We hit a sort of dividing line this past week, one of those things about which you get a hint of having a lasting impact on your life but which you can currently only see the hints of the outlines at the time.
Nighean Gheal graduated from 8th grade last week. It means a host of of things - a new school, a realigning of interests and activities, even a sense that college is not too far distant in the future. A sense of passing is here, a sense I cannot fully understand.
We are also buying a house - theoretically today. It is interesting in that it feels different than the two previous house purchases we had undertaken. The first was the stage of happiness: "Hey, we're buying a house!". The second, purchased during the time of The Firm, had the sense of "Hey, we're buying the house that we want!". This one has much more of the sense of doing something because it is the sensible thing to do less than with an input of this being a life changing or life enhancing event.
My parents were out to visit this week as well. Their visit gave me an opportunity to put a temporary hold on virtually every activity that I have been doing lately. Besides the general sense of letting my body recover (for which it is extremely grateful), it has opened a series of questions for me: Why am I doing what I am doing? Should I still be doing it? Are my beliefs and assumptions about life the correct ones - or do I need to re-examine those as well and from there consider what I need to be doing now?
All of this is swirling around, even as I "enjoy" the last day of my vacation before I go back.
It nags at my conscious. It plays at the back of my mind. It is the sense that things are moving under the surface of my life - and that, soon enough, they will reveal themselves.
Tuesday, June 04, 2013
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Heavier and Lighter
This Monday I finally finished re-wrapping my tsuka-ito..
This has been a long process - longer than I had initially intended. My last wrap of my hilt was not as tight as I needed it to be because it kept slipping over the folds. I kept meaning to get to it but kept finding reasons not to - it takes an afternoon to do it and I have always felt that my skills in this area are lacking.
As a result, I have found myself without my shinken for the better part of two months. In lieu of the shinken for practice I have been using my new bokuto - the longer version more reflective of the swords used in our style. I have been somewhat grumpy about this process: the bokuto is 3 inches longer and some pounds heavier than my previous version so my technique seems to have all come undone: my nukituske (draw) is much harder, with the sword not coming out like it is supposed to much of the time. My draw time is slower, my blocks less firm. It has put a certain amount of "unfun" in my daily practice.
But over the weekend I finally found the time I needed to finish my rewrap. I got it on the tsuka, let the knot dry, and then yesterday prepared to practice.
And was totally surprised.
The shinken was like a feather in my hand. My cuts flowed, my blocks were effortlessly. The drawing and sheathing of my shinken was like I have often tried to visualize it in my mind: smooth, quiet, almost reverent.
Suddenly the months of struggling through practice with the blade that was a little beyond me appeared as it really was: not just an exercise in learning to do the same activity better in a different way, but training the muscles in the use of something heavier and more bulky such that when the actual item is present, it was remarkably easy.
Will my bokuto practice immediately become easier? Of course not. I need to train to the heavier and longer blade - and besides, now I will have to consider a longer shinken (of 33 inches) to match my style. But now as I continue to try to cut and thrust, to block and sheathe, to see the blade dip low or move more slowly I can take comfort in the fact that it is not an exercise in futility. It is merely another exercise in training.
This has been a long process - longer than I had initially intended. My last wrap of my hilt was not as tight as I needed it to be because it kept slipping over the folds. I kept meaning to get to it but kept finding reasons not to - it takes an afternoon to do it and I have always felt that my skills in this area are lacking.
As a result, I have found myself without my shinken for the better part of two months. In lieu of the shinken for practice I have been using my new bokuto - the longer version more reflective of the swords used in our style. I have been somewhat grumpy about this process: the bokuto is 3 inches longer and some pounds heavier than my previous version so my technique seems to have all come undone: my nukituske (draw) is much harder, with the sword not coming out like it is supposed to much of the time. My draw time is slower, my blocks less firm. It has put a certain amount of "unfun" in my daily practice.
But over the weekend I finally found the time I needed to finish my rewrap. I got it on the tsuka, let the knot dry, and then yesterday prepared to practice.
And was totally surprised.
The shinken was like a feather in my hand. My cuts flowed, my blocks were effortlessly. The drawing and sheathing of my shinken was like I have often tried to visualize it in my mind: smooth, quiet, almost reverent.
Suddenly the months of struggling through practice with the blade that was a little beyond me appeared as it really was: not just an exercise in learning to do the same activity better in a different way, but training the muscles in the use of something heavier and more bulky such that when the actual item is present, it was remarkably easy.
Will my bokuto practice immediately become easier? Of course not. I need to train to the heavier and longer blade - and besides, now I will have to consider a longer shinken (of 33 inches) to match my style. But now as I continue to try to cut and thrust, to block and sheathe, to see the blade dip low or move more slowly I can take comfort in the fact that it is not an exercise in futility. It is merely another exercise in training.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Monday, May 27, 2013
Friday, May 24, 2013
More and More
What do you do when everything you give is not enough?
I left work yesterday. I had just completed a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) for an upcoming series of events. Looking at the presentation - which, while fun to create, consumed almost an hour - I suddenly was overwhelmed by the amount of work that needed to performed to make all of that happen.
