as in hopes that you might suddenly be overcome by the urge to play ball at 0600.
I let her out to do her business, then let her back in. I heard her go back up the stairs (click click click click, clump clump clump) to check if anyone was up, then the reverse of the sounds as she comes back down. Suddenly, as I'm sitting here looking at the blinking cursor on my screen she pushes her head under my elbow and I have a wet nose and big brown eyes looking up at me.
"Hi" she says. "Pet me".
I give her a pet or two followed by the two pats on the back indicating "I'm done" and she wanders off by the couch, where she lays back down (no doubt patiently waiting for the noises heralding the arrival of the Breakfast Fairy).
It is, I suppose, somewhat remarkable that in an age of instant communication and entertainment, in a time when so much is available to us for stimulation and education, that the simple love (and hopeful look!) of a dog continues to provide satisfaction and value.
In the midst of the complex, the simple still rules.
Thursday, November 04, 2010
Too Early
There is nothing worse than waking up far earlier than you
intend to.
I initially start by lying in bed, hoping that I will somehow drift off to sleep again. However, my body is against me: the cortisol, which builds up its levels during sleep, is now flooding through my bloodstream, helpfully telling all the moving parts "It's time to go!".
Closing my eyes doesn't work. I wonder what time it really is? Reach over, look at the clock: 0230. Well, that's just too early to be getting up.
Back to laying flat on my back, eyes closed, trying to breathe deeply. I become aware of The Ravishing Mrs. TB asleep next to me. Hmm. Don't want to wake her up this early. Got to get back to sleep - otherwise I'll be tired today.
Sleep is still not coming. I keep hoping that my lying there will somehow give me one of those sleep events which makes it feel like you didn't sleep but you did. Reach over, look at the clock again: 0300.
Maybe going somewhere else will help. I get up as quietly as I am able, hopefully not creaking the bed too much or letting in cold air. Walk slowly over the floor, trying to avoid the known creaks and shaking the dresser too much. Do I sleep in the unused bedroom or the couch? Couch is better - if I have to get up, I'll already be there (I have now conceded I may not go back to sleep).
Rummage through blankets in the dark. Need to find one that covers me and is heavy. Fine, I've got it. Off to the couch to lay down. Now the pillows aren't co-operating: the one under my head is too firm - fine, I'll toss it off. The one at my feet is squishing me a bit; I'll work my toes under it.
Okay. Head is flat feeling the fabric lines through my hair, blanket is over me, feet are under the pillow. Lay there quietly, eyes closed, hands folded, waiting for sleep to come. Hear the sound of the wind blowing outside: will it rain today? Nope, doesn't matter; I need to get at least one more hour of sleep...
Nothing is happening. Sigh. Look at the clock again. Oh look, it's 0320. Not feeling tired in the least. Wind is still blowing. Books are behind the couch on my left, peering at me from over the cushions. The computer is behind me, mocking me that I could be writing instead of laying there doing nothing.
Well, why not. I was up anyway...
intend to.
I initially start by lying in bed, hoping that I will somehow drift off to sleep again. However, my body is against me: the cortisol, which builds up its levels during sleep, is now flooding through my bloodstream, helpfully telling all the moving parts "It's time to go!".
Closing my eyes doesn't work. I wonder what time it really is? Reach over, look at the clock: 0230. Well, that's just too early to be getting up.
Back to laying flat on my back, eyes closed, trying to breathe deeply. I become aware of The Ravishing Mrs. TB asleep next to me. Hmm. Don't want to wake her up this early. Got to get back to sleep - otherwise I'll be tired today.
Sleep is still not coming. I keep hoping that my lying there will somehow give me one of those sleep events which makes it feel like you didn't sleep but you did. Reach over, look at the clock again: 0300.
Maybe going somewhere else will help. I get up as quietly as I am able, hopefully not creaking the bed too much or letting in cold air. Walk slowly over the floor, trying to avoid the known creaks and shaking the dresser too much. Do I sleep in the unused bedroom or the couch? Couch is better - if I have to get up, I'll already be there (I have now conceded I may not go back to sleep).
Rummage through blankets in the dark. Need to find one that covers me and is heavy. Fine, I've got it. Off to the couch to lay down. Now the pillows aren't co-operating: the one under my head is too firm - fine, I'll toss it off. The one at my feet is squishing me a bit; I'll work my toes under it.
Okay. Head is flat feeling the fabric lines through my hair, blanket is over me, feet are under the pillow. Lay there quietly, eyes closed, hands folded, waiting for sleep to come. Hear the sound of the wind blowing outside: will it rain today? Nope, doesn't matter; I need to get at least one more hour of sleep...
Nothing is happening. Sigh. Look at the clock again. Oh look, it's 0320. Not feeling tired in the least. Wind is still blowing. Books are behind the couch on my left, peering at me from over the cushions. The computer is behind me, mocking me that I could be writing instead of laying there doing nothing.
Well, why not. I was up anyway...
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Confident
Feeling confident today.
Confidence is a odd thing, a cross between something which can appear or disappear without command and a thing which can be willed into existence. It's vital: if I'm confident I can do a great deal; if I'm not, my whole day seems to be troubled. It can be as solid as a steel post or as ephemeral as the fog.
Confidence can be event, project or other people based, but that never seems to carry things through the whole day; if the project goes bad or the event fails or the people let you down, so goes the confidence - and you are left with a gnawing hole that follows you through the rest of the day.
Self-confidence is better yet, but this is sometimes the hardest to capture or generate. If I believe in my ability to do something not because of the project itself but because I believe that I can do it, this overflows into my entire day and life and drastically changes how I view the circumstances in my life.
Best of all (but often the hardest for me) is that confidence that comes from being a child of God, knowing that He loves me unconditionally and that "all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28) - although for me this is often the hardest one of all to believe, as my estimate of myself and my desirability to God is pretty low (see Self-confidence above).
But here I am, feeling confident in my abilities, confident in God's love and workings in my life, confident in myself.
Today will be a good day.
Confidence is a odd thing, a cross between something which can appear or disappear without command and a thing which can be willed into existence. It's vital: if I'm confident I can do a great deal; if I'm not, my whole day seems to be troubled. It can be as solid as a steel post or as ephemeral as the fog.
Confidence can be event, project or other people based, but that never seems to carry things through the whole day; if the project goes bad or the event fails or the people let you down, so goes the confidence - and you are left with a gnawing hole that follows you through the rest of the day.
Self-confidence is better yet, but this is sometimes the hardest to capture or generate. If I believe in my ability to do something not because of the project itself but because I believe that I can do it, this overflows into my entire day and life and drastically changes how I view the circumstances in my life.
Best of all (but often the hardest for me) is that confidence that comes from being a child of God, knowing that He loves me unconditionally and that "all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28) - although for me this is often the hardest one of all to believe, as my estimate of myself and my desirability to God is pretty low (see Self-confidence above).
But here I am, feeling confident in my abilities, confident in God's love and workings in my life, confident in myself.
Today will be a good day.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
A Writer
I am a writer.
I figured that out this weekend, prompted by a question from a teacher: Name one thing you are good at. "Writing" I responded. "I have written a 400-500 word blog posting 5 days a week for the last 3 years or so."
I think that's the first time that I have ever consciously admitted - out loud - that I think that I can write.
I have also started the exercise of writing early in the morning, after I get up. I get up a little earlier, but at least I have a sense that I am actually doing something that I like every day. I don't end up writing that much right now- 200 - 500 words - but it is the exercise of doing it and the fact that I can point back to it during my day, especially the really bad parts, and say "I wrote today."
It is also changing my view of my current job. I'm no long "Supreme Paper Pusher", I'm a writer who happens to be supporting himself doing Supreme Paper Pushing. On the one hand it enables me to take a step back (very small at times) from my current job and say "This is a job; it's not my career". On the other hand, it frees me to actually invest more of myself during the day in my job, as I have something to look forward beyond 9 hours of seemingly meaningless work every day.
I have a larger life.
I am a writer.
I figured that out this weekend, prompted by a question from a teacher: Name one thing you are good at. "Writing" I responded. "I have written a 400-500 word blog posting 5 days a week for the last 3 years or so."
I think that's the first time that I have ever consciously admitted - out loud - that I think that I can write.
I have also started the exercise of writing early in the morning, after I get up. I get up a little earlier, but at least I have a sense that I am actually doing something that I like every day. I don't end up writing that much right now- 200 - 500 words - but it is the exercise of doing it and the fact that I can point back to it during my day, especially the really bad parts, and say "I wrote today."
It is also changing my view of my current job. I'm no long "Supreme Paper Pusher", I'm a writer who happens to be supporting himself doing Supreme Paper Pushing. On the one hand it enables me to take a step back (very small at times) from my current job and say "This is a job; it's not my career". On the other hand, it frees me to actually invest more of myself during the day in my job, as I have something to look forward beyond 9 hours of seemingly meaningless work every day.
I have a larger life.
I am a writer.
Monday, November 01, 2010
Dreaming Great Dreams
"The mightiest works have been accomplished by men who have somehow kept their ability to dream great dreams." - Walter Russell Bowie
How does one transfer a dream into reality?
Or let's start one level higher: how does one realize a dream that is real and can be accomplished?
The reality is that we all have a number of dreams, some which are "Escape Dreams" (as defined by Barbara Sher in her book I Could Do Anything I Want If I Only Knew What It Was as a dream which we use to escape reality but is indicative of something that we are missing in our life), some which are Real Dreams (but seem out of reach) and the pedestrian "Dreams" that we so often seem to settle for instead of our Real Dreams.
So let's agree that we are talking about Real Dreams versus Dreams: those dreams we have which are things which can be accomplished but are seemingly impossible given our ordinary lives versus those dreams we have which we think we can accomplish, which often turn out to be less than what we can do or our capable of.
That said, what prevents us from turning Real Dream into reality?
I think the two biggest impediments to this are 1) Self Belief; and 2) Rigid Thinking.
1) Self Belief: If you don't believe you can accomplish it, you won't. This is the core statement of any books on success you will read (trust me on this - I've read enough of them!). There are any number of ways to accomplish this, either by autosuggestion (writing out your goals every day 10 times), constantly keeping them in your mind, or imaging/focused dreaming (a la Psychocybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz) - but the bottom line is that you must believe you can accomplish it somehow.
2) Rigid Thinking: Once you overcome doubts that you can, the second great trap is deciding how it will be done. So often we think that something must be performed in a particular fashion and that if it cannot be performed in that fashion, it can't be done. We need to be open to the fact that there are multiple ways to reach our dreams - but we have to be alert enough to see the unorthodox opportunities that may exist for accomplishing them.
Can't get published by a major publisher? Build an audience on the web. Self-publish, then create a website to sell your books. Write for anywhere that will accept your writings for free. If there is no market, make your own.
And so on. It seems to me that so many people who have the self belief waste their energy and time on the one path they think they must take, much like a salmon going upstream which ignores the fish ladder and continues to butt its head against the dam because that's the way it has always gone.
So do you believe? And can you accept there are other ways to do things? If can do these and keep your Real Dreams alive, you're on your way.
How does one transfer a dream into reality?
Or let's start one level higher: how does one realize a dream that is real and can be accomplished?
The reality is that we all have a number of dreams, some which are "Escape Dreams" (as defined by Barbara Sher in her book I Could Do Anything I Want If I Only Knew What It Was as a dream which we use to escape reality but is indicative of something that we are missing in our life), some which are Real Dreams (but seem out of reach) and the pedestrian "Dreams" that we so often seem to settle for instead of our Real Dreams.
So let's agree that we are talking about Real Dreams versus Dreams: those dreams we have which are things which can be accomplished but are seemingly impossible given our ordinary lives versus those dreams we have which we think we can accomplish, which often turn out to be less than what we can do or our capable of.
That said, what prevents us from turning Real Dream into reality?
I think the two biggest impediments to this are 1) Self Belief; and 2) Rigid Thinking.
1) Self Belief: If you don't believe you can accomplish it, you won't. This is the core statement of any books on success you will read (trust me on this - I've read enough of them!). There are any number of ways to accomplish this, either by autosuggestion (writing out your goals every day 10 times), constantly keeping them in your mind, or imaging/focused dreaming (a la Psychocybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz) - but the bottom line is that you must believe you can accomplish it somehow.
2) Rigid Thinking: Once you overcome doubts that you can, the second great trap is deciding how it will be done. So often we think that something must be performed in a particular fashion and that if it cannot be performed in that fashion, it can't be done. We need to be open to the fact that there are multiple ways to reach our dreams - but we have to be alert enough to see the unorthodox opportunities that may exist for accomplishing them.
Can't get published by a major publisher? Build an audience on the web. Self-publish, then create a website to sell your books. Write for anywhere that will accept your writings for free. If there is no market, make your own.
And so on. It seems to me that so many people who have the self belief waste their energy and time on the one path they think they must take, much like a salmon going upstream which ignores the fish ladder and continues to butt its head against the dam because that's the way it has always gone.
So do you believe? And can you accept there are other ways to do things? If can do these and keep your Real Dreams alive, you're on your way.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Comfortable In My Own Skin
The mental exercise of looking for a job has left me with some interesting running thoughts as I waited on Friday for a call that never came through - as I have at least two other times this year, the "sure things" that were going to move to the next level.
One of the interesting thoughts is finances. How much money is enough to justify uprooting my family to relocate in the middle of a school year? As much as I make now? More? If more, how much more?
Another of the interesting thoughts is career. How badly do I want to relocate for a career that is okay but not my heart's desire? What position would make it worthwhile: Associate Director? Director? And why do I want that position anyway: for power, for money, for the title after my own on a business card?
The reality may be that I am being reactive to events rather than being proactive towards them.
And by being reactive I mean that I may be making choices based on my interpretation of others about my life than my own.
If I think about the directions of my life in the past, what I tend to find is that they are either other's interpretations of what success would mean that I adopted or a subtle intrusion of my thoughts into that this is what I needed to do to succeed as demonstrated by others. I want to be fair though - I can't blame this process on anyone else but myself. I've made plenty of really poor decisions on my own, squandered numerous opportunities to move closer towards what I truly wanted by thinking only of today and not of tomorrow.
But as the saying goes, that was then and this is now. I am currently in a position where we are somewhat isolated from friends and family with a life that in many ways is going very well indeed. In an interesting way, this period of time is being used by God to clear away a great deal of the mistaken actions and detritus of our former lives. It's hard to be sure, but is definitely creating some space in and around us for better things.
However, in order to work towards those better things, I need to make sure that I don't recreate my former mistakes: that I am proactive rather than reactive. In other words, that I make choices that are reflective of the decisions that I have come to, not the decisions that I think others want me to come to or that I adapt to my life in the mistaken belief that they will do for me what they've done for others.
At 43 years old, can I finally become comfortable in my own skin? Can I finally make decisions and run my life as an individual rather than as compilation of the thoughts, dreams and intentions I think others have about me or adapting the dreams and goals of others to myself?
Can I individuate in a thoughtful path that does not seeing my casting my life off the cliff one more time yet allows me to begin to seek my own way?
One of the interesting thoughts is finances. How much money is enough to justify uprooting my family to relocate in the middle of a school year? As much as I make now? More? If more, how much more?
Another of the interesting thoughts is career. How badly do I want to relocate for a career that is okay but not my heart's desire? What position would make it worthwhile: Associate Director? Director? And why do I want that position anyway: for power, for money, for the title after my own on a business card?
The reality may be that I am being reactive to events rather than being proactive towards them.
And by being reactive I mean that I may be making choices based on my interpretation of others about my life than my own.
If I think about the directions of my life in the past, what I tend to find is that they are either other's interpretations of what success would mean that I adopted or a subtle intrusion of my thoughts into that this is what I needed to do to succeed as demonstrated by others. I want to be fair though - I can't blame this process on anyone else but myself. I've made plenty of really poor decisions on my own, squandered numerous opportunities to move closer towards what I truly wanted by thinking only of today and not of tomorrow.
But as the saying goes, that was then and this is now. I am currently in a position where we are somewhat isolated from friends and family with a life that in many ways is going very well indeed. In an interesting way, this period of time is being used by God to clear away a great deal of the mistaken actions and detritus of our former lives. It's hard to be sure, but is definitely creating some space in and around us for better things.
However, in order to work towards those better things, I need to make sure that I don't recreate my former mistakes: that I am proactive rather than reactive. In other words, that I make choices that are reflective of the decisions that I have come to, not the decisions that I think others want me to come to or that I adapt to my life in the mistaken belief that they will do for me what they've done for others.
At 43 years old, can I finally become comfortable in my own skin? Can I finally make decisions and run my life as an individual rather than as compilation of the thoughts, dreams and intentions I think others have about me or adapting the dreams and goals of others to myself?
Can I individuate in a thoughtful path that does not seeing my casting my life off the cliff one more time yet allows me to begin to seek my own way?
Friday, October 29, 2010
The Gut
Speaking with Silverline yesterday, she indicated that she had an opportunity. It was good opportunity, allowing her to go to school while working and getting her out of an unhealthy environment. "But flying home" she related "I just didn't feel right about it. It would allow to do everything I want to do. There was just something about it."
How do we analyze the intuition that we call "gut instinct"? It's a funny thing. Sometimes it can be cast as a view of our own limitations, the boundaries we set up for ourselves. Sometimes it simply a sense of fear of the unknown masquerading as good sense. Sometimes it can be physically related, that we had no sleep or a bad day which impacts our decision making ability.
But sometimes there really is something there.
If I look back on my own life, especially the incidents that I would define as "epic failures", almost without exception I can see a moment when my gut instinct told me to do the exact opposite. It was not always a "Hey, don't do this" voice in my head: sometimes it was a moment of hesitation before the plunge, sometimes it was based on the reaction of someone else who said "Is that really a good idea?" and my inner response of "I don't know - is it?" even as I put on a good face. But that moment was always there - and I can completely picture the scenes in my head to this day (is that because they were epic failures in the end, or that they were significant life events?):
- The moment when I decided to join The Firm.
- The moment when I decided to turn in my notice at work to join The Firm.
- The moment when we had a chance to not buy the new house but decided to anyway.
Interestingly, I cannot think of the same examples for things I did right. I don't have the same vivid memories about gut instincts that worked out for the best. People possibly - people I didn't get involved with and shouldn't have - but not any events or choices in my life that the gut instinct turned out to be a wonderful decision.
Does that mean intuition usually only works for a bad decision, not a good one? Not sure - but I do know, at least in my own life, that when my gut says "Hey, let's think about this a minute" I have enough experience to think reconsideration is a good idea.
How do we analyze the intuition that we call "gut instinct"? It's a funny thing. Sometimes it can be cast as a view of our own limitations, the boundaries we set up for ourselves. Sometimes it simply a sense of fear of the unknown masquerading as good sense. Sometimes it can be physically related, that we had no sleep or a bad day which impacts our decision making ability.
But sometimes there really is something there.
If I look back on my own life, especially the incidents that I would define as "epic failures", almost without exception I can see a moment when my gut instinct told me to do the exact opposite. It was not always a "Hey, don't do this" voice in my head: sometimes it was a moment of hesitation before the plunge, sometimes it was based on the reaction of someone else who said "Is that really a good idea?" and my inner response of "I don't know - is it?" even as I put on a good face. But that moment was always there - and I can completely picture the scenes in my head to this day (is that because they were epic failures in the end, or that they were significant life events?):
- The moment when I decided to join The Firm.
- The moment when I decided to turn in my notice at work to join The Firm.
- The moment when we had a chance to not buy the new house but decided to anyway.
Interestingly, I cannot think of the same examples for things I did right. I don't have the same vivid memories about gut instincts that worked out for the best. People possibly - people I didn't get involved with and shouldn't have - but not any events or choices in my life that the gut instinct turned out to be a wonderful decision.
Does that mean intuition usually only works for a bad decision, not a good one? Not sure - but I do know, at least in my own life, that when my gut says "Hey, let's think about this a minute" I have enough experience to think reconsideration is a good idea.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
An Opportunity?
I have an interview on Friday.
It's interesting in that it is back in Old State, but not in Old Home.
I'm not really sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I of course want to do my very best. Current position is driving me nuts - I have now reached the point where I am double-booked during the day, yet somehow we are not suffering from a resourcing problem.
On the other hand, I simply am at a low point about this industry and my position in it. In so many ways, every day feels a little less relevant, a little more like flailing against the machine, a little less like my life is having a significant impact on anything. The thought of taking another job - even if it could be a long term step up, higher paying, and put me within range of family - is much less exciting than it might seem.
And there are so many reasons that I don't want to relocate. Na Clann have really taken to their school and the environment. The Ravishing Mrs TB has made connections personally and professionally. We have a good church. I like the beer and BBQ here.
I'll do my best, of course. At the same time, how do I reconcile a location I like but a job that I do not in a place where jobs in my industry seem scarce?
It's interesting in that it is back in Old State, but not in Old Home.
I'm not really sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I of course want to do my very best. Current position is driving me nuts - I have now reached the point where I am double-booked during the day, yet somehow we are not suffering from a resourcing problem.
On the other hand, I simply am at a low point about this industry and my position in it. In so many ways, every day feels a little less relevant, a little more like flailing against the machine, a little less like my life is having a significant impact on anything. The thought of taking another job - even if it could be a long term step up, higher paying, and put me within range of family - is much less exciting than it might seem.
And there are so many reasons that I don't want to relocate. Na Clann have really taken to their school and the environment. The Ravishing Mrs TB has made connections personally and professionally. We have a good church. I like the beer and BBQ here.
I'll do my best, of course. At the same time, how do I reconcile a location I like but a job that I do not in a place where jobs in my industry seem scarce?
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Linked Verse
Living in the world of Facebook (yes, I have an account; no, unless you already know I'm not going to give it out - part of the wonderful "mystery" of the Internet) I have had the pleasure of reconnecting - mostly with high school friends (interestingly, my college friend connection rate is much lower). One of the amusing - and fun - pleasures I've had recently is engaging in the practice of "linked verse" with another old friend, whereby they type a poem and some part of that gets used in a response to them.
It's fun - both for the creative process involved as well as in seeing what the responses will be. But more importantly, it has allowed me to reconnect with a sort of oddball, intellectually fun-loving side of myself that I don't get to exercise a great deal.
Intellectual exercise and fun. Who'd have thought it?
It also points out the disconnect between parts of my present life and career and what I really enjoy doing. I write these verses for the sheer pleasure of using the language in a creative way. It's not like cranking out yet another "Standard Operating Procedure" or carefully parsing my words for the thousandth time on an e-mail I am about to send. The linked verse may be a bit silly - but in reality, it seems to have more impact and more joy to people than anything I've ever written at work.
Bringing joy through words - what could be simpler? What could be more fulfilling? Why aren't I doing more of this?
It's fun - both for the creative process involved as well as in seeing what the responses will be. But more importantly, it has allowed me to reconnect with a sort of oddball, intellectually fun-loving side of myself that I don't get to exercise a great deal.
Intellectual exercise and fun. Who'd have thought it?
It also points out the disconnect between parts of my present life and career and what I really enjoy doing. I write these verses for the sheer pleasure of using the language in a creative way. It's not like cranking out yet another "Standard Operating Procedure" or carefully parsing my words for the thousandth time on an e-mail I am about to send. The linked verse may be a bit silly - but in reality, it seems to have more impact and more joy to people than anything I've ever written at work.
Bringing joy through words - what could be simpler? What could be more fulfilling? Why aren't I doing more of this?
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Break In Case of Emergency
I took one step towards a new future yesterday.
Right in front of my desk, between my two monitors, I posted a envelope that says "Break in Case of Emergency". In that envelope is a resignation letter with spaces for the dates to be filled out.
Bold? Suicidal? Possibly both. It was initially a mentally exercise to type the letter, an exercise in expressing an embryonic freedom that I am not trapped at my job - yes, I have to bear the consequences of every decision I make, but bearing consequences is not the same as being trapped like a slave or indentured servant.
However, the reality was that changed my day. I suddenly had the sense that I was not trapped anywhere, but that I had a choice (perhaps a rock and a hard place choice, but a choice none the less). It changed how I worked at work. It changed what I chose to work on. It changed the fact that after 8 hours, I simply said "I'm done and it's time to go home" rather than fret about everything else that had to get done.
Can I work better? We all can. Can I be more efficient and dedicated at work? Again, we all can improve. But the way a free man works and the way a slave works are two different things. And the difference is dictated by how we view our position where we work. Are we enslaved without hope - or do we have choice?
The answer to that will determine a great deal about the future course of our lives.
Right in front of my desk, between my two monitors, I posted a envelope that says "Break in Case of Emergency". In that envelope is a resignation letter with spaces for the dates to be filled out.
Bold? Suicidal? Possibly both. It was initially a mentally exercise to type the letter, an exercise in expressing an embryonic freedom that I am not trapped at my job - yes, I have to bear the consequences of every decision I make, but bearing consequences is not the same as being trapped like a slave or indentured servant.
However, the reality was that changed my day. I suddenly had the sense that I was not trapped anywhere, but that I had a choice (perhaps a rock and a hard place choice, but a choice none the less). It changed how I worked at work. It changed what I chose to work on. It changed the fact that after 8 hours, I simply said "I'm done and it's time to go home" rather than fret about everything else that had to get done.
Can I work better? We all can. Can I be more efficient and dedicated at work? Again, we all can improve. But the way a free man works and the way a slave works are two different things. And the difference is dictated by how we view our position where we work. Are we enslaved without hope - or do we have choice?
The answer to that will determine a great deal about the future course of our lives.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Meaning and Purpose and Self Confidence
"Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose." - Viktor Frankl
"The secret of success is focus of purpose." - Thomas A. Edison
Back to meaning and purpose again. I didn't mean to get here. I truly didn't. However, these two quotes jumped out at me last night and again this morning.
I say jumped out, but really they were there in plain sight. The thing that got me thinking about them was the realization yesterday that I have precisely zero self confidence in my ability to accomplish anything.
Zero, you say? That's pretty extreme.
Yup, it sure is. But as we sit through the Financial Peace seminar, ticking off things we shouldn't do and things we should have done and realizing how badly I got off track trying to find something which substituted for meaning and purpose (and just got me failure and debt instead), I am suddenly overwhelmed (there is no other word) by the sense that I simply cannot bring anything to completion.
There is a sense within myself that I can't. Just can't. Doesn't matter what, just can't. I can list project after project that I started strong in, showed high levels of interest in, then just tapered off.
I lack staying power. I would guess this probably comes from lacking goals and purpose, but goals are often based on some kind of purposed or meaning to them. Mine too often seem to be the thing that has most recently caught my eye or someone else's goals that I think are pretty cool and want to do because it sounds like a good idea.
You've no idea - unless you've lived it - what a weight is on your shoulders when you are overcome by the sense that nothing makes a difference, that you can't accomplish what you set out to do, that all that you are doing is simply filling a wide void that will never be filled.
How do you gain gain self confidence from a position that you can't see anything to the end?
"The secret of success is focus of purpose." - Thomas A. Edison
Back to meaning and purpose again. I didn't mean to get here. I truly didn't. However, these two quotes jumped out at me last night and again this morning.
I say jumped out, but really they were there in plain sight. The thing that got me thinking about them was the realization yesterday that I have precisely zero self confidence in my ability to accomplish anything.
Zero, you say? That's pretty extreme.
Yup, it sure is. But as we sit through the Financial Peace seminar, ticking off things we shouldn't do and things we should have done and realizing how badly I got off track trying to find something which substituted for meaning and purpose (and just got me failure and debt instead), I am suddenly overwhelmed (there is no other word) by the sense that I simply cannot bring anything to completion.
There is a sense within myself that I can't. Just can't. Doesn't matter what, just can't. I can list project after project that I started strong in, showed high levels of interest in, then just tapered off.
I lack staying power. I would guess this probably comes from lacking goals and purpose, but goals are often based on some kind of purposed or meaning to them. Mine too often seem to be the thing that has most recently caught my eye or someone else's goals that I think are pretty cool and want to do because it sounds like a good idea.
You've no idea - unless you've lived it - what a weight is on your shoulders when you are overcome by the sense that nothing makes a difference, that you can't accomplish what you set out to do, that all that you are doing is simply filling a wide void that will never be filled.
How do you gain gain self confidence from a position that you can't see anything to the end?
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Limitations
"Argue for your limitations and they're yours to keep"
What are we truly capable of?
As human beings we are certainly not infinitely powerful and can't do anything - but on a purely physical level, we have individuals who can climb to the top of Mt. Everest without oxygen, run over 100 miles, lift a lot of weight (confirmed record is 1008 lbs), and swim 312 miles non-stop (down the Danube river). On an emotional level, there are individuals who can overcome incredibly negative backgrounds to achieve great things, leave great backgrounds to do significant things, and individuals who just by the fact that they make it through another day do more living than many of us. Individuals have invented machinery, harnessed diffuse light into lasers that heal and manufacture, modified grasses into food, and plumbed the depths of space and time.
So what am I truly capable of?
We tend to underestimate our ability to do things, either physical or mental. Part of it I suppose is attributable to laziness, but part is also due to the fact that we get comfortable - too comfortable in fact. We slowly construct the walls of our lives with creature comforts to make less than perfect life bearable and suddenly realize we've built a home without doors or windows.
Pushing myself is hard - either physically (really hard) or mentally. I too often like to do things halfway and believe that I've "made an effort". Making an effort is good, but it's only a start - one needs to know what one is truly aiming for to gauge the level of one's success.
So here's the challenge: what if, for one day, you lived your life at the edge of your limits. One day. What would that look like? What would that feel like?
If you did it, would you do it again?
What are we truly capable of?
As human beings we are certainly not infinitely powerful and can't do anything - but on a purely physical level, we have individuals who can climb to the top of Mt. Everest without oxygen, run over 100 miles, lift a lot of weight (confirmed record is 1008 lbs), and swim 312 miles non-stop (down the Danube river). On an emotional level, there are individuals who can overcome incredibly negative backgrounds to achieve great things, leave great backgrounds to do significant things, and individuals who just by the fact that they make it through another day do more living than many of us. Individuals have invented machinery, harnessed diffuse light into lasers that heal and manufacture, modified grasses into food, and plumbed the depths of space and time.
So what am I truly capable of?