And then I started considering the (rather long) list of items I still have to accomplish to be able to "take" a vacation next week when we visitors. At this point it is almost a given that I will have to work one or more days this weekend just to clear out my inbox and desk, let alone to make any progress towards the SWOT analysis listed above.
In others words, I am tired. And I have a great deal that is expected of me - so much, in fact, that it seems that the only way to accomplish it all is to work semi-heroic hours to make it all happen.
To what end? This is the part that bothers me. There is really no carrot here, only a series of stick avoidance techniques. If I am successful in doing everything that needs to be done? It will tend to disappear back into the woodwork of daily activities. The time sunk in will be time lost forever, memories faded as soon as the next emergency arises. A new set of tasks, equally as critical, equally as many, will appear on the horizon. And, ultimately, this work will fade into the pastiche of my life of things I have worked on and companies I have worked for which no longer exist.
And if by the grace of God I am able to accomplish all of this, does this become the new "level" of expected activity?
Where does such a thought process end? Is the expectation that one will simple continue to double and triple down until, weighed down by the inability to go further, one is cast aside? Or is that one works to the point of failure - mental, physical - and attempt on the back side to recover from the aftermath?
I sense myself be drawn in to what I have to do. What I enjoy doing, what I would like to do, seems to be receding at a faster and faster pace for the reality of my life.
Perhaps this is simply the nature of things. But I seem to be unable to see the ultimate benefit of it.
I left work yesterday. I had just completed a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) for an upcoming series of events. Looking at the presentation - which, while fun to create, consumed almost an hour - I suddenly was overwhelmed by the amount of work that needed to performed to make all of that happen.
And then I started considering the (rather long) list of items I still have to accomplish to be able to "take" a vacation next week when we visitors. At this point it is almost a given that I will have to work one or more days this weekend just to clear out my inbox and desk, let alone to make any progress towards the SWOT analysis listed above.
In others words, I am tired. And I have a great deal that is expected of me - so much, in fact, that it seems that the only way to accomplish it all is to work semi-heroic hours to make it all happen.
To what end? This is the part that bothers me. There is really no carrot here, only a series of stick avoidance techniques. If I am successful in doing everything that needs to be done? It will tend to disappear back into the woodwork of daily activities. The time sunk in will be time lost forever, memories faded as soon as the next emergency arises. A new set of tasks, equally as critical, equally as many, will appear on the horizon. And, ultimately, this work will fade into the pastiche of my life of things I have worked on and companies I have worked for which no longer exist.
And if by the grace of God I am able to accomplish all of this, does this become the new "level" of expected activity?
Where does such a thought process end? Is the expectation that one will simple continue to double and triple down until, weighed down by the inability to go further, one is cast aside? Or is that one works to the point of failure - mental, physical - and attempt on the back side to recover from the aftermath?
I sense myself be drawn in to what I have to do. What I enjoy doing, what I would like to do, seems to be receding at a faster and faster pace for the reality of my life.
Perhaps this is simply the nature of things. But I seem to be unable to see the ultimate benefit of it.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
20th Anniversary
The Ravishing Mrs. TB and I had our 20th anniversary yesterday.
In my more lucid moments I wonder what I would have thought that a twenty year anniversary would look like. I am not sure that I particularly had a Hollywood view of marriage in my mind - in fact, I probably did not have much of a vision at all. Did I expect to married at 20 years? However, I am sure that whatever I visualized owed far more to the perceived image I had of marriage and less of the examples I had around me.
Interestingly anniversaries - beyond the first few and the very significant - seem to be a reflection of the life you are actually leading at the time. Last night was an example: wedged between tryouts (which were rescheduled), a senior management presentation, and finals we had an anniversary. We passed each other on the way home - she out to pick up, I inbound to get home. I was greeted by the Pest control guy, there to spray. Syrah the Mighty going crazy upstairs, the clock ticks well past seven before The Ravishing Mrs. TB got back. Dinner? Yes, we had better have that too. Blackened catfish and brown rice. By the time we got done with dinner and cleaning up, it was time for bed. After all, tomorrow is still a weekday.
Again, this is (I suppose) not what I pictured.
But what the society pictures (if not myself) is hardly the reality of life. By my sister-in-law's count we have been married something like 7,305 days. That is a long time - by my count, there are now only a handful of friends I am in contact with that I have known longer. And we have been through a great deal: the birth and raising of three children, home purchases, job losses, relocation, vacations, days where we probably did not care for each other a great deal and days that we did.
The reality of 20 years of marriage is that it is a very rich textured pattern of living - something which the idealized version of marriage simply cannot do justice to. In a way it dwells far more in the realm of science fiction and fantasy than that of romance - who can visualize at the time of marriage the actual realities of life being married?
So Happy Anniversary to The Ravishing Mrs. TB and many thanks for a life which, while perhaps unimagined and unexpected in many ways, has been far more than I ever could have imagined.
I Love You.
In my more lucid moments I wonder what I would have thought that a twenty year anniversary would look like. I am not sure that I particularly had a Hollywood view of marriage in my mind - in fact, I probably did not have much of a vision at all. Did I expect to married at 20 years? However, I am sure that whatever I visualized owed far more to the perceived image I had of marriage and less of the examples I had around me.
Interestingly anniversaries - beyond the first few and the very significant - seem to be a reflection of the life you are actually leading at the time. Last night was an example: wedged between tryouts (which were rescheduled), a senior management presentation, and finals we had an anniversary. We passed each other on the way home - she out to pick up, I inbound to get home. I was greeted by the Pest control guy, there to spray. Syrah the Mighty going crazy upstairs, the clock ticks well past seven before The Ravishing Mrs. TB got back. Dinner? Yes, we had better have that too. Blackened catfish and brown rice. By the time we got done with dinner and cleaning up, it was time for bed. After all, tomorrow is still a weekday.
Again, this is (I suppose) not what I pictured.
But what the society pictures (if not myself) is hardly the reality of life. By my sister-in-law's count we have been married something like 7,305 days. That is a long time - by my count, there are now only a handful of friends I am in contact with that I have known longer. And we have been through a great deal: the birth and raising of three children, home purchases, job losses, relocation, vacations, days where we probably did not care for each other a great deal and days that we did.
The reality of 20 years of marriage is that it is a very rich textured pattern of living - something which the idealized version of marriage simply cannot do justice to. In a way it dwells far more in the realm of science fiction and fantasy than that of romance - who can visualize at the time of marriage the actual realities of life being married?
So Happy Anniversary to The Ravishing Mrs. TB and many thanks for a life which, while perhaps unimagined and unexpected in many ways, has been far more than I ever could have imagined.
I Love You.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Truth
Is telling truth to yourself or others more difficult?
I ask this question pending the upcoming Truth Telling meeting that I perform as part of my employment, a time where I present metrics to management and say "This is what it is". In theory this is a truth telling moment, a chance to lay bare all the bad - and good - of what is going on.
The effectiveness of a meeting such as this - any meeting such as this - is dependent on two factors. The first, the willingness of people to receive the truth, is beyond my control. The second, the telling of the data as it lies, is within my control. But so often I stumble, fall short of what I could be doing? Why is this?
Truth is a pernicious thing. It is sharp. It is deadly. It can be a tool of healing - but it needs to presented to be effective. Truth that is never brought forth is no better than the lie that is.
But which is more difficult: telling the truth to one's self or to others?
I am too often tempted - as with the greater world around me- to come down on the first side. Telling the truth to one's self is never an easy thing. At its best it can be a cleansing tool or a freeing agent. But we are so often clever about the truth to ourselves - or so we are told. We like to evade the truth. We like to create walls the keep it from us, shade it in ways that make us feel better. We see it through eyes that make failures into successes, that make flaws into facets.
Much of this is true, of course. We do have ways to make the truth about ourselves less than full. We justify, we slide, we worm around. There is no doubt that telling the truth to one's self is a difficult and sometimes dangerous thing.
But after consideration, I believe I have come to the conclusion that it is the telling of truth to others that is the more difficult task.
We have to want to speak the truth in order to tell it to others. There is a sort of double vesting involved: we have to want to tell it and we have to tell it. Doing one or the other - wanting to tell it but not telling it or not wanting to tell it but telling something - will not accomplish the true work of the truth.
Also, telling the truth to one's self never involves a third party. Telling the truth to others does. And not just a third party - often a third party that has some ability to bring us weal or do us harm. They may control our careers, our personal lives, or relationships. Their opinions - and their actions - can make our lives a heaven or hell. It would be a lie to say that every time we engage in such an exercise, the thought of that control does not cross our minds.
How many times have I been confronted with the situation of telling the truth when I know that it will create issues for me? The history of such endeavors in my own life is not such to convince me that telling the truth results in the actions that I would hope for or desire.
But we desperately need the truth. Truth is to human relationships and interactions what data are to science: the building blocks by which we learn and move forward. Without data we cannot get to the true root cause of a problem or make a true advance; with truth we can also do neither of these things.
How will my meeting go? I am not really sure. But I do know that I sit today in a different place than I sat yesterday. My job - in my career as in my life - is to speak truth and be truthful.
Even if no-one, including myself, always listens.
I ask this question pending the upcoming Truth Telling meeting that I perform as part of my employment, a time where I present metrics to management and say "This is what it is". In theory this is a truth telling moment, a chance to lay bare all the bad - and good - of what is going on.
The effectiveness of a meeting such as this - any meeting such as this - is dependent on two factors. The first, the willingness of people to receive the truth, is beyond my control. The second, the telling of the data as it lies, is within my control. But so often I stumble, fall short of what I could be doing? Why is this?
Truth is a pernicious thing. It is sharp. It is deadly. It can be a tool of healing - but it needs to presented to be effective. Truth that is never brought forth is no better than the lie that is.
But which is more difficult: telling the truth to one's self or to others?