We tend to underestimate our ability to do things, either physical or mental. Part of it I suppose is attributable to laziness, but part is also due to the fact that we get comfortable - too comfortable in fact. We slowly construct the walls of our lives with creature comforts to make less than perfect life bearable and suddenly realize we've built a home without doors or windows.
Pushing myself is hard - either physically (really hard) or mentally. I too often like to do things halfway and believe that I've "made an effort". Making an effort is good, but it's only a start - one needs to know what one is truly aiming for to gauge the level of one's success.
So here's the challenge: what if, for one day, you lived your life at the edge of your limits. One day. What would that look like? What would that feel like?
If you did it, would you do it again?
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Love, Passion, Energy
"What career lessons remain the same as they were 40 years ago when the book was first published?
That's easy. Job-hunting is a repetitive activity in the life of each individual. No one is coming to "save you". You are the one who is in charge of your job hunt, with whatever allies you may enlist to help you. You must take yourself as "the given" and find work that matches you - your gifts and passions, not (as is commonly done) taking the job market as "the given" and trying to contort yourself to fit. And you must ask yourself not what you do well, but what you most love to do, because love gives birth to passion, passion gives birth to enthusiasm, and enthusiasm gives birth to energy. Every employer is trying to hire focused, committed energy, regardless of the field or job." - Richard Bolles, Author of What Color is Your Parachute
As I read that commentary - I think it merits the word insightful - what leaps to my mind is how often I (and probably lots of others) get it wrong. In a way, it's like Musashi's admonition that often we assume that we know how the other side thinks and act accordingly: we assume we know what the market or companies want, and so we create the things that we believe they will want to hear. Our resumes brim over with recommendations of those that review them. We hear how bad the market is and seek to contort ourselves to meet what we think people want. In so many ways, the job search process has become similar to offerings to a pagan god: we walk up to the altar, make our sacrifice and then hope that something happens because it's a mysterious process and we've no idea how it actually works or who we can talk to. We approach the job search and application process from a position of weakness, crouching in fear before a perceived process that we can neither influence nor control, but only endure. And if we are seeking to be that which we think others want, we become even weaker, not have our core person available to defend and excite but only the feeble shadow of "what can I do to get this job?".
Here's the thing (and Bolles is right on about this): if you don't love what you do, you will never be good at it.
You know this. Surely at every job you've had you've worked with people that were there at least physically but not mentally, who gave a certain level of effort and that was all, who simply never sought to improve at all. Yes, environment and management policies and lead to this but the reality is that good skilled people come out of lousy work environments all the time. It's the individual, not the environment that determines this.
What are our gifts and passions? What are we really enthusiastic about? Those are the things that will eventually lead us to personal and professional success, not making ourselves into images that others want.
If I'm the given and not the market, how does this impact my job search - and my life's path?
That's easy. Job-hunting is a repetitive activity in the life of each individual. No one is coming to "save you". You are the one who is in charge of your job hunt, with whatever allies you may enlist to help you. You must take yourself as "the given" and find work that matches you - your gifts and passions, not (as is commonly done) taking the job market as "the given" and trying to contort yourself to fit. And you must ask yourself not what you do well, but what you most love to do, because love gives birth to passion, passion gives birth to enthusiasm, and enthusiasm gives birth to energy. Every employer is trying to hire focused, committed energy, regardless of the field or job." - Richard Bolles, Author of What Color is Your Parachute
As I read that commentary - I think it merits the word insightful - what leaps to my mind is how often I (and probably lots of others) get it wrong. In a way, it's like Musashi's admonition that often we assume that we know how the other side thinks and act accordingly: we assume we know what the market or companies want, and so we create the things that we believe they will want to hear. Our resumes brim over with recommendations of those that review them. We hear how bad the market is and seek to contort ourselves to meet what we think people want. In so many ways, the job search process has become similar to offerings to a pagan god: we walk up to the altar, make our sacrifice and then hope that something happens because it's a mysterious process and we've no idea how it actually works or who we can talk to. We approach the job search and application process from a position of weakness, crouching in fear before a perceived process that we can neither influence nor control, but only endure. And if we are seeking to be that which we think others want, we become even weaker, not have our core person available to defend and excite but only the feeble shadow of "what can I do to get this job?".
Here's the thing (and Bolles is right on about this): if you don't love what you do, you will never be good at it.
You know this. Surely at every job you've had you've worked with people that were there at least physically but not mentally, who gave a certain level of effort and that was all, who simply never sought to improve at all. Yes, environment and management policies and lead to this but the reality is that good skilled people come out of lousy work environments all the time. It's the individual, not the environment that determines this.
What are our gifts and passions? What are we really enthusiastic about? Those are the things that will eventually lead us to personal and professional success, not making ourselves into images that others want.
If I'm the given and not the market, how does this impact my job search - and my life's path?
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Stress and Sickness?
At what point does stress pass into sickness?
I've been contemplating this around the Toirdhealbheach Beaucail household as both myself and The Ravishing Mrs. TB have been dragging around our traditional October sicknesses. For myself at least, it seems not only related to any potential bug that has been generously brought home to me by Na Clann; there is an abiding sense of inability to sleep for longer than 3 hours at a time, a general sense of exhaustion, and now this headache which gnaws at my face during the day and at night.
Yes, I know there is something going around - but I'm also conscious of a more general sense of work beginning to overshadow and overpower all other aspects of my life. An analysis of what I still need to accomplish reveals over 100 separate tasks by the end of the year, plus the day to day items that continue to add up. When does all this knowing - and not enough time or resources to accomplish it all - pass over into physical effects?
I'm not sure - but this cannot be maintained forever.
I've been contemplating this around the Toirdhealbheach Beaucail household as both myself and The Ravishing Mrs. TB have been dragging around our traditional October sicknesses. For myself at least, it seems not only related to any potential bug that has been generously brought home to me by Na Clann; there is an abiding sense of inability to sleep for longer than 3 hours at a time, a general sense of exhaustion, and now this headache which gnaws at my face during the day and at night.
Yes, I know there is something going around - but I'm also conscious of a more general sense of work beginning to overshadow and overpower all other aspects of my life. An analysis of what I still need to accomplish reveals over 100 separate tasks by the end of the year, plus the day to day items that continue to add up. When does all this knowing - and not enough time or resources to accomplish it all - pass over into physical effects?
I'm not sure - but this cannot be maintained forever.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Communication
Wallowing amidst the near miss of a cold yesterday, I followed up on an outstanding item floating through the background noise of my thoughts and took a brief quiz on The Five Love Languages. This was a followup to something that Nighean Gheal had said about the quiz that The Ravishing Mrs. TB had suggested she take.
I took the online test (it's free!) and was not surprised to discover that my "love languages" are Physical Touch and Words of Affirmation. I then went ahead and tried to "figure out" what the love languages of The Ravishing Mrs. TB are as a project.
Later that night before we went to sleep, I told her about my taking the test, what I found, and wondered what she thought hers were. She listed them - to my surprise, the first one she listed was not the one that I had guessed (number 2 was probably correct).
It gave me reason to rethink the matter of communication and how we communicate: simply put, we often talk and listen to people in the context of ourselves, or how we believe that people are and need to be communicated with. In the very simple example just given, what The Ravishing Mrs. TB thinks and what I think about what communicates loves are completely different - so it's not a wonder that things that I think communicate love are not even understood by her as meaning the same thing.
But I can extend that to virtually every relationship I have. I communicate out of my own basis of knowledge, often trying to communicate with another person how I think or perceive they want to be communicated with, not necessarily how they receive it. It's as different as trying to carry on a conversation between two individuals who do not speak a common tongue: both sides are trying to say something but neither one is heard; a sort of bilingual monologue, or "Dialogue of the Deaf" as Dr. Stephen Covey would call it.
But obviously we cannot get to the level of knowledge of our spouse with every relationship we maintain - yet in order to successfully function day to day we need to effectively communicate with every relationship that we maintain. Do we think about how we are communicating - are we effectively speaking to the other person - as much as we consider what we are communicating?
Communicating - first effectively with your loved ones, then with the greater circle of relationships around you - is one of the greatest determining factors in whether you have a successful marriage, family relationship, or personal/professional relationship of any kind.
Are you communicating in a way they can understand?
I took the online test (it's free!) and was not surprised to discover that my "love languages" are Physical Touch and Words of Affirmation. I then went ahead and tried to "figure out" what the love languages of The Ravishing Mrs. TB are as a project.
Later that night before we went to sleep, I told her about my taking the test, what I found, and wondered what she thought hers were. She listed them - to my surprise, the first one she listed was not the one that I had guessed (number 2 was probably correct).
It gave me reason to rethink the matter of communication and how we communicate: simply put, we often talk and listen to people in the context of ourselves, or how we believe that people are and need to be communicated with. In the very simple example just given, what The Ravishing Mrs. TB thinks and what I think about what communicates loves are completely different - so it's not a wonder that things that I think communicate love are not even understood by her as meaning the same thing.
But I can extend that to virtually every relationship I have. I communicate out of my own basis of knowledge, often trying to communicate with another person how I think or perceive they want to be communicated with, not necessarily how they receive it. It's as different as trying to carry on a conversation between two individuals who do not speak a common tongue: both sides are trying to say something but neither one is heard; a sort of bilingual monologue, or "Dialogue of the Deaf" as Dr. Stephen Covey would call it.
But obviously we cannot get to the level of knowledge of our spouse with every relationship we maintain - yet in order to successfully function day to day we need to effectively communicate with every relationship that we maintain. Do we think about how we are communicating - are we effectively speaking to the other person - as much as we consider what we are communicating?
Communicating - first effectively with your loved ones, then with the greater circle of relationships around you - is one of the greatest determining factors in whether you have a successful marriage, family relationship, or personal/professional relationship of any kind.
Are you communicating in a way they can understand?
Friday, October 15, 2010
Urgency
How do I develop a greater sense of urgency?
I'm one of the least urgent people I know. Most things I deal with are things I will do, but there is no particular sense of needing to do them "right now". Occasionally something - usually an emergency - falls into this category, at which point everything is dropped and the issue is resolved - and then everything goes back to normal.
There are probably a number of things which need to have "Gazelle Intensity" (as Dave Ramsey says) in my life, yet more often than not I tend to be laid back about them - perhaps to the point of being lazy?
Why no sense of urgency? Part of it is due to the fact that often resolving urgent issues involves confrontation, something I typically do not enjoy. Another factor is that I have spent too much of my life dealing with the urgent, only to see the outcome of it - which more often than not is simply that my urgent "project" at best made no difference, at worst was a complete waste of time.
But not to be discounted is also this question of what qualifies as urgent - too often, those things that I do define as urgent are not, while those things that I tend to be laid back about are. That is an issue of values and time management, not an issue with urgency itself.
So how do I develop a sense of urgency - about the right things?
I'm one of the least urgent people I know. Most things I deal with are things I will do, but there is no particular sense of needing to do them "right now". Occasionally something - usually an emergency - falls into this category, at which point everything is dropped and the issue is resolved - and then everything goes back to normal.
There are probably a number of things which need to have "Gazelle Intensity" (as Dave Ramsey says) in my life, yet more often than not I tend to be laid back about them - perhaps to the point of being lazy?
Why no sense of urgency? Part of it is due to the fact that often resolving urgent issues involves confrontation, something I typically do not enjoy. Another factor is that I have spent too much of my life dealing with the urgent, only to see the outcome of it - which more often than not is simply that my urgent "project" at best made no difference, at worst was a complete waste of time.
But not to be discounted is also this question of what qualifies as urgent - too often, those things that I do define as urgent are not, while those things that I tend to be laid back about are. That is an issue of values and time management, not an issue with urgency itself.
So how do I develop a sense of urgency - about the right things?
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Thursdays
Hey, it's Thursday - and that means...
it's Thursday.
Thursday is rapidly becoming one of my favorite days of the week (okay, there are seven so it's not that difficult). Because Thursday, even more than Friday, is a sign that the work week is rapidly coming to an end. There is a light at the end of the tunnel - and it's not an oncoming train.
It's not that the workload on a given Thursday is any less than any other day of the week, nor that traffic is any less congested or that people are somehow magically more "friendly". It's that the promise of the non-work days is tantalizingly before us.
From here, it's just a skip and hop through Iaido, then to bed, then to Friday - and then to the weekend!
I know there are folks that say "If you look forward to the weekend, you've got the wrong attitude about your job." Maybe that's true - but perhaps again, it's written by those who don't constantly feel the sense of being mis-employed, of enduring because that's what you do until something else comes up.
No matter - it's Thursday!
it's Thursday.
Thursday is rapidly becoming one of my favorite days of the week (okay, there are seven so it's not that difficult). Because Thursday, even more than Friday, is a sign that the work week is rapidly coming to an end. There is a light at the end of the tunnel - and it's not an oncoming train.
It's not that the workload on a given Thursday is any less than any other day of the week, nor that traffic is any less congested or that people are somehow magically more "friendly". It's that the promise of the non-work days is tantalizingly before us.
From here, it's just a skip and hop through Iaido, then to bed, then to Friday - and then to the weekend!
I know there are folks that say "If you look forward to the weekend, you've got the wrong attitude about your job." Maybe that's true - but perhaps again, it's written by those who don't constantly feel the sense of being mis-employed, of enduring because that's what you do until something else comes up.
No matter - it's Thursday!
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Inseparable Life and Message
Coming home yesterday on the radio I heard a segment on The Hugh Hewitt show about a young lady named Katie Davis, a young girl who at age 18 went on a mission trip to Uganda, and then decided to go on mission there. Her blog site is here.
To read her blog site is to be confronted not only with the reality of a world that most of us do not know (and cannot really imagine), but the power of God in changing lives and in changed lives. (For the record, she currently is 21 years old and has adopted 14 children).
One thing that touched my heart (re-reading her blogs, I suspect there will be more) is the focus of other centeredness and loving others. Which kind of leads me to believe that most of the problems in my own life are self inflicted due to my life being about me so much.
If the church (and by the church, I mean myself and you) wants to have a true impact on the world, this is the road to it. Not necessarily going to Uganda, but showing love and reaching out where we are. To read her blog postings (and I need to read more), one cannot connect the good work she is doing from her faith in God and Christ. She is a living witness - the kind of witness that we are all called to be as Christians. People should not be able to separate our lives from our message.
If I tried - just for one day - to live for God and others instead of myself, what would that look like?
To read her blog site is to be confronted not only with the reality of a world that most of us do not know (and cannot really imagine), but the power of God in changing lives and in changed lives. (For the record, she currently is 21 years old and has adopted 14 children).
One thing that touched my heart (re-reading her blogs, I suspect there will be more) is the focus of other centeredness and loving others. Which kind of leads me to believe that most of the problems in my own life are self inflicted due to my life being about me so much.
If the church (and by the church, I mean myself and you) wants to have a true impact on the world, this is the road to it. Not necessarily going to Uganda, but showing love and reaching out where we are. To read her blog postings (and I need to read more), one cannot connect the good work she is doing from her faith in God and Christ. She is a living witness - the kind of witness that we are all called to be as Christians. People should not be able to separate our lives from our message.
If I tried - just for one day - to live for God and others instead of myself, what would that look like?
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
I Don't Care!