I am too often tempted - as with the greater world around me- to come down on the first side. Telling the truth to one's self is never an easy thing. At its best it can be a cleansing tool or a freeing agent. But we are so often clever about the truth to ourselves - or so we are told. We like to evade the truth. We like to create walls the keep it from us, shade it in ways that make us feel better. We see it through eyes that make failures into successes, that make flaws into facets.
Much of this is true, of course. We do have ways to make the truth about ourselves less than full. We justify, we slide, we worm around. There is no doubt that telling the truth to one's self is a difficult and sometimes dangerous thing.
But after consideration, I believe I have come to the conclusion that it is the telling of truth to others that is the more difficult task.
We have to want to speak the truth in order to tell it to others. There is a sort of double vesting involved: we have to want to tell it and we have to tell it. Doing one or the other - wanting to tell it but not telling it or not wanting to tell it but telling something - will not accomplish the true work of the truth.
Also, telling the truth to one's self never involves a third party. Telling the truth to others does. And not just a third party - often a third party that has some ability to bring us weal or do us harm. They may control our careers, our personal lives, or relationships. Their opinions - and their actions - can make our lives a heaven or hell. It would be a lie to say that every time we engage in such an exercise, the thought of that control does not cross our minds.
How many times have I been confronted with the situation of telling the truth when I know that it will create issues for me? The history of such endeavors in my own life is not such to convince me that telling the truth results in the actions that I would hope for or desire.
But we desperately need the truth. Truth is to human relationships and interactions what data are to science: the building blocks by which we learn and move forward. Without data we cannot get to the true root cause of a problem or make a true advance; with truth we can also do neither of these things.
How will my meeting go? I am not really sure. But I do know that I sit today in a different place than I sat yesterday. My job - in my career as in my life - is to speak truth and be truthful.
Even if no-one, including myself, always listens.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Tron
Tron has always fascinated me.
My fascination with the movie started long ago when it first came out. I was in high school and on the fringes of the budding video game revolution. I was one of those who went to pizza parlors not necessarily to eat pizza but to engage in battles with Defender, Beserk and a horde of games now lost.
I loved Tron the first time I saw it - not so much for the wonder of the computer graphics (which was the actual boundary pusher of the film) so much as for the concept: life inside of a computer. What child of that era would not have been excited by the concept of spending an entire lifetime playing video games (ignoring the part about deresolution and death, of course)?
I am largely alone in my fascination in my household. Na Teaghlach will tolerate watching the movie from time to time, if grudgingly. It is, I suppose, interesting in a clinical fashion that their interest is not nearly that of mine: the graphics are (by now) 30 years old and the story (stripped of its graphics) is no more unusual than a score of other fiction: a young hero from somewhere else arrives to fight the archenemy of freedom who seeks to control everything.
When Tron: Legacy came out we trooped off to watch that as well. While the enjoyment was there (and the visit to Flynn's old archive with the vintage video games and the Journey soundtrack was nostalgia personified) the movie was different to me. Part of this, of course, is simply the change of time for both the movie and myself. The main character (Flynn) is no longer the hot shot programmer and saviour of the Grid but is now almost 30 years older, a man - the Creator of the World, as it were - trapped in the system away from his son and his life. The movie now revolves much less around the fight for freedom (although it is there) and much more about a man considering how he has spent the last 20 years of his life, encased in a world he created but cannot escape. The thoughts, oddly enough, reflect on thoughts of my own: the brevity of life, the importance of how we spend it, and the realization that sometimes getting what we wanted was not really what was best.
Now I am watching Tron: Uprising with Nighean Dhonn. This is yet a different reboot of the franchise. The concept of Tron and the fight for freedom is still there but this goes a step further by concentrating much more on the life and feelings of a single character, Beck, who has been selected and trained by Tron. Again the action and fighting is still there but in this incarnation there is a greater sense of actual life on the grid and the observation of some character development. Even as I watch it with her now there is a greater sense of wisdom as I watch it - not just the excitement of living in a computer game, but real thoughts about freedom and interactions of individuals within an authoritative system.
Will there be more Tron? Rumors drift on the web of course but nothing certain comes to life. Still, I find it interesting that after 30 years I can still find action and excitement in something from long ago - and not just action and excitement, but enjoyment and a thought provoking exercise.
My fascination with the movie started long ago when it first came out. I was in high school and on the fringes of the budding video game revolution. I was one of those who went to pizza parlors not necessarily to eat pizza but to engage in battles with Defender, Beserk and a horde of games now lost.
I loved Tron the first time I saw it - not so much for the wonder of the computer graphics (which was the actual boundary pusher of the film) so much as for the concept: life inside of a computer. What child of that era would not have been excited by the concept of spending an entire lifetime playing video games (ignoring the part about deresolution and death, of course)?
I am largely alone in my fascination in my household. Na Teaghlach will tolerate watching the movie from time to time, if grudgingly. It is, I suppose, interesting in a clinical fashion that their interest is not nearly that of mine: the graphics are (by now) 30 years old and the story (stripped of its graphics) is no more unusual than a score of other fiction: a young hero from somewhere else arrives to fight the archenemy of freedom who seeks to control everything.