I tried yesterday. I really made an effort.
I went into work yesterday with the attitude that I was going to make it work, that I was going to be diligent and productive during the day. It worked in a way - even in the midst of trying to get my computer going, even in the midst of making a list of everything to be accomplished (6 pages worth), even in the midst of asking questions I'm pretty sure won't be popular.
But then the afternoon came, with the meeting - the meeting that went 2.25 hours instead of 1, the meeting that kept me there after 5:00 PM, guaranteeing I would not be home before 6:00 PM.
I left work completely drained and exhausted? Why? Because I realized, about 45 minutes in, that I really just didn't care about the meeting and what was being discussed - not that it wasn't corporately important, not that it didn't potentially matter, but I simply didn't care about it and I couldn't generate the interest to do so. However, the meeting droned on for another 1.25 hours (and of course I couldn't step out), leaving me to be there becoming slowly more frustrated and more exhausted.
It drained me to the point that when I arrived home in the evening, I had nothing. My energy levels were so low I barely made it through the list of things I had - things that in theory are fun and enjoyable, not something I should want to suffer through. Dinner brought me enough energy to try and pretend I had a family life, before I eventually crashed into bed (and, to add insult to injury, I couldn't fall asleep right away!).
Even more than what I do, this may be the crux of the problem: that on a very deep level, I need to care about the work I do - and currently I simply don't.
I went into work yesterday with the attitude that I was going to make it work, that I was going to be diligent and productive during the day. It worked in a way - even in the midst of trying to get my computer going, even in the midst of making a list of everything to be accomplished (6 pages worth), even in the midst of asking questions I'm pretty sure won't be popular.
But then the afternoon came, with the meeting - the meeting that went 2.25 hours instead of 1, the meeting that kept me there after 5:00 PM, guaranteeing I would not be home before 6:00 PM.
I left work completely drained and exhausted? Why? Because I realized, about 45 minutes in, that I really just didn't care about the meeting and what was being discussed - not that it wasn't corporately important, not that it didn't potentially matter, but I simply didn't care about it and I couldn't generate the interest to do so. However, the meeting droned on for another 1.25 hours (and of course I couldn't step out), leaving me to be there becoming slowly more frustrated and more exhausted.
It drained me to the point that when I arrived home in the evening, I had nothing. My energy levels were so low I barely made it through the list of things I had - things that in theory are fun and enjoyable, not something I should want to suffer through. Dinner brought me enough energy to try and pretend I had a family life, before I eventually crashed into bed (and, to add insult to injury, I couldn't fall asleep right away!).
Even more than what I do, this may be the crux of the problem: that on a very deep level, I need to care about the work I do - and currently I simply don't.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Mapping Time
As an exercise in life yesterday, I sat down and made a time chart. Using 168 hours (7 days of 24 hours each), I mapped out what I did in a day and what I proposed to do.
The result was astonishing. Between work, commuting and sleep I have 52% of my week pre-allocated. When all was said and done, I had a mere 7 hours a week not otherwise allocated to any other areas.
As I said, the results were astonishing.
I believe the results to be comprehensive - where there was an activity that occurs once a week but absorbs time, it was entered. Where activities occur 7 days a week, they were entered. Where family time is set aside - not knowing what we will do any given weekend - that too was entered.
What it showed me, beyond the fact that I really am pretty busy, is that I may be overstructuring my time on things that don't really matter.
I have come to realize that in reality we have the ability to do not as much as we would like to do in life - at least not well. There is an opportunity cost to every activity that I choose to do - even if it is an activity which does nothing more than please me. The questions I am starting to ask are 1) Is it truly worth it?; and 2) Is this something that, knowing what I know now, I would continue to do?
Fortunately, I think most of my activities fall into both of those categories. They are activities which I have chosen and stuck with over the years (imperfectly at times, to be sure). I have added a few new ones - iaido, for example - but there is nothing which I inherently need to discard.
It does bring up a second issue however: with a mere 7 hours a week free, if I want to do more I need to either stop doing something or figure out a way to use my time more wisely. Which brings us right back to the fact of what I really want to do with my life.
Life is like money. Am I getting the most value out of the time I have, squeezing every minute for what it's worth - or am I operating under the mistaken assumption that it is an endless resource, when in fact it could stop at any moment?
The result was astonishing. Between work, commuting and sleep I have 52% of my week pre-allocated. When all was said and done, I had a mere 7 hours a week not otherwise allocated to any other areas.
As I said, the results were astonishing.
I believe the results to be comprehensive - where there was an activity that occurs once a week but absorbs time, it was entered. Where activities occur 7 days a week, they were entered. Where family time is set aside - not knowing what we will do any given weekend - that too was entered.
What it showed me, beyond the fact that I really am pretty busy, is that I may be overstructuring my time on things that don't really matter.
I have come to realize that in reality we have the ability to do not as much as we would like to do in life - at least not well. There is an opportunity cost to every activity that I choose to do - even if it is an activity which does nothing more than please me. The questions I am starting to ask are 1) Is it truly worth it?; and 2) Is this something that, knowing what I know now, I would continue to do?
Fortunately, I think most of my activities fall into both of those categories. They are activities which I have chosen and stuck with over the years (imperfectly at times, to be sure). I have added a few new ones - iaido, for example - but there is nothing which I inherently need to discard.
It does bring up a second issue however: with a mere 7 hours a week free, if I want to do more I need to either stop doing something or figure out a way to use my time more wisely. Which brings us right back to the fact of what I really want to do with my life.
Life is like money. Am I getting the most value out of the time I have, squeezing every minute for what it's worth - or am I operating under the mistaken assumption that it is an endless resource, when in fact it could stop at any moment?
Friday, October 08, 2010
Plans Do Work Out
Thoughts (happy, mostly) for Songbird, who officially became retired on Wednesday, not fully by her own choice.
She has been on my mind over the last week as we suspected this was coming, both for the fact that it was coming as well as the fact that she and Le Quebecois were not caught flatfooted by this event. They had carefully planned and readjusted their lives such that, when the event ("enforced retirement"? "unplanned departure"? Not really sure what to call it) occurred, they were already looking at a trailer for travel the next day to for this new phase of their lives.
I contrast that with so many people (myself included lots of the time) who simply don't plan for the fact that reality happens. People leave, jobs go, sickness and financial turmoil happen - yet so often we simply live our lives as if none of this was a possibility, and then are seemingly caught "by surprise" when such things occur.
So kudos and happy trails to Songbird and Le Quebecois as they begin this next phase of their lives together, scooters and trailers rolling down the interstate. Let it be a strong reminder to the rest of us that such things can come out well, and that failing to plan is planning to fail.
She has been on my mind over the last week as we suspected this was coming, both for the fact that it was coming as well as the fact that she and Le Quebecois were not caught flatfooted by this event. They had carefully planned and readjusted their lives such that, when the event ("enforced retirement"? "unplanned departure"? Not really sure what to call it) occurred, they were already looking at a trailer for travel the next day to for this new phase of their lives.
I contrast that with so many people (myself included lots of the time) who simply don't plan for the fact that reality happens. People leave, jobs go, sickness and financial turmoil happen - yet so often we simply live our lives as if none of this was a possibility, and then are seemingly caught "by surprise" when such things occur.
So kudos and happy trails to Songbird and Le Quebecois as they begin this next phase of their lives together, scooters and trailers rolling down the interstate. Let it be a strong reminder to the rest of us that such things can come out well, and that failing to plan is planning to fail.
Thursday, October 07, 2010
Misty Sorrow
A vague sense of sadness washed over me this morning as I woke up which has not completely disappeared.
I wish I could tie it something, so I could resolve it in my mind. There are things which I could tie it to - layoffs of friends, continuing concern about direction of my career, the general malaise of things at large, even just being tired and it being Thursday - but not one thing, the something I could indicate "Hey, that's it! That's the reason I'm out of sorts."
These sorts of times are the hardest for me to deal with, simply because there is no evident cause. It's not like a depression - those I tend to be quite clear about why they're occurring. It's a sense of something not being right and not knowing what to do about it, of wanting to simply go back to bed, dim the shades, pull the covers up over my head, and hide for the day.
How does one deal with this quiet gentle nagging of the soul which will not go away? Routines do not quell it, writing does not draw it forth, and questioning it brings no clarification. It just hangs there, a gentle misty aggregation of quiet sorrow encompassing my mind and soul, waiting as if to say "I'll answer - if only you'll speak the right words"
But what words can you speak to that which you cannot apprehend?
I wish I could tie it something, so I could resolve it in my mind. There are things which I could tie it to - layoffs of friends, continuing concern about direction of my career, the general malaise of things at large, even just being tired and it being Thursday - but not one thing, the something I could indicate "Hey, that's it! That's the reason I'm out of sorts."
These sorts of times are the hardest for me to deal with, simply because there is no evident cause. It's not like a depression - those I tend to be quite clear about why they're occurring. It's a sense of something not being right and not knowing what to do about it, of wanting to simply go back to bed, dim the shades, pull the covers up over my head, and hide for the day.
How does one deal with this quiet gentle nagging of the soul which will not go away? Routines do not quell it, writing does not draw it forth, and questioning it brings no clarification. It just hangs there, a gentle misty aggregation of quiet sorrow encompassing my mind and soul, waiting as if to say "I'll answer - if only you'll speak the right words"
But what words can you speak to that which you cannot apprehend?
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Finding Time
I've found some time.
It turned out to be in the most unusual place: pinned in front of my usual morning routine.
I have been endeavoring over the last 2-3 months to readjust my life and my schedule, to pack in the things I want and need to do while dealing with the realities of my existence. Unfortunately, The Ravishing Mrs. TB pointed out that what this was doing was basically isolating myself from my family when I got home to do this. Additionally, I never seemed to get everything done that I was hoping to get done. Also, those things that I needed to concentrate to do - language study, reading, even working out - seemed to be impossible in the wash of the post work environment.
My solution: Get up an hour earlier.
Is it easy? Not necessarily. Is it hard? Not as much so as you might think. My inspiration was this gentleman (You should stop and read the article. Really.) who does far more than I would hope to accomplish. If can do what he does on minimal sleep, so can I.
How's it going? Better than I thought. The sleep thing is somewhat hard to get used to, but I am learning to cope with it in the sense of hopefully training my body to take advantage of the sleep it's offered - and it's not as if I've lived this way before for less worthy things. And my items to cover? By the time I leave for work, I definitely feel that I have accomplished a great deal important to me, and have done so without sacrificing my family time.
Where can you find time today?
It turned out to be in the most unusual place: pinned in front of my usual morning routine.
I have been endeavoring over the last 2-3 months to readjust my life and my schedule, to pack in the things I want and need to do while dealing with the realities of my existence. Unfortunately, The Ravishing Mrs. TB pointed out that what this was doing was basically isolating myself from my family when I got home to do this. Additionally, I never seemed to get everything done that I was hoping to get done. Also, those things that I needed to concentrate to do - language study, reading, even working out - seemed to be impossible in the wash of the post work environment.
My solution: Get up an hour earlier.
Is it easy? Not necessarily. Is it hard? Not as much so as you might think. My inspiration was this gentleman (You should stop and read the article. Really.) who does far more than I would hope to accomplish. If can do what he does on minimal sleep, so can I.
How's it going? Better than I thought. The sleep thing is somewhat hard to get used to, but I am learning to cope with it in the sense of hopefully training my body to take advantage of the sleep it's offered - and it's not as if I've lived this way before for less worthy things. And my items to cover? By the time I leave for work, I definitely feel that I have accomplished a great deal important to me, and have done so without sacrificing my family time.
Where can you find time today?
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
On My Own Terms
Tuesday at the end of the world.
There is a certain sense, as I walk in my work building every morning, that change is coming. I've spent enough time at companies that have undergone it, and have felt the personal bounds swelling against the boundaries of my soul.
I met with a candidate yesterday for a position well under his current one. He assured me that he was interested, that the "downgrade" in responsibilities and skills was not one he worried about. A man with almost 20 years experience in my industry. I'm to interview another on Friday, a higher level who assures us of the same thing, with the years of experience.
When high level people begin accepting lower level positions and saying that "of course it's not a problem", one knows that something is changing - and change only tends to accelerate.
What cannot happen - what will not happen - is that I am in that same place ten years from now. When that time comes, I want to go out on my own terms, not be trapped into begging a position, assuring others that I am willing to be less for the sake of a job.
"Own your career or it will own you" says Sally Hogshead. Truer words were never spoken.
There is a certain sense, as I walk in my work building every morning, that change is coming. I've spent enough time at companies that have undergone it, and have felt the personal bounds swelling against the boundaries of my soul.
I met with a candidate yesterday for a position well under his current one. He assured me that he was interested, that the "downgrade" in responsibilities and skills was not one he worried about. A man with almost 20 years experience in my industry. I'm to interview another on Friday, a higher level who assures us of the same thing, with the years of experience.
When high level people begin accepting lower level positions and saying that "of course it's not a problem", one knows that something is changing - and change only tends to accelerate.
What cannot happen - what will not happen - is that I am in that same place ten years from now. When that time comes, I want to go out on my own terms, not be trapped into begging a position, assuring others that I am willing to be less for the sake of a job.
"Own your career or it will own you" says Sally Hogshead. Truer words were never spoken.
Monday, October 04, 2010
Fulfilled and Proud
"In the long run, the point isn't to make more money. The point is to consistently create work that makes you fulfilled and proud." - Sally Hogshead
What a concise and precise statement about work.
Yes, more money generally is better. But at the same time, doing work that you are neither fulfilled to do nor proud of will in the end probably ensure that you will not earn that more money either. It is extremely difficult to continue to succeed in something that you neither enjoy nor are committed to.
Which makes me reflect on my current situation. Am I creating work that makes me feel fulfilled and proud? Can I create such work that will make me feel so?
If the question is no (and I think that it is at this point), what do I do about it? As I wrote here, there are two elements to consider: the situation and the field itself. If it's a no to the first, a change in location is called for. If it's the second, a change in latitude (and attitude) is called for.
Simply put, you cannot continue to product good work in a environment that neither values it nor values you. Most often, you either get pulled down to the level of the company - or move to another company. Seldom are there examples of individuals that are not signficant management that have created drastic changes in their work environments - creating an environment where work is fulfilling and one can be proud of their actions.
I can no longer bear the burden of any company that cannot or will not allow a such a workplace. The burden is portrayed as being on you to make things better; the reality is, the burden is on the workplace for creating such an environment.
And environments can only be changed or departed from. There is no third option.
What a concise and precise statement about work.
Yes, more money generally is better. But at the same time, doing work that you are neither fulfilled to do nor proud of will in the end probably ensure that you will not earn that more money either. It is extremely difficult to continue to succeed in something that you neither enjoy nor are committed to.
Which makes me reflect on my current situation. Am I creating work that makes me feel fulfilled and proud? Can I create such work that will make me feel so?
If the question is no (and I think that it is at this point), what do I do about it? As I wrote here, there are two elements to consider: the situation and the field itself. If it's a no to the first, a change in location is called for. If it's the second, a change in latitude (and attitude) is called for.
Simply put, you cannot continue to product good work in a environment that neither values it nor values you. Most often, you either get pulled down to the level of the company - or move to another company. Seldom are there examples of individuals that are not signficant management that have created drastic changes in their work environments - creating an environment where work is fulfilling and one can be proud of their actions.