When Tron: Legacy came out we trooped off to watch that as well. While the enjoyment was there (and the visit to Flynn's old archive with the vintage video games and the Journey soundtrack was nostalgia personified) the movie was different to me. Part of this, of course, is simply the change of time for both the movie and myself. The main character (Flynn) is no longer the hot shot programmer and saviour of the Grid but is now almost 30 years older, a man - the Creator of the World, as it were - trapped in the system away from his son and his life. The movie now revolves much less around the fight for freedom (although it is there) and much more about a man considering how he has spent the last 20 years of his life, encased in a world he created but cannot escape. The thoughts, oddly enough, reflect on thoughts of my own: the brevity of life, the importance of how we spend it, and the realization that sometimes getting what we wanted was not really what was best.
Now I am watching Tron: Uprising with Nighean Dhonn. This is yet a different reboot of the franchise. The concept of Tron and the fight for freedom is still there but this goes a step further by concentrating much more on the life and feelings of a single character, Beck, who has been selected and trained by Tron. Again the action and fighting is still there but in this incarnation there is a greater sense of actual life on the grid and the observation of some character development. Even as I watch it with her now there is a greater sense of wisdom as I watch it - not just the excitement of living in a computer game, but real thoughts about freedom and interactions of individuals within an authoritative system.
Will there be more Tron? Rumors drift on the web of course but nothing certain comes to life. Still, I find it interesting that after 30 years I can still find action and excitement in something from long ago - and not just action and excitement, but enjoyment and a thought provoking exercise.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Finding The Time
As an exercise this week I constructed a list of what had to occur at work in the next 45 days. The list, which ran to three pages when I was done, did not have the direct impact I was hoping for in some people but it did give me pause to stop and think about everything that I had to do.
I then went ahead and started to map out my calendar for the next 45 days. Suddenly, with a vacation and a seminar and two audits, my 45 days had dwindled down to something more like 33. And that is business days - my actual weekdays became something more like 25.
Obviously this is a little less time than I had intended to have.
But the work is still there. And, as has been politely pointed out to me, this work will have a significant impact on my short and midterm future - so it needs to get done. And so a shift has occurred in my thinking at work, from how much there is to do to how am I going to get this all done.
It is a subtle thing, this accepting of things that they are and then trying to figure out how they are going to get done. The energy that I have has been redirected into moving forward on items - or, in a surprise to me, starting to meaningfully delegate items to others for completion and then following up with them on those issues.
It has also changed how I view hours - in other words how I find the time. By treating certain things, such as my vacation and seminar, as inviolate and something that cannot be changed (and something which I intend to think about work or daily tasks as little as possible) I readjust my thinking to how I can extract the maximum amount of work out of the time I have.
Am I truly more efficient? I do not know that I can say that yet - ask me in 45 days. What I can say, at least for now, it that some sort of corner seems to have been turned in how I view time and accomplishments, at least in the work setting. It remains to be seen if this change is of a permanent nature- and if it will grant the rewards it is hinting at.
I then went ahead and started to map out my calendar for the next 45 days. Suddenly, with a vacation and a seminar and two audits, my 45 days had dwindled down to something more like 33. And that is business days - my actual weekdays became something more like 25.
Obviously this is a little less time than I had intended to have.
But the work is still there. And, as has been politely pointed out to me, this work will have a significant impact on my short and midterm future - so it needs to get done. And so a shift has occurred in my thinking at work, from how much there is to do to how am I going to get this all done.
It is a subtle thing, this accepting of things that they are and then trying to figure out how they are going to get done. The energy that I have has been redirected into moving forward on items - or, in a surprise to me, starting to meaningfully delegate items to others for completion and then following up with them on those issues.
It has also changed how I view hours - in other words how I find the time. By treating certain things, such as my vacation and seminar, as inviolate and something that cannot be changed (and something which I intend to think about work or daily tasks as little as possible) I readjust my thinking to how I can extract the maximum amount of work out of the time I have.
Am I truly more efficient? I do not know that I can say that yet - ask me in 45 days. What I can say, at least for now, it that some sort of corner seems to have been turned in how I view time and accomplishments, at least in the work setting. It remains to be seen if this change is of a permanent nature- and if it will grant the rewards it is hinting at.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Stepping up
There is a thin line between stepping up and being used, a line of which I am trying to ascertain the location.
Stepping up, of course, it that series of events that occurs when one is called upon to go above and beyond. It can be in the pursuit of a higher position or goal or it can simply be because one is suddenly called to greater efforts for a particular need. Being used, on the other hand, is that series of events in which someone else takes the effort and work and uses them to further their own goals, neither recognizing the effort nor respecting the one who performed it.
The difficulty is in the recognition of that effort. I can make heroic efforts believing myself to be in the spirit and practice of stepping up; others may simply see it (and use it!) as an expectation of what they wanted rather than a form of additional effort. Expectations, it seems, can be moving targets dependent as much on the person who determines what the actual target is as on the circumstances in a situation.