I can no longer bear the burden of any company that cannot or will not allow a such a workplace. The burden is portrayed as being on you to make things better; the reality is, the burden is on the workplace for creating such an environment.
And environments can only be changed or departed from. There is no third option.
Friday, October 01, 2010
Effort
How does one develop staying power?
As we went through this week achieved higher and higher expectations at work to the point of making 2 submission and releasing 21 lots of material. Have to do it, have to get everything out. There is an incredible amount of focus and drive.
And then comes the day after, when everything is done. Suddenly the drive is gone and there is nothing but a drained sense of exhaustion.
I pontificated to Otis last night that I cannot really contemplate the idea of doing that over and over, having the same level of drive day after day. Certainly and not expect to have a life after work.
But is that really part of my own problem?
I can argue - perhaps successfully - that the incentives are not there. If I maintained that high level of drive - 13 hours a day, 5-6 days a week - lots would get done, but I'd have nothing to show for it; in fact, an argument could be made that I am merely setting the level of expectation higher for myself and my coworkers with no corresponding increase in money or ability to succeed.
On the other hand, if I applied that level of effort to anything - not just work - what would I be able to accomplish? Have I let the reality of my current work environment influence my ability to understand that success in anything is a result of persistent effort?
How do I pull my general output to the next level? What can I do to motivate myself?
As we went through this week achieved higher and higher expectations at work to the point of making 2 submission and releasing 21 lots of material. Have to do it, have to get everything out. There is an incredible amount of focus and drive.
And then comes the day after, when everything is done. Suddenly the drive is gone and there is nothing but a drained sense of exhaustion.
I pontificated to Otis last night that I cannot really contemplate the idea of doing that over and over, having the same level of drive day after day. Certainly and not expect to have a life after work.
But is that really part of my own problem?
I can argue - perhaps successfully - that the incentives are not there. If I maintained that high level of drive - 13 hours a day, 5-6 days a week - lots would get done, but I'd have nothing to show for it; in fact, an argument could be made that I am merely setting the level of expectation higher for myself and my coworkers with no corresponding increase in money or ability to succeed.
On the other hand, if I applied that level of effort to anything - not just work - what would I be able to accomplish? Have I let the reality of my current work environment influence my ability to understand that success in anything is a result of persistent effort?
How do I pull my general output to the next level? What can I do to motivate myself?
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Being A Wise Guy
It's frightening to suddenly find yourself the resident wise guy.
It's a position that I have not really held before, at least in any degree of regularity. I have always had the benefit of having others around me who were older and wiser, someone that I could turn to - or direct others to - as a reference.
Now more and more, I'm finding that it's myself.
I'm mostly frightened that I will give the wrong advice. Ideally I have enough bad decisions under my belt that I can confidently say "Don't do this; it doesn't work". However, I also have enough experience (in my less well experienced days, to be sure) of giving advice to others which did not work out nearly so well - for example, my track record at matchmaking is about zero.
It's a great incentive to read and study, of course - being a wise guy means you should have pithy statements and good quotes. It's also a good incentive to measure what I do in my own life - am I living the advice I give?
Still, it is a humbling set of shoes to walk in, shoes which I do not nearly fit so well as those who have gone before me in my own life.
It's a position that I have not really held before, at least in any degree of regularity. I have always had the benefit of having others around me who were older and wiser, someone that I could turn to - or direct others to - as a reference.
Now more and more, I'm finding that it's myself.
I'm mostly frightened that I will give the wrong advice. Ideally I have enough bad decisions under my belt that I can confidently say "Don't do this; it doesn't work". However, I also have enough experience (in my less well experienced days, to be sure) of giving advice to others which did not work out nearly so well - for example, my track record at matchmaking is about zero.
It's a great incentive to read and study, of course - being a wise guy means you should have pithy statements and good quotes. It's also a good incentive to measure what I do in my own life - am I living the advice I give?
Still, it is a humbling set of shoes to walk in, shoes which I do not nearly fit so well as those who have gone before me in my own life.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Rage
There is nothing worse than realizing that people are ignoring you consciously.
It raises your blood pressure like nothing else. Your rage screams in your ears, demanding to be vented. You (cleverly) walk away, thinking that a short walk around the block or through the building hoping that the action and time will wear it away.
Your fingers strike the keyboard with a particular pressure and snap as you type out the angry e-mail, ranting about the situation and trying to find anyway possible to bring the othe person down with you, any crack in their armor where you can make them feel as ignored as you. Followed, of course, by hitting the "Delete" key all the way back to the beginning of the message.
Yes, it's being ignored that is angering - but also the sense that trying to do the best thing for others is not realized at best, or simply blown off as not important as worst.
Which leaves two choices: change the perception or change the situation.
Or barring that, change the location...
It raises your blood pressure like nothing else. Your rage screams in your ears, demanding to be vented. You (cleverly) walk away, thinking that a short walk around the block or through the building hoping that the action and time will wear it away.
Your fingers strike the keyboard with a particular pressure and snap as you type out the angry e-mail, ranting about the situation and trying to find anyway possible to bring the othe person down with you, any crack in their armor where you can make them feel as ignored as you. Followed, of course, by hitting the "Delete" key all the way back to the beginning of the message.
Yes, it's being ignored that is angering - but also the sense that trying to do the best thing for others is not realized at best, or simply blown off as not important as worst.
Which leaves two choices: change the perception or change the situation.
Or barring that, change the location...
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Thinking Linearly
A sense of peace about some decisions, not others.
Do we like New Home? Yes. There are a plethora of good things here: good (excellent) school for Na Clann, a reasonable place to live (a rental to be sure, but larger and paying less than we were in Old Home), good church, The Ravishing Mrs. TB is finding her stride, and we are finally able to begin to deal with the wreckage started almost 4 years ago by The Firm and my decisions around it. Other than the heat and humidity, not a lot of complaints.
Do I like my career field? Yes, on most days. It's not my ideal job to be sure, but it is well paying and enables to do lots of other things. Depending on whom I've worked for, it does allow me to have a greater or lesser degree of impact on the lives of others. Certainly it can keep my mind as active as it wants to be.
Do I like my job?
Hmm, much more difficult there. I like some of the people with whom I work. That said, the job itself (or really the company that encompasses the job) is much more problematic. I've alluded to it before: a loss of hope combined with a true sense of powerlessness. It is difficult to the point of wondering "Why?"
But (as I'm trying to do with this exercise) the company is not the career field, and the company is not New Home.
So do the math. If the career field is okay and the location is okay, what I really need to do is....
Do we like New Home? Yes. There are a plethora of good things here: good (excellent) school for Na Clann, a reasonable place to live (a rental to be sure, but larger and paying less than we were in Old Home), good church, The Ravishing Mrs. TB is finding her stride, and we are finally able to begin to deal with the wreckage started almost 4 years ago by The Firm and my decisions around it. Other than the heat and humidity, not a lot of complaints.
Do I like my career field? Yes, on most days. It's not my ideal job to be sure, but it is well paying and enables to do lots of other things. Depending on whom I've worked for, it does allow me to have a greater or lesser degree of impact on the lives of others. Certainly it can keep my mind as active as it wants to be.
Do I like my job?
Hmm, much more difficult there. I like some of the people with whom I work. That said, the job itself (or really the company that encompasses the job) is much more problematic. I've alluded to it before: a loss of hope combined with a true sense of powerlessness. It is difficult to the point of wondering "Why?"
But (as I'm trying to do with this exercise) the company is not the career field, and the company is not New Home.
So do the math. If the career field is okay and the location is okay, what I really need to do is....
Monday, September 27, 2010
To For Through
"If you aim at becoming a great ruler, you will be able to become the lord of a province. If you aim at becoming the lord of a province, you'll become nothing." - Mori Shojumaru (later Mori Motonari), Mori Motonari
Aim is an important thing. Misplaced aim in driving will result in swerving to stay on the road. Misplaced aim in archery or hockey will result in missing the target. Misplaced aim in living will result in a wasted life.
However we teach people the wrong thing about aim.
For so much of our instruction, we teach people that they should aim at something: "Look at the road. Aim for the passing grade. Aim for the target." The error with this is that we are teaching people to aim to something, not through something.
In reality, we don't want people to just see the road in front of them, we want them to see the road ahead of them. We don't want our children just to get the passing grade, but to get the knowledge the grade entails - and the eventual place that the knowledge will lead them.
In hunting or hockey, it's not where the target is, it's where the target will be when you hit it that is important.
To aim at becoming something external without grasping that it is the internal that makes the external possible is to set one's self up for eventual failure in the midst of supposed success.
When you're setting your goals today - and every day - what are you aiming for? Are you aiming high enough? Or are you mistaking aiming to for through?
Aim is an important thing. Misplaced aim in driving will result in swerving to stay on the road. Misplaced aim in archery or hockey will result in missing the target. Misplaced aim in living will result in a wasted life.
However we teach people the wrong thing about aim.
For so much of our instruction, we teach people that they should aim at something: "Look at the road. Aim for the passing grade. Aim for the target." The error with this is that we are teaching people to aim to something, not through something.
In reality, we don't want people to just see the road in front of them, we want them to see the road ahead of them. We don't want our children just to get the passing grade, but to get the knowledge the grade entails - and the eventual place that the knowledge will lead them.
In hunting or hockey, it's not where the target is, it's where the target will be when you hit it that is important.
To aim at becoming something external without grasping that it is the internal that makes the external possible is to set one's self up for eventual failure in the midst of supposed success.
When you're setting your goals today - and every day - what are you aiming for? Are you aiming high enough? Or are you mistaking aiming to for through?
Friday, September 24, 2010
A Week of Work Reflections
A week of work reflections comes down to this: Do I love my job? Do I love my career field?
Do I love my job? - No. Do I dislike this job more than any other I've had, at least in my field? Not sure. In some ways yes, in some ways no. Some of the friends I have made through my coworkers are great - and are the only things making the days bearable. But on the whole? No. If I were rating this job as an outsider rating a marriage, I would wonder that it wasn't a shotgun marriage (which in some ways it was).
Do I love my career field? - Harder to say. Can I make a contribution? Yes, given the right circumstances. Am I good at what I do? Depends on what your asking. I'm skilled, yes - but I could become more so. Given the right circumstances I can be incredibly productive and incredibly useful. But does my pulse quicken at the thought of "getting" to go to this career field in the morning? Nope. Not at all - more to see the people than anything else.
So why do I keep looking here? (Insanity - continuing to do the same thing and expect a different result.) Force of habit - or force of fear? Or is it simply the laziness that says it's easier to lie down and die by the shrinking waterhole because that's what we know rather than risk seeking other waterholes elsewhere?
We will not change until the pain of change is less than the pain of continuing in our current situation.
Do I love my job? - No. Do I dislike this job more than any other I've had, at least in my field? Not sure. In some ways yes, in some ways no. Some of the friends I have made through my coworkers are great - and are the only things making the days bearable. But on the whole? No. If I were rating this job as an outsider rating a marriage, I would wonder that it wasn't a shotgun marriage (which in some ways it was).
Do I love my career field? - Harder to say. Can I make a contribution? Yes, given the right circumstances. Am I good at what I do? Depends on what your asking. I'm skilled, yes - but I could become more so. Given the right circumstances I can be incredibly productive and incredibly useful. But does my pulse quicken at the thought of "getting" to go to this career field in the morning? Nope. Not at all - more to see the people than anything else.
So why do I keep looking here? (Insanity - continuing to do the same thing and expect a different result.) Force of habit - or force of fear? Or is it simply the laziness that says it's easier to lie down and die by the shrinking waterhole because that's what we know rather than risk seeking other waterholes elsewhere?
We will not change until the pain of change is less than the pain of continuing in our current situation.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Work: An Affair of the Heart
"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking, and don't settle." - Steve Jobs
As we discussed yesterday, work is one of the most significant amounts of time we will spend on our lives, following hard on sleep and marriage. Steve Jobs above suggests that the only way to do great work is to do what you love - and love is as much as matter of the heart as it is a calculated decision.
Work is a great deal like a marriage - in theory, another affair of the heart. The question is much like finding a good partner, how do we find a work which will engage not only mind but our hearts as well?
On the one hand, we have college graduates coming out of school having followed their hearts to their interests only to find that their interests are not enough to create a job in the outside world (17th Century French Literature is not in and of itself a growing field). On the other hand, we have people who have done the "right" thing by taking the job that was offered to them only to find themselves in a relationship that is enduring but not endurable. It is again like marriage: those who marry the ones that excite them emotionally often find they are not good marriage partners, and those who marry sensibly find that sensibleness can become a long grey twilight.
But that may be where the analogy stops. To reinvent the marriage, you need to take action within the marriage. To reinvent the work is not necessarily to find yourself bound in the same way.
So there's the rub - how do essentially have an "affair" while at your current work, trying to find your true (work) love - (and without angering your current job)? How do you reinvigorate your work life - perhaps even your work search if it's been so long that you've given up hope?
Perhaps it's easier to ask another question: What excites you? What motivates you? What makes you feel like you are truly contributing, truly making a difference? Whatever those things are, that's where to start.
It could be that such things are light years away from what you are doing (They seem to be for me). That's not important. One has to start somewhere. When one is trapped in rainy weather, sometimes one only has the fantasy imagination of a sunlit day to start with. What's important is that 14% of your total life (on average) will be spent at a job. Will you settle only for passion, or will it be enduring the unendurable?
As we discussed yesterday, work is one of the most significant amounts of time we will spend on our lives, following hard on sleep and marriage. Steve Jobs above suggests that the only way to do great work is to do what you love - and love is as much as matter of the heart as it is a calculated decision.
Work is a great deal like a marriage - in theory, another affair of the heart. The question is much like finding a good partner, how do we find a work which will engage not only mind but our hearts as well?
On the one hand, we have college graduates coming out of school having followed their hearts to their interests only to find that their interests are not enough to create a job in the outside world (17th Century French Literature is not in and of itself a growing field). On the other hand, we have people who have done the "right" thing by taking the job that was offered to them only to find themselves in a relationship that is enduring but not endurable. It is again like marriage: those who marry the ones that excite them emotionally often find they are not good marriage partners, and those who marry sensibly find that sensibleness can become a long grey twilight.
But that may be where the analogy stops. To reinvent the marriage, you need to take action within the marriage. To reinvent the work is not necessarily to find yourself bound in the same way.
So there's the rub - how do essentially have an "affair" while at your current work, trying to find your true (work) love - (and without angering your current job)? How do you reinvigorate your work life - perhaps even your work search if it's been so long that you've given up hope?
Perhaps it's easier to ask another question: What excites you? What motivates you? What makes you feel like you are truly contributing, truly making a difference? Whatever those things are, that's where to start.
It could be that such things are light years away from what you are doing (They seem to be for me). That's not important. One has to start somewhere. When one is trapped in rainy weather, sometimes one only has the fantasy imagination of a sunlit day to start with. What's important is that 14% of your total life (on average) will be spent at a job. Will you settle only for passion, or will it be enduring the unendurable?