How do I resolve this? As I have pondered before, I am reaching a crossroads one way or the other in my career: on one road I restart a climb up the road to higher position (one which has been sorely delayed), on the other I become one of the "untouchables", someone who has been in a position so long that they become unpromotable, trapped in a position from which they can never escape. I want to step up of course, but in my mind I look back over the last period of time and wonder how much more I can step up than what I already have. Certainly there are areas that I can make difference in but those seem few and far between as my days are already full.
Or is it the audience? Need I play to a different crowd than the one I am currently dealing with? Perhaps it is not so much that my efforts are not enough as they are unseen. Sometimes much of what we do gets lost when we allow it to wander through filters not of our own making, through individuals who have a vested interest in making sure they look good - even if the labor comes from someone else.
Perhaps stepping up is not so completely a matter of effort as I had originally imagined. It is the combination of effort plus audience. And perhaps the takeaway is that if you desire a greater recognition of your increased efforts, play to a larger audience.
Stepping up, of course, it that series of events that occurs when one is called upon to go above and beyond. It can be in the pursuit of a higher position or goal or it can simply be because one is suddenly called to greater efforts for a particular need. Being used, on the other hand, is that series of events in which someone else takes the effort and work and uses them to further their own goals, neither recognizing the effort nor respecting the one who performed it.
The difficulty is in the recognition of that effort. I can make heroic efforts believing myself to be in the spirit and practice of stepping up; others may simply see it (and use it!) as an expectation of what they wanted rather than a form of additional effort. Expectations, it seems, can be moving targets dependent as much on the person who determines what the actual target is as on the circumstances in a situation.
How do I resolve this? As I have pondered before, I am reaching a crossroads one way or the other in my career: on one road I restart a climb up the road to higher position (one which has been sorely delayed), on the other I become one of the "untouchables", someone who has been in a position so long that they become unpromotable, trapped in a position from which they can never escape. I want to step up of course, but in my mind I look back over the last period of time and wonder how much more I can step up than what I already have. Certainly there are areas that I can make difference in but those seem few and far between as my days are already full.
Or is it the audience? Need I play to a different crowd than the one I am currently dealing with? Perhaps it is not so much that my efforts are not enough as they are unseen. Sometimes much of what we do gets lost when we allow it to wander through filters not of our own making, through individuals who have a vested interest in making sure they look good - even if the labor comes from someone else.
Perhaps stepping up is not so completely a matter of effort as I had originally imagined. It is the combination of effort plus audience. And perhaps the takeaway is that if you desire a greater recognition of your increased efforts, play to a larger audience.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Accountable but Not Responsible
How does one manage when one is not in charge but is held accountable as if one is?
This is the situation that I faced yet again for the X-teenth time at work: a project which was supposedly critical and needed to be done - demanded, actually - for which, when a plan is presented, is promptly torn apart, red-lined, told how to be executed without offering any support in executing it, and then promptly left with the "This is what we should do." All with a 40 minute meeting to discuss the thing.
The takeaway for me: I am to be given all the responsibility and accountability for being in charge, but I actually have no authority to make my own decisions to design and/or execute on the plan. My job is to create the work, patiently wait for my betters to "fix" it, and then humbly accept that I will do all the work. Oh yes, and that they will get all the credit.
I cannot tell you how unbelievably discouraged I was as I walked back to my desk. Staring at the pile of work that was already present, I sighed deeply in frustration. It is as if I have no ability to actually influence my job or even my career - instead, I am a small cog who has been robbed of even the causality of actions. My job, it seems, is to shut up, thank my betters, and work harder. And to accept responsibility for things that I had nothing to do with.
My question is how to deal with this. This is not the first time this has happened since my arrival here. Certainly there seems to be no change come from any other quarter and I really have no other option in terms of others to go to. Do I simply be quiet and seethe as I continue to try to make headway? Do I (once again) raise the issue as a point of discussion, risking looking like "that nagging employee who is never happy"? Or do I simply quash any sense of aspiration or self worth and accept that I am tool to be used by above me, having no independent thought or action but being completely willing to be sacrificed when something goes wrong?
How does one change the course of one's work life?
This is the situation that I faced yet again for the X-teenth time at work: a project which was supposedly critical and needed to be done - demanded, actually - for which, when a plan is presented, is promptly torn apart, red-lined, told how to be executed without offering any support in executing it, and then promptly left with the "This is what we should do." All with a 40 minute meeting to discuss the thing.
The takeaway for me: I am to be given all the responsibility and accountability for being in charge, but I actually have no authority to make my own decisions to design and/or execute on the plan. My job is to create the work, patiently wait for my betters to "fix" it, and then humbly accept that I will do all the work. Oh yes, and that they will get all the credit.