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
90,000 Hours
"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking, and don't settle." - Steve Jobs
I have never heard a career described as a matter of the heart before. Yet what Jobs says makes a great deal of sense. If you're an average person, you'll work approximately 45 years (say 22 - 67) - approximately 90,000 hours at 8 hours a day (not including weekends and two weeks vacation). By contrast, other time you spend will rang from approximately 4896 hours in school (K - 4 year college) versus 221,920 hours sleeping (8 hours a night for 76 years- but who gets that). If you make 50 years in a marriage, you'll spend at least 145,600 hours together (not including work and sleep, of course).
Another way to put it: Most likely after sleeping and our relationship with our spouse and family, work is the next major line item we will spend most of our life doing.
Wow. That's a great deal of time to spend doing something you don't really care about - in fact, it's probably a great deal like being in a loveless marriage, enduring more for the sake of the relationship rather than for any sense of joy of being in the relationship.
I wish we taught this to our young people - that choosing a career is no idle thing, a thing which is much less important than things like having fun, a fully rounded growing up experience ("Do every activity so you can get into a good college") or dating. Good heavens - we spend more time instructing our children in how to select a good spouse than a good job, although by my rough calculations we spend 62% of the same amount of time in a career relationship as a marriage relationship.
I'll deal with work as a matter of the heart - a love, if you will - tomorrow. But for today, my closing thought is this: if we spend that much time at work and that much effort, shouldn't we as individuals spend more time preparing? Are we helping others - are we helping ourselves - to find the work that really matters for us? Or do we condemn ourselves to a loveless career marriage?
Loveless marriages generally don't turn out well. Neither do loveless careers.
I have never heard a career described as a matter of the heart before. Yet what Jobs says makes a great deal of sense. If you're an average person, you'll work approximately 45 years (say 22 - 67) - approximately 90,000 hours at 8 hours a day (not including weekends and two weeks vacation). By contrast, other time you spend will rang from approximately 4896 hours in school (K - 4 year college) versus 221,920 hours sleeping (8 hours a night for 76 years- but who gets that). If you make 50 years in a marriage, you'll spend at least 145,600 hours together (not including work and sleep, of course).
Another way to put it: Most likely after sleeping and our relationship with our spouse and family, work is the next major line item we will spend most of our life doing.
Wow. That's a great deal of time to spend doing something you don't really care about - in fact, it's probably a great deal like being in a loveless marriage, enduring more for the sake of the relationship rather than for any sense of joy of being in the relationship.
I wish we taught this to our young people - that choosing a career is no idle thing, a thing which is much less important than things like having fun, a fully rounded growing up experience ("Do every activity so you can get into a good college") or dating. Good heavens - we spend more time instructing our children in how to select a good spouse than a good job, although by my rough calculations we spend 62% of the same amount of time in a career relationship as a marriage relationship.
I'll deal with work as a matter of the heart - a love, if you will - tomorrow. But for today, my closing thought is this: if we spend that much time at work and that much effort, shouldn't we as individuals spend more time preparing? Are we helping others - are we helping ourselves - to find the work that really matters for us? Or do we condemn ourselves to a loveless career marriage?
Loveless marriages generally don't turn out well. Neither do loveless careers.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Selling Myself
I need to work on changing myself.
I am realizing that if I want a new job - good heavens, a new career - I need to gain more skills. Simply put, I am not (apparently) marketable in my current condition.
That said, let's approach this like I am selling something else. How do I market something to sell it?
1) Need: What does the customer need? What are they buying (hiring) my line of work for?
2) Features: Why are they buying the product (me)? What do they expect from the product (me)? What features is missing that they are looking for?
3) Marketing: From an unbiased view, how do I appear as a marketed product? Is how I am presented representative of the product I am? Does how I am presented match their need? Am I the "New Coke" of my industry?
4) Failure Why haven't you succeeded in your efforts up to now? What has gone wrong in all your communications and presentation to this point?
Interestingly, I think the failure aspect is the one most interesting to me at this point. Things have occurred in the last year, but nothing has come to fruition. Why? Is it the company's situation? (Yes, in some cases) Is it that I was not appropriately skilled? (Yes, in some cases) Is it that I had an opportunity and threw it away? (Unfortunately, yes in at least one case)
Would I like to do something else? Sure. Could my current line of work fund that something else? Absolutely.
If I am selling me (which I am), would I purchase me? Would you purchase you?
I am realizing that if I want a new job - good heavens, a new career - I need to gain more skills. Simply put, I am not (apparently) marketable in my current condition.
That said, let's approach this like I am selling something else. How do I market something to sell it?
1) Need: What does the customer need? What are they buying (hiring) my line of work for?
2) Features: Why are they buying the product (me)? What do they expect from the product (me)? What features is missing that they are looking for?
3) Marketing: From an unbiased view, how do I appear as a marketed product? Is how I am presented representative of the product I am? Does how I am presented match their need? Am I the "New Coke" of my industry?
4) Failure Why haven't you succeeded in your efforts up to now? What has gone wrong in all your communications and presentation to this point?
Interestingly, I think the failure aspect is the one most interesting to me at this point. Things have occurred in the last year, but nothing has come to fruition. Why? Is it the company's situation? (Yes, in some cases) Is it that I was not appropriately skilled? (Yes, in some cases) Is it that I had an opportunity and threw it away? (Unfortunately, yes in at least one case)
Would I like to do something else? Sure. Could my current line of work fund that something else? Absolutely.
If I am selling me (which I am), would I purchase me? Would you purchase you?
Monday, September 20, 2010
Inner and Outer Change
What am I working towards?
It occurred to me yesterday afternoon as we sat through Week Five of Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University as he discussed his financial story (in brief, millionaire by 26, lost it all [and I mean ALL], rebuilt it all) - not the money part, but the part about what he had to become through the entire process.
If I want more, am I working like I want more - more responsibility, more time, more money? Or am I mired in the belief that I can be exactly like I am and somehow this things will accrue to me? Do people look at me as I work from day to day and say "This is a man who is intent on succeeding" or do they say "This is a man who is intent on staying where he is"?
A long time ago, a very wise man (my manager at the time) told me "I'm not telling you not to be yourself - look at me (and he was his own independent person) - but I might suggest that management might have a hard time promoting someone who jumps up and down and waves at people in the manufacturing suite through the window." I took what I understood to be his advice at the time by attempting to bolt on a series of "adult" behaviors, but only now (12 years later) do I see it in all of it's fruition.
It's not about changing your essence, your inner person - although that can happen, I suppose. It's not about performing a series of rituals - dress better, be serious, never laugh - as an outer coating of responsibility. It's about becoming a person of more value in whatever field of work you are in by becoming more skilled, more competent, more responsible.
If you're low on the totem pole and poor, people think you are crazy and not responsible. If you're high on the totem pole with a history of success, people think you are eccentric - good at what you do, but eccentric.
I want to be eccentric.
It occurred to me yesterday afternoon as we sat through Week Five of Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University as he discussed his financial story (in brief, millionaire by 26, lost it all [and I mean ALL], rebuilt it all) - not the money part, but the part about what he had to become through the entire process.
If I want more, am I working like I want more - more responsibility, more time, more money? Or am I mired in the belief that I can be exactly like I am and somehow this things will accrue to me? Do people look at me as I work from day to day and say "This is a man who is intent on succeeding" or do they say "This is a man who is intent on staying where he is"?
A long time ago, a very wise man (my manager at the time) told me "I'm not telling you not to be yourself - look at me (and he was his own independent person) - but I might suggest that management might have a hard time promoting someone who jumps up and down and waves at people in the manufacturing suite through the window." I took what I understood to be his advice at the time by attempting to bolt on a series of "adult" behaviors, but only now (12 years later) do I see it in all of it's fruition.
It's not about changing your essence, your inner person - although that can happen, I suppose. It's not about performing a series of rituals - dress better, be serious, never laugh - as an outer coating of responsibility. It's about becoming a person of more value in whatever field of work you are in by becoming more skilled, more competent, more responsible.
If you're low on the totem pole and poor, people think you are crazy and not responsible. If you're high on the totem pole with a history of success, people think you are eccentric - good at what you do, but eccentric.
I want to be eccentric.
Friday, September 17, 2010
A Word To The Young
So this is a message this morning for the young. You older people can eavesdrop if you want.
Be very careful what you do growing up.
Here's the thing: your past follows you around forever. Sometimes in ways and places you cannot possibly imagine.
We all do stupid things. We all go a little temporarily insane. It's okay, it's just part of growing up. The question you have to ask yourself - before you actually go anywhere to do these things - is "What is this going to mean 20 years from now?" Temporarily insane - like, let's say, dressing up and travelling to your local shopping metropolis looking like a rock group from the sixties may be okay. Drinking yourself under the table because it feels good and "Lord knows, you're incredibly funny when you drink" while a camera is in the vicinity is probably not.
Trust me on this - 40 year old you will not think as charitably on the stupid things as 20 year old you did. And, it undercuts a lot of what you might hope to do later in life. That image you carefully try to craft can be completely undone by something that happened one brief moment in time, 20 years ago.
Be smart. Plan. What do you really want to do with your life, not just how do you want to enjoy your life right now?
Be very careful what you do growing up.
Here's the thing: your past follows you around forever. Sometimes in ways and places you cannot possibly imagine.
We all do stupid things. We all go a little temporarily insane. It's okay, it's just part of growing up. The question you have to ask yourself - before you actually go anywhere to do these things - is "What is this going to mean 20 years from now?" Temporarily insane - like, let's say, dressing up and travelling to your local shopping metropolis looking like a rock group from the sixties may be okay. Drinking yourself under the table because it feels good and "Lord knows, you're incredibly funny when you drink" while a camera is in the vicinity is probably not.
Trust me on this - 40 year old you will not think as charitably on the stupid things as 20 year old you did. And, it undercuts a lot of what you might hope to do later in life. That image you carefully try to craft can be completely undone by something that happened one brief moment in time, 20 years ago.
Be smart. Plan. What do you really want to do with your life, not just how do you want to enjoy your life right now?
Thursday, September 16, 2010
The Truck
The Truck will be going soon.
We got The Truck in 2005 from my great aunt, a gift from my father for something I could not afford but wanted. It was a 1987 Ford F-250 with only 55,000 miles on it and camper shell, originally a boat towing truck for them. The price was right, and so it came to live with us in Old Home.
I loved The Truck. It was big, it was high, it rattled as I drove it . I could haul all kinds of things in it. It had good air conditioning, a tape player for my older cassettes, and an actual CB. It was a thing of beauty. Smaller cars or more expensive vehicles sheered away in fear as I drove by.
But then life happened. The layoff came, followed by the move. I couldn't justify flying back a third time to drive another item out, nor the cost of the gas to get here. But I hung onto it, sort of the last toehold in Old Home of the life we had, not wanting to get rid of it.
And then I got the revised insurance bill. Suddenly, having the revised toehold became less important than not paying the insurance.
So The Truck will be up for sale soon. But more importantly, the last bit of Old Home will be going up for sale as well.
It is, I suppose, an admittance of something which has already been self evident to almost everyone else at this point: we are here for a longer haul than I had either anticipated or initially wished. That's not a bad thing I suppose, nor is it particularly unwelcome; it's just a case of reality smacking me across the face with "Deal with where you are, not the idealization of where you were."
We got The Truck in 2005 from my great aunt, a gift from my father for something I could not afford but wanted. It was a 1987 Ford F-250 with only 55,000 miles on it and camper shell, originally a boat towing truck for them. The price was right, and so it came to live with us in Old Home.
I loved The Truck. It was big, it was high, it rattled as I drove it . I could haul all kinds of things in it. It had good air conditioning, a tape player for my older cassettes, and an actual CB. It was a thing of beauty. Smaller cars or more expensive vehicles sheered away in fear as I drove by.
But then life happened. The layoff came, followed by the move. I couldn't justify flying back a third time to drive another item out, nor the cost of the gas to get here. But I hung onto it, sort of the last toehold in Old Home of the life we had, not wanting to get rid of it.
And then I got the revised insurance bill. Suddenly, having the revised toehold became less important than not paying the insurance.
So The Truck will be up for sale soon. But more importantly, the last bit of Old Home will be going up for sale as well.
It is, I suppose, an admittance of something which has already been self evident to almost everyone else at this point: we are here for a longer haul than I had either anticipated or initially wished. That's not a bad thing I suppose, nor is it particularly unwelcome; it's just a case of reality smacking me across the face with "Deal with where you are, not the idealization of where you were."
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Work and Relationships
I am starting to have a change in my life. We'll see if it sticks.
It happened on Monday, and interestingly it may have been Fear Mor who initiated it. As I was rushing out the door (obviously a bit frustrated by the start of events on Monday) he said "Why don't you just quit?" He probably meant it in jest, but my response was somewhat more "enthusiastic" than I had anticipated: "I don't have another option at this point. I need this job."
I didn't think much about it as I ran through my day, and then ran through yesterday as well - except that at the end of the day as I went home, I suddenly realized I had developed an edge. I was leaving at a time I chose (not a time I wanted, but we're working on that), having accomplished a fair amount at work, on my terms. In other words, I had actually been proactive.
Proactivity, as you may recall, is the first of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr. Stephen Covey. As part of my retrenchment and reconsideration, I have begun rereading his book and listening to the CD I have of him.
One thing that I have realized that being proactive means (at least to me) is that I actually accomplish something, rather than mark time being somewhere. Yes, it's important to maintain good relationships (more important in my line of work than most); at the same time, I can have great relationships and get nothing accomplished.
The other thought this provoked was around the future direction of my life. I really enjoy those with whom I work, but the reality is that I will not work with these good folks forever. If I sacrifice my future to make my present livable I've not really gained anything either now or in the future.
Relationships are important - indeed, some of my greatest friends now (Bogha Frois, Songbird) came out of work relationships. But they were relationships founded through work and built on common interests, not founded to the exclusion of work in favor of catering to the individual.
Work and good relationships are not mutually exclusive - but both must be managed actively so that one does not overcome the other.
"Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done." - James Ling, American Businessman
It happened on Monday, and interestingly it may have been Fear Mor who initiated it. As I was rushing out the door (obviously a bit frustrated by the start of events on Monday) he said "Why don't you just quit?" He probably meant it in jest, but my response was somewhat more "enthusiastic" than I had anticipated: "I don't have another option at this point. I need this job."
I didn't think much about it as I ran through my day, and then ran through yesterday as well - except that at the end of the day as I went home, I suddenly realized I had developed an edge. I was leaving at a time I chose (not a time I wanted, but we're working on that), having accomplished a fair amount at work, on my terms. In other words, I had actually been proactive.
Proactivity, as you may recall, is the first of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr. Stephen Covey. As part of my retrenchment and reconsideration, I have begun rereading his book and listening to the CD I have of him.
One thing that I have realized that being proactive means (at least to me) is that I actually accomplish something, rather than mark time being somewhere. Yes, it's important to maintain good relationships (more important in my line of work than most); at the same time, I can have great relationships and get nothing accomplished.
The other thought this provoked was around the future direction of my life. I really enjoy those with whom I work, but the reality is that I will not work with these good folks forever. If I sacrifice my future to make my present livable I've not really gained anything either now or in the future.
Relationships are important - indeed, some of my greatest friends now (Bogha Frois, Songbird) came out of work relationships. But they were relationships founded through work and built on common interests, not founded to the exclusion of work in favor of catering to the individual.
Work and good relationships are not mutually exclusive - but both must be managed actively so that one does not overcome the other.
"Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done." - James Ling, American Businessman
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Work and Boundaries II
So how did I do yesterday, you might ask? Did I start to set the boundaries between work and home?
Well, yes and no. Yes in the sense that I got to work, worked with purpose most of the day, and was able to focus.
No in the sense that I almost got sucked back in.
Sure enough, the project I spent the the morning working on had a meeting called in the afternoon. More appropriately, there was a meeting called about the project I worked on yesterday. I was not invited.
I lingered after my predetermined departure time. Would I be called in? How would it look if my boss came looking for me and I was gone?
And then I realized that the non-invitation was the choice of the meeting organizer, not myself. I was going to linger based on an impression that may or may not happen? I was going to assume the mantle of a project which had not been given to me?
And so, 45 minutes (but not the usual hour or hour and a half) after the fact, I headed home. Not great, but earlier than I had left in a long time.
The morale of the story: don't assume the mantle of responsibility for those things that you are not responsible for.
Well, yes and no. Yes in the sense that I got to work, worked with purpose most of the day, and was able to focus.
No in the sense that I almost got sucked back in.
Sure enough, the project I spent the the morning working on had a meeting called in the afternoon. More appropriately, there was a meeting called about the project I worked on yesterday. I was not invited.
I lingered after my predetermined departure time. Would I be called in? How would it look if my boss came looking for me and I was gone?
And then I realized that the non-invitation was the choice of the meeting organizer, not myself. I was going to linger based on an impression that may or may not happen? I was going to assume the mantle of a project which had not been given to me?
And so, 45 minutes (but not the usual hour or hour and a half) after the fact, I headed home. Not great, but earlier than I had left in a long time.
The morale of the story: don't assume the mantle of responsibility for those things that you are not responsible for.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Work and Boundaries
I have got to draw boundaries at work.
Work is rapidly coming to consume my daily existence. Without trying, I spend 9-10 hours day there - plus commute (and the longer I work, the longer I the commute).
This is the first job I've had this issue with. Before, I set my boundaries clearly: 8 hours, 30 minutes for lunch then out the door. But at this job, I seem to have created my own issue. Initially I worked longer because I wanted to make a good impression and I was living here on my own. Then, we got issued the order that someone would stay until 6; rather than switch out, I just started staying 12 hours every 6 weeks. Then things started coming at the last minute which those in power above me demanded be done "now".
What happens? One loses their incentive to hold to the 8 hour day, since it really doesn't matter anyway.
But it does matter. I've realized that my productivity has gone down a great deal. Why? There's no incentive to accomplish in 8 what you're expected to do in 10. Suddenly time is not a currency, it's a commodity, something which seems beyond your power to control.
The results? More time at work, more time commuting, less happiness, less family time, greater sense of job frustration and most ironically of all, lesser ability to do my job. By time not being a currency, it becomes much more difficult to discern and complete the most important tasks.
So that has to change.
Starting today, it's time to change. Time to reclaim my life (and maybe my sanity?). Time to tell work "I do 8 hours of work a day - real work, not time serving on premises. I will work on the most critical tasks. I will meet my timelines. But my life is not yours."
It's time to start making time a currency once more.
Work is rapidly coming to consume my daily existence. Without trying, I spend 9-10 hours day there - plus commute (and the longer I work, the longer I the commute).
This is the first job I've had this issue with. Before, I set my boundaries clearly: 8 hours, 30 minutes for lunch then out the door. But at this job, I seem to have created my own issue. Initially I worked longer because I wanted to make a good impression and I was living here on my own. Then, we got issued the order that someone would stay until 6; rather than switch out, I just started staying 12 hours every 6 weeks. Then things started coming at the last minute which those in power above me demanded be done "now".
What happens? One loses their incentive to hold to the 8 hour day, since it really doesn't matter anyway.
But it does matter. I've realized that my productivity has gone down a great deal. Why? There's no incentive to accomplish in 8 what you're expected to do in 10. Suddenly time is not a currency, it's a commodity, something which seems beyond your power to control.
The results? More time at work, more time commuting, less happiness, less family time, greater sense of job frustration and most ironically of all, lesser ability to do my job. By time not being a currency, it becomes much more difficult to discern and complete the most important tasks.
So that has to change.
Starting today, it's time to change. Time to reclaim my life (and maybe my sanity?). Time to tell work "I do 8 hours of work a day - real work, not time serving on premises. I will work on the most critical tasks. I will meet my timelines. But my life is not yours."
It's time to start making time a currency once more.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
The Unseen World
"An Australian business leader once told me when he shared his faith with a Japanese CEO the response was dismissive: 'Whenever I meet a Buddhist leader, I meet a holy man in touch with another world. Whenever I meet a Christian leader, I meet a manager at home only this world like I am.'" - Os Guinness, The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life
Nighean Gheal has recently discovered the joys of Japanese Anime, especially that of Hayao Miyazaki, creator of Kiki's Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, and Spirited Away. I have found them extremely enjoyable myself as well: they are well written, have fantastic artwork, and have storylines with good messages, especially for young girls (of which I am extremely interested.
One of the themes that Miyazaki deals with is the concept of natural spirits that dwell alongside the human world. This themes may not be surprising, as Miyazaki is Japanese and has been at the very least surrounded by the religion of Shinto, the native religion of Japan which concerns itself with man's relationship with the kami, essences or deities which may be human like or natural forces which inhabit the world with us.
As I went to bed last night thinking of how much I enjoyed My Neighbor Totoro, I was struck by the fact that these films - and indeed the Shinto religion - posits the fact that there is a supernatural world that exists around us and that we participate it. The thought then sprung to my mind of the quote from Os Guinness' book listed above, where a Japanese business reflects that most of the Christian leaders he had met were men that only reflected this world.
This, it occurs to me, is a challenge for Christians.
No, I'm not calling for some kind of sudden realization of seeing Angels in my yard and Demons in my car in the morning ("Out Out, ye Demons of The Dysfunctional Air Conditioner"). At the same time, we proclaim that there is a world beyond this one, that there are presences among us - indeed a God among us - that intervenes in our lives.
The comparison I can make is that of telling my daughters that we are driving through an area with deer. They will strain and seek under every clump of darkness looking for the deer - and then the excitement when they find one! Compare that with just driving through a forest going "Look kids, trees". There is no anticipation, no excitement - just acceptance that things are as they appear to be.
Guinness postulates that secularism of Western Culture has done this to us. I suppose so, but it occurs to me that Christians have done this to ourselves. We have so carefully stripped any way of God coming to us except intellectually and perhaps emotionally (occasionally, it depends on the circumstance) that when we read as in Psalm 19:1 "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork" or in Psalm 96: 11-12:
"Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad;
Let the sea roar, and all its fullness;
Let the field be joyful and all that is in it.
Then all the trees of the woods will rejoice before the Lord."
that we cannot see either God at work or God's handiwork rejoicing in Him by doing what He created them to do.
Again, I'm not calling for dryads in the oaks or wood spirits living in my bamboo. But do we as Christians reflect that there is another realm among us by how we live? Or are we convincing the world that we are just like they are, except we have a frosting layer of religion on top?
Nighean Gheal has recently discovered the joys of Japanese Anime, especially that of Hayao Miyazaki, creator of Kiki's Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, and Spirited Away. I have found them extremely enjoyable myself as well: they are well written, have fantastic artwork, and have storylines with good messages, especially for young girls (of which I am extremely interested.
One of the themes that Miyazaki deals with is the concept of natural spirits that dwell alongside the human world. This themes may not be surprising, as Miyazaki is Japanese and has been at the very least surrounded by the religion of Shinto, the native religion of Japan which concerns itself with man's relationship with the kami, essences or deities which may be human like or natural forces which inhabit the world with us.
As I went to bed last night thinking of how much I enjoyed My Neighbor Totoro, I was struck by the fact that these films - and indeed the Shinto religion - posits the fact that there is a supernatural world that exists around us and that we participate it. The thought then sprung to my mind of the quote from Os Guinness' book listed above, where a Japanese business reflects that most of the Christian leaders he had met were men that only reflected this world.
This, it occurs to me, is a challenge for Christians.
No, I'm not calling for some kind of sudden realization of seeing Angels in my yard and Demons in my car in the morning ("Out Out, ye Demons of The Dysfunctional Air Conditioner"). At the same time, we proclaim that there is a world beyond this one, that there are presences among us - indeed a God among us - that intervenes in our lives.
The comparison I can make is that of telling my daughters that we are driving through an area with deer. They will strain and seek under every clump of darkness looking for the deer - and then the excitement when they find one! Compare that with just driving through a forest going "Look kids, trees". There is no anticipation, no excitement - just acceptance that things are as they appear to be.
Guinness postulates that secularism of Western Culture has done this to us. I suppose so, but it occurs to me that Christians have done this to ourselves. We have so carefully stripped any way of God coming to us except intellectually and perhaps emotionally (occasionally, it depends on the circumstance) that when we read as in Psalm 19:1 "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork" or in Psalm 96: 11-12:
"Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad;
Let the sea roar, and all its fullness;
Let the field be joyful and all that is in it.
Then all the trees of the woods will rejoice before the Lord."
that we cannot see either God at work or God's handiwork rejoicing in Him by doing what He created them to do.
Again, I'm not calling for dryads in the oaks or wood spirits living in my bamboo. But do we as Christians reflect that there is another realm among us by how we live? Or are we convincing the world that we are just like they are, except we have a frosting layer of religion on top?
Friday, September 10, 2010
Apathy
Apathy: 1) Lack of feeling or emotion, impassiveness; 2) Lack of interest or concern, indifference.
I realized yesterday as I left work that I am suffering from a frightening, almost toxic level of apathy about my job. It's not to the point of making a serious error, but it is to the point of impacting my ability to do my job effectively on a daily basis.
Why is this?
I'd like to say that it is something that is being forced on my by circumstances beyond my control, by individuals and movements and events which I am a victim of. That in fact no matter how hard I can try, it's like walking uphill against an avalanche.
I'd like to say that. The reality is, while it all may very well be true, they're only excuses, not reasons. The reason that I don't care is that I choose to not care.
Ouch.
Why do I work? This was the question that confronted me as I walked through this exercise. Obviously it's not because I am deeply impacted by what I do - I should want to do a good job, but there is not sense that what I do impacts my life. I attempted to walk through this exercise by doing a Logic Tree - an exercise where one asks "Why?", then lists possible answers, then asks "Why?" again and lists more answers, and so on. This exercise, also known as "The Five Whys" will eventually lead to the root cause of an event or action.
Or should. My Logic Tree was not very persuasive. Moving from why I work is to get money, I then went to "Why do I need to get money?". My eventual answers - Because I'm the dad and it's my job, because it allows me to be a good Christian witness by supporting, tithing, and being and good employee, and that it allows me to pay for things for Na Clann - were not the sort of answers that made me excited when I looked at them.
The bottom line why I don't care: I choose not to. Why do I choose not to? Therein lies the rub. All the answers that come to my mind - it doesn't matter, it's not important, it's not relevant, you benefit others who would cast you aside in a moment if needed - all in the end condemn me. They may be true, but they are things that happen outside of me. The apathy is within me.
Why don't I care? Because overwhelmed with the sheer number of tasks to be accomplished and an atmosphere of indifference, I have made the conscious decision that I would rather do little than do a lot because me feeling like I am doing meaningful work is more important to me than me being one of the few that cares, even if it gets me nothing. I would rather wallow in indifference and failure than expend effort on something which benefits my life no more than allowing me to make a salary. I have chosen to accept that my emotional fulfillment is more important than doing the right thing, even if it means I will not do the things I think I should do.
And that constant note of me, mine and I does nothing to present either a good witness for Christ nor a good example to my family of how one works even if one doesn't care for what one is doing.
I realized yesterday as I left work that I am suffering from a frightening, almost toxic level of apathy about my job. It's not to the point of making a serious error, but it is to the point of impacting my ability to do my job effectively on a daily basis.
Why is this?
I'd like to say that it is something that is being forced on my by circumstances beyond my control, by individuals and movements and events which I am a victim of. That in fact no matter how hard I can try, it's like walking uphill against an avalanche.
I'd like to say that. The reality is, while it all may very well be true, they're only excuses, not reasons. The reason that I don't care is that I choose to not care.
Ouch.
Why do I work? This was the question that confronted me as I walked through this exercise. Obviously it's not because I am deeply impacted by what I do - I should want to do a good job, but there is not sense that what I do impacts my life. I attempted to walk through this exercise by doing a Logic Tree - an exercise where one asks "Why?", then lists possible answers, then asks "Why?" again and lists more answers, and so on. This exercise, also known as "The Five Whys" will eventually lead to the root cause of an event or action.
Or should. My Logic Tree was not very persuasive. Moving from why I work is to get money, I then went to "Why do I need to get money?". My eventual answers - Because I'm the dad and it's my job, because it allows me to be a good Christian witness by supporting, tithing, and being and good employee, and that it allows me to pay for things for Na Clann - were not the sort of answers that made me excited when I looked at them.
The bottom line why I don't care: I choose not to. Why do I choose not to? Therein lies the rub. All the answers that come to my mind - it doesn't matter, it's not important, it's not relevant, you benefit others who would cast you aside in a moment if needed - all in the end condemn me. They may be true, but they are things that happen outside of me. The apathy is within me.
Why don't I care? Because overwhelmed with the sheer number of tasks to be accomplished and an atmosphere of indifference, I have made the conscious decision that I would rather do little than do a lot because me feeling like I am doing meaningful work is more important to me than me being one of the few that cares, even if it gets me nothing. I would rather wallow in indifference and failure than expend effort on something which benefits my life no more than allowing me to make a salary. I have chosen to accept that my emotional fulfillment is more important than doing the right thing, even if it means I will not do the things I think I should do.
And that constant note of me, mine and I does nothing to present either a good witness for Christ nor a good example to my family of how one works even if one doesn't care for what one is doing.
Thursday, September 09, 2010
Two People, One Body
There are two personalities that seem to coexist somewhat uncomfortably in my skin.
The first is that of the Entertainer - a rather happy go lucky fellow that cracks jokes, gently mocks others, and tries to ensure that he gets along with everyone around him. He seems to go out of his way to make sure that things go as smoothly as possibly both for himself and everyone around him. In a lot of ways he's a "Hail, Well Met" fellow who seems to throw many of the typical aspects of relationships on their head.
The second is that of the Warrior - a somewhat grim, serious fellow that seeks to lead a life of purpose and honor. He wants to do great things, and sees that the path to do them is through dedication and action. He can become quite motivated and aggressive in pushing things forward; however he places relationships on a lesser plane than purpose.
How long have they been with me? If I sit and think about it, as long as I can remember. I have always craved attention, people liking, the sound of a laugh I produced just I have always craved a life of passion, honor, and purpose.
My problem is that the two of them often seem to work at counter purposes: the Entertainer wants to be liked, the Warrior wants to accomplish (and not care about being liked per se); the Entertainer wants to be happy, the Warrior wants to do; the Entertainer wants to create a laugh, the Warrior wants to move through life making an impact.