I cannot tell you how unbelievably discouraged I was as I walked back to my desk. Staring at the pile of work that was already present, I sighed deeply in frustration. It is as if I have no ability to actually influence my job or even my career - instead, I am a small cog who has been robbed of even the causality of actions. My job, it seems, is to shut up, thank my betters, and work harder. And to accept responsibility for things that I had nothing to do with.
My question is how to deal with this. This is not the first time this has happened since my arrival here. Certainly there seems to be no change come from any other quarter and I really have no other option in terms of others to go to. Do I simply be quiet and seethe as I continue to try to make headway? Do I (once again) raise the issue as a point of discussion, risking looking like "that nagging employee who is never happy"? Or do I simply quash any sense of aspiration or self worth and accept that I am tool to be used by above me, having no independent thought or action but being completely willing to be sacrificed when something goes wrong?
How does one change the course of one's work life?
Monday, May 13, 2013
Clearing Out Paper
Yesterday came the cleaning out paper.
There is a process which always seems to happen (or at least should happen) each and every time one contemplates a move. It is called The Cleaning. It can also be known as The Clearing, The Mucking Out, or even The Great Piling for The Even Greater Fire (or Yard Sale, depending on flammability). It is the process by which one goes through and begin to evaluate and dispose of everything that came with one from the last location.
As always, I am amazed by the types and amounts of paper that we store. It is not just the items you would expect - tax receipts and paperwork from old businesses, old bills - but things that just over run your filing and your piling: manuals to things you now longer have, checkbooks from 4 years ago, benefits paperwork from 3 years ago. Piles and piles of materials that were given to you as important which you, in turn, carefully preserved in locations hidden away and thereby forgotten.
Paper is recyclable - which is good, I suppose. The bad part is that we seem to feel the need to get and print out so much of it, treasuring it to ourselves as a precious items when it fact so much of it is merely for informational purposes or even worse, really for nothing at all.
Every time we seem to do this it serves as a reminder to me of what I am trying to do with preserving all of this paper - indeed, with so much of what we keep and store. Am I doing this out of habit? Am I doing this out of some deep need to hold on to items? Or am I simply being lazy up front, not questioning each and every thing as it touches my hands?
I am not like this at work at all. Except when I am quite busy (and so lose the time to organize) my desk and draws are clean and virtually empty. I hate clutter. I hate losing things on my desk only to find out that they were needed later and being "that person" - the person that held something up because it was lost. And yet seemingly this personal behaviour gets left at the work door.
We are done with paper at this point so I imagine we will be moving on to other items, other boxes, other tubs to review and clean. My hope is that with the paper, we can once again begin to make some space amidst the clutter - not only for the physical benefit of not moving it, but for the sense of serenity and peace it brings to the mind.
There is a process which always seems to happen (or at least should happen) each and every time one contemplates a move. It is called The Cleaning. It can also be known as The Clearing, The Mucking Out, or even The Great Piling for The Even Greater Fire (or Yard Sale, depending on flammability). It is the process by which one goes through and begin to evaluate and dispose of everything that came with one from the last location.
As always, I am amazed by the types and amounts of paper that we store. It is not just the items you would expect - tax receipts and paperwork from old businesses, old bills - but things that just over run your filing and your piling: manuals to things you now longer have, checkbooks from 4 years ago, benefits paperwork from 3 years ago. Piles and piles of materials that were given to you as important which you, in turn, carefully preserved in locations hidden away and thereby forgotten.
Paper is recyclable - which is good, I suppose. The bad part is that we seem to feel the need to get and print out so much of it, treasuring it to ourselves as a precious items when it fact so much of it is merely for informational purposes or even worse, really for nothing at all.
Every time we seem to do this it serves as a reminder to me of what I am trying to do with preserving all of this paper - indeed, with so much of what we keep and store. Am I doing this out of habit? Am I doing this out of some deep need to hold on to items? Or am I simply being lazy up front, not questioning each and every thing as it touches my hands?
I am not like this at work at all. Except when I am quite busy (and so lose the time to organize) my desk and draws are clean and virtually empty. I hate clutter. I hate losing things on my desk only to find out that they were needed later and being "that person" - the person that held something up because it was lost. And yet seemingly this personal behaviour gets left at the work door.
We are done with paper at this point so I imagine we will be moving on to other items, other boxes, other tubs to review and clean. My hope is that with the paper, we can once again begin to make some space amidst the clutter - not only for the physical benefit of not moving it, but for the sense of serenity and peace it brings to the mind.
Friday, May 10, 2013
Demands of Time and Task III
How do I believe in the tasks that I set for myself, that such are as important and achievable as anything that is set before me in the professional environment? This is the problem I must confront and address if I am to be able to make a commitment that is as firm to doing my own items as it is to dedicating extra time to the demands of others.
Ultimately it comes from a core - a core that at it center states "I can do this". "This" can be defined as any number of things - including things which I have never attempted or accomplished before. But even not having attempted them before, the core maintains the assertion that if I try something, I can do it.
Do I have a history of this? I do, if I sit and think about it for a minute. There are many things that I have tried and done - perhaps with varying levels of success, but in every case with some level of success. In fact if I sit and think about it, the times that I have completely failed at something are very few.