So here's the question: are these really two different people, or just two sides of the same coin? What are the common themes in them? How can I mesh them together so that there is no disconnect between the one and the other, no tacking back and forth, such that the energy wasted in being one or the other is transformed into the working of a fully integrated personality?
The first is that of the Entertainer - a rather happy go lucky fellow that cracks jokes, gently mocks others, and tries to ensure that he gets along with everyone around him. He seems to go out of his way to make sure that things go as smoothly as possibly both for himself and everyone around him. In a lot of ways he's a "Hail, Well Met" fellow who seems to throw many of the typical aspects of relationships on their head.
The second is that of the Warrior - a somewhat grim, serious fellow that seeks to lead a life of purpose and honor. He wants to do great things, and sees that the path to do them is through dedication and action. He can become quite motivated and aggressive in pushing things forward; however he places relationships on a lesser plane than purpose.
How long have they been with me? If I sit and think about it, as long as I can remember. I have always craved attention, people liking, the sound of a laugh I produced just I have always craved a life of passion, honor, and purpose.
My problem is that the two of them often seem to work at counter purposes: the Entertainer wants to be liked, the Warrior wants to accomplish (and not care about being liked per se); the Entertainer wants to be happy, the Warrior wants to do; the Entertainer wants to create a laugh, the Warrior wants to move through life making an impact.
So here's the question: are these really two different people, or just two sides of the same coin? What are the common themes in them? How can I mesh them together so that there is no disconnect between the one and the other, no tacking back and forth, such that the energy wasted in being one or the other is transformed into the working of a fully integrated personality?
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Blustery Wednesday
Who am I?
Not who I am, the persona I put before the world,
the image that walks with me as I get up in the morning
and goes to bed every night;
But the person that I am under all this,
the one who was here before years of schooling
and work and life itself was poured over it.
If being truly great is tied to truly being yourself,
Who am I?
Surely it is not the man that stumbles out the door every day,
immersed all day in a tsunami of paper and regulations
which will someday be packed into a box?
Surely it is not the man who so often has to "settle"
rather than do the right and correct?
Surely it is not the man to whom honor
is made to mean no more than taking the responsibility
others will not take?
Who am I?
Not who I am, the persona I put before the world,
the image that walks with me as I get up in the morning
and goes to bed every night;
But the person that I am under all this,
the one who was here before years of schooling
and work and life itself was poured over it.
If being truly great is tied to truly being yourself,
Who am I?
Surely it is not the man that stumbles out the door every day,
immersed all day in a tsunami of paper and regulations
which will someday be packed into a box?
Surely it is not the man who so often has to "settle"
rather than do the right and correct?
Surely it is not the man to whom honor
is made to mean no more than taking the responsibility
others will not take?
Who am I?
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
A Slight Veer
As I thought through my objectives for the end of the year yesterday, I realized that there was one slight adjustment I needed to make to my plans: that of agreeing to put off any job search until the end of the year.
One of the key elements in my life which is creating stress for me at this time is my job - both from an "I don't really fit in this pigeonhole" category as well as the concept of "toxic work environment." The thought of abandoning any action on this front - to merely agree to continue to exist for a period of time without action - will in reality do nothing for my ongoing issues. In an attempt to bypass dealing with the problem, I will merely create an environment which will exacerbate the problem.
So I will continue to work on my goals (7 categories as suggested by Brian Tracy; one is already down) but I will equally attempt to move forward on my career search. To stop all action is to settle into mediocrity, and to become mediocre is to abandon all hope.
One of the key elements in my life which is creating stress for me at this time is my job - both from an "I don't really fit in this pigeonhole" category as well as the concept of "toxic work environment." The thought of abandoning any action on this front - to merely agree to continue to exist for a period of time without action - will in reality do nothing for my ongoing issues. In an attempt to bypass dealing with the problem, I will merely create an environment which will exacerbate the problem.
So I will continue to work on my goals (7 categories as suggested by Brian Tracy; one is already down) but I will equally attempt to move forward on my career search. To stop all action is to settle into mediocrity, and to become mediocre is to abandon all hope.
Monday, September 06, 2010
Becoming Myself
It's Labor Day, so I am celebrating (somewhat ironically, I suppose) by not laboring.
I spent part of the afternoon engaged in Radical Careering by Sally Hogshead (to add the fun, it was a free e-book!) which is a reasonably straightforward, in-your-face book about managing your career (versus managing your job) - the actual layout of the book is probably as much of a joy to read as is the book itself.
The best quote I got from the book from the first reading (out of a plethora of great quotes) is "You can be truly great only when you can truly be yourself".
If I had to point to a disconnect now, that would be it. I am not truly "myself" in the positions I've held, both from the point of view of what I do and the point of view of who I am at work. To be sure, I've bent the rules wherever I can, creating this sort "reasonable crazy person" image that follows me around - but at the core there is still a sense of having to kowtow to a greater corporate culture, a sort of bureaucracy that stifles any innovation or creativity except in prescribed channels. And that doesn't address the core matter of what I deal with from day to day: important to be sure, but incredibly boring minutiae that so often has to be fought over to garner attention.
So here's the question: Who am I? And how do I become myself at work?
I spent part of the afternoon engaged in Radical Careering by Sally Hogshead (to add the fun, it was a free e-book!) which is a reasonably straightforward, in-your-face book about managing your career (versus managing your job) - the actual layout of the book is probably as much of a joy to read as is the book itself.
The best quote I got from the book from the first reading (out of a plethora of great quotes) is "You can be truly great only when you can truly be yourself".
If I had to point to a disconnect now, that would be it. I am not truly "myself" in the positions I've held, both from the point of view of what I do and the point of view of who I am at work. To be sure, I've bent the rules wherever I can, creating this sort "reasonable crazy person" image that follows me around - but at the core there is still a sense of having to kowtow to a greater corporate culture, a sort of bureaucracy that stifles any innovation or creativity except in prescribed channels. And that doesn't address the core matter of what I deal with from day to day: important to be sure, but incredibly boring minutiae that so often has to be fought over to garner attention.
So here's the question: Who am I? And how do I become myself at work?
Friday, September 03, 2010
The Book of Depression
Maybe I'll write a book called "The Anatomy of Depression". It could be a sort of user's guide, a daily recording of depression, what sparks them, and when they seem to blow over and when the return.
It's the one thing I could probably write better than anything else, having lived with it for so many years now. I'm minded of it as I go through the ebb and flow of it this week: depressed Monday and Tuesday, happy for half of Wednesday, then sliding back into it on Thursday to (probably) end Friday on it.
If you had to ask me for an impression I'd say a tunnel, a long tunnel with no outlets, no sense of an end. Life almost becomes a series of motions you go through, things you have to do rather than things you participate in and enjoy.
For example: it is 0600 and I have one more day of work until a three day weekend. I can honestly say that right now I have no sense of any excitement or anticipation of anything I will do at work, just things I have to do as I wander through my day. And afterwards? Again, no sense of anything but three days not being at work.
And so it goes: every day a duty, a thing to be moved through rather than a thing to be anticipated and enjoyed. What would it be to anticipate a day? I can barely imagine it - if there is a sense of future and optimism it is generally far from me.
It is so easy for me to hope in others, to see the best in them and their possibilities and their eventual successes yet almost impossible for me to see the same in myself. Why is that?
It's the one thing I could probably write better than anything else, having lived with it for so many years now. I'm minded of it as I go through the ebb and flow of it this week: depressed Monday and Tuesday, happy for half of Wednesday, then sliding back into it on Thursday to (probably) end Friday on it.
If you had to ask me for an impression I'd say a tunnel, a long tunnel with no outlets, no sense of an end. Life almost becomes a series of motions you go through, things you have to do rather than things you participate in and enjoy.
For example: it is 0600 and I have one more day of work until a three day weekend. I can honestly say that right now I have no sense of any excitement or anticipation of anything I will do at work, just things I have to do as I wander through my day. And afterwards? Again, no sense of anything but three days not being at work.
And so it goes: every day a duty, a thing to be moved through rather than a thing to be anticipated and enjoyed. What would it be to anticipate a day? I can barely imagine it - if there is a sense of future and optimism it is generally far from me.
It is so easy for me to hope in others, to see the best in them and their possibilities and their eventual successes yet almost impossible for me to see the same in myself. Why is that?
Thursday, September 02, 2010
How Do I Work?
"Exhort bondservants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well pleasing in all things, not answering back, not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things." - Titus 2: 9-10
How does my work measure up to this standard? This was the thought that tugged at my mind as I got up this morning to start getting ready for my job. How good of an employee am I?
Am I obedient to my own bosses? Am I well pleasing in everything I do at work? Do I not answer back? Do I not pilfer? Do I show all good fidelity (e.g. loyalty)? Do I adorn the doctrine of God in all things?
These are questions that make me squirm and squiggle away as I look at them - both because of my inability to respond to them as I should and the fact that I would consider myself a "good" worker, although not by the standards.
Note the focus (yet again for the slow in the audience like me): the point is not about my or my work (note that the words "self actualization" or "enjoy what you do" are not in there), it's about adorning the doctrine of God, to make it real for all those I work with.
As I consider these, I wonder where I changed. I've this sense that I used to be a much more diligent employee than I am now. I can't pin down in my mind where "the change" occurred, but as I think about it it may have been a combination of two factors: 1) The realization in my industry that any company will take all the effort you give it but will lay you off without a second thought ( and the secondary realization that all my effort is wasted and put into a cardboard box to be stored off site); and 2) The Firm, where we punctuated times of extreme labor with periods of less extreme labor.
The image I get from Paul's writing is that of someone who is active and busy the whole time they are at work, not sitting around and conversing (pilfering time counts) or complaining about the direction of the company or people in the company, loyally serving those in the structure above them instead of picking apart every flaw and overanalysing every action.
The part that then rears up inside of me is "Yes, but that's pretty much slavery (interestingly, that's who Paul was writing this to). If I do that, I put myself completely at the mercy of everyone around me. With no sense of what's occurring in the company I'll be the last one surprised by a drastic change that leave me over the side or gasping for air as I'm thrown under the bus. And advancement? Forget that. My career will become marooned in a small corner of the work universe as others go on to greater things because I 'worked' rather than playing the game."
That, of course, discounts the intervention of God. If I am adorning the doctrine of God in my work by how I work and leaving the results up to Him, it is a form of exercising faith by being obedient and leaving the rest to Him. The Bible is pretty clear that in these circumstances God will move - but He gets the glory, not me.
So how am I going to work today? Will I adorn the doctrine of God by my actions and attitudes of work (Dear Lord, can I go 24 hours without one negative comment?) or will I spend another day stripping the doctrine of God by my actions and attitudes?
How does my work measure up to this standard? This was the thought that tugged at my mind as I got up this morning to start getting ready for my job. How good of an employee am I?
Am I obedient to my own bosses? Am I well pleasing in everything I do at work? Do I not answer back? Do I not pilfer? Do I show all good fidelity (e.g. loyalty)? Do I adorn the doctrine of God in all things?
These are questions that make me squirm and squiggle away as I look at them - both because of my inability to respond to them as I should and the fact that I would consider myself a "good" worker, although not by the standards.
Note the focus (yet again for the slow in the audience like me): the point is not about my or my work (note that the words "self actualization" or "enjoy what you do" are not in there), it's about adorning the doctrine of God, to make it real for all those I work with.
As I consider these, I wonder where I changed. I've this sense that I used to be a much more diligent employee than I am now. I can't pin down in my mind where "the change" occurred, but as I think about it it may have been a combination of two factors: 1) The realization in my industry that any company will take all the effort you give it but will lay you off without a second thought ( and the secondary realization that all my effort is wasted and put into a cardboard box to be stored off site); and 2) The Firm, where we punctuated times of extreme labor with periods of less extreme labor.
The image I get from Paul's writing is that of someone who is active and busy the whole time they are at work, not sitting around and conversing (pilfering time counts) or complaining about the direction of the company or people in the company, loyally serving those in the structure above them instead of picking apart every flaw and overanalysing every action.
The part that then rears up inside of me is "Yes, but that's pretty much slavery (interestingly, that's who Paul was writing this to). If I do that, I put myself completely at the mercy of everyone around me. With no sense of what's occurring in the company I'll be the last one surprised by a drastic change that leave me over the side or gasping for air as I'm thrown under the bus. And advancement? Forget that. My career will become marooned in a small corner of the work universe as others go on to greater things because I 'worked' rather than playing the game."
That, of course, discounts the intervention of God. If I am adorning the doctrine of God in my work by how I work and leaving the results up to Him, it is a form of exercising faith by being obedient and leaving the rest to Him. The Bible is pretty clear that in these circumstances God will move - but He gets the glory, not me.
So how am I going to work today? Will I adorn the doctrine of God by my actions and attitudes of work (Dear Lord, can I go 24 hours without one negative comment?) or will I spend another day stripping the doctrine of God by my actions and attitudes?
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Never Underestimate The Power of A Good Deed
Yesterday started out to be the same as the day before, a dreary walk through reality to be concluded by the darkness of sleep. I meandered through the day, occasionally seeing glimpses of sunlight but then watching them flicker and die like embers into a fire.
Until I wandered past Silverline's desk (probably with the intent of getting something signed). I caught her in the midst of eating half a sandwich. She turned from the computer, looked at me, and said "Do you want half a sandwich?"
"No" I replied. "I'm good.
"Really. Take it. It's good."
"I'm good. I already at lunch.
Then she fixed me in her gaze and said "You had spinach for lunch, didn't you?" When my failure to meet her eyes indicated assent, she said "Here. Take it."
So I did. And it was good - some yummy teriyaki chicken thing with fresh vegetables and fresh bread. But the thing that was really good about it was the way I felt about it - not that the sandwich had any magical "sandwich power" (although food always makes me happy), but the kindness of the offer.
My day almost instantly improved.
I think we underestimate the good that we can do in the lives of others. We (or at least I) often think we need to do some great and noble thing. In reality, it is the simple kindnesses - rendered when someone is truly in need - that go farther towards making a difference in the life of another than all the great deeds and public actions combined.
Never underestimate the power of a good deed, and never fail to do them when the opportunity presents itself. You never know how badly the other person may need it.
Until I wandered past Silverline's desk (probably with the intent of getting something signed). I caught her in the midst of eating half a sandwich. She turned from the computer, looked at me, and said "Do you want half a sandwich?"
"No" I replied. "I'm good.
"Really. Take it. It's good."
"I'm good. I already at lunch.
Then she fixed me in her gaze and said "You had spinach for lunch, didn't you?" When my failure to meet her eyes indicated assent, she said "Here. Take it."
So I did. And it was good - some yummy teriyaki chicken thing with fresh vegetables and fresh bread. But the thing that was really good about it was the way I felt about it - not that the sandwich had any magical "sandwich power" (although food always makes me happy), but the kindness of the offer.
My day almost instantly improved.
I think we underestimate the good that we can do in the lives of others. We (or at least I) often think we need to do some great and noble thing. In reality, it is the simple kindnesses - rendered when someone is truly in need - that go farther towards making a difference in the life of another than all the great deeds and public actions combined.
Never underestimate the power of a good deed, and never fail to do them when the opportunity presents itself. You never know how badly the other person may need it.
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