But they are always in my mind. Here is a second issue. The failures always seem to rise to the top far quicker than the successes do as if rushing to make themselves seen and heard. And it they do not immediately make themselves there, the partial successes come to take their place - those things that I tried and perhaps did not completely fail at but did not completely succeed in the way that I had thought.
How to combat it? The only thing I can think of is to begin to build a mental binder of successes.
The Woodsman in Build A Bridge says the same thing:
"But remember what I just told you - you need to ensure that you take a moment to recognize the fact that you have completed what you started out to do. This is the true reward, not just the destination that you are reaching. You will build many bridges and go to many destinations; every completed bridge will become a picture in your mind until you have a gallery of bridges which will mark you progress through life."
When those thoughts of failure leap up I need to combat them with pictures of successes. When thoughts of driving myself away from those tasks I want to accomplish to I need to go back to those pictures of the times I have accomplished and dwell not just on the accomplishment but how I felt when I achieved it, because the feeling of achieving an accomplishment is inevitably much greater than the degraded sense of relief I feel checking another thing off my work "to do" list.
I cannot control the demands made on me by the outside. What I can control is what I see and adhere to as a vision on the inside. The choice to dwell and believe on that which I can do rather than that which I cannot is not something that anyone can make me do even as it is not something anyone can do for me. In the end, demands of time and task are deterimined not so much by those making the demands as they are by what I am willing to believe in - and in believing, to accomplish.
Ultimately it comes from a core - a core that at it center states "I can do this". "This" can be defined as any number of things - including things which I have never attempted or accomplished before. But even not having attempted them before, the core maintains the assertion that if I try something, I can do it.
Do I have a history of this? I do, if I sit and think about it for a minute. There are many things that I have tried and done - perhaps with varying levels of success, but in every case with some level of success. In fact if I sit and think about it, the times that I have completely failed at something are very few.
But they are always in my mind. Here is a second issue. The failures always seem to rise to the top far quicker than the successes do as if rushing to make themselves seen and heard. And it they do not immediately make themselves there, the partial successes come to take their place - those things that I tried and perhaps did not completely fail at but did not completely succeed in the way that I had thought.
How to combat it? The only thing I can think of is to begin to build a mental binder of successes.
The Woodsman in Build A Bridge says the same thing:
"But remember what I just told you - you need to ensure that you take a moment to recognize the fact that you have completed what you started out to do. This is the true reward, not just the destination that you are reaching. You will build many bridges and go to many destinations; every completed bridge will become a picture in your mind until you have a gallery of bridges which will mark you progress through life."
When those thoughts of failure leap up I need to combat them with pictures of successes. When thoughts of driving myself away from those tasks I want to accomplish to I need to go back to those pictures of the times I have accomplished and dwell not just on the accomplishment but how I felt when I achieved it, because the feeling of achieving an accomplishment is inevitably much greater than the degraded sense of relief I feel checking another thing off my work "to do" list.
I cannot control the demands made on me by the outside. What I can control is what I see and adhere to as a vision on the inside. The choice to dwell and believe on that which I can do rather than that which I cannot is not something that anyone can make me do even as it is not something anyone can do for me. In the end, demands of time and task are deterimined not so much by those making the demands as they are by what I am willing to believe in - and in believing, to accomplish.
Thursday, May 09, 2013
Demands of TIme and Task II
Why do I so easily conform to the demands of extra time when placed upon me by work and am so willing to surrender time which is to spent on myself even though I believe that one will not improve my life over time and the other will?
I can make the simple argument of reality, that one directly pays me a salary and one does not has a noticeable and realistic impact on my decision making. And to some extent that is true: I need money to survive. But the frequency and the reckless abandon with which I seem so willing to do this suggests something more than mere economics at work.
What I am wondering is that if, in my heart of hearts, I truly do not believe that what I am trying to do is going to move me forward at all.
There is an argument to made for this. Only effort in my career area has moved me forward in parts of my life, no matter how fitful that progress has been. Certainly many of the activities I have tried in the past and even some career choices never produced any more than a brief change to my life, if not a series of unintended negative consequences. And anything I consider at this point is quite likely years away from producing anything more than a sense of satisfaction doing something I enjoy.
And yet I still so easily turn away.
The irony of the situation is that the additional efforts spent in pursuit of my "career" seem equally as unproductive in the long run. The work is always followed by additional work; the effort is effaced in the cascading tasks that continually flow across my desk. The only thing that additional effort seems to supply is the fact that such effort is available and can be used with more frequency.
This is the core of the issue then: what do I believe in? Do I believe in myself such that saying "No" and drawing boundaries and putting the time into the "Yes" something else is something that I can do? Or have I become so ingrained with the division of work/life and the evidence that I cannot really do what I set out to do that I am subconsciously compensating for the fact - that I am willing to say "yes" because in my heart I know the other will lead to nothing?
If true - that I have no confidence in myself and my abilities and that I am compensating - then this is worst of all possible worlds: wanting something else desperately yet not having the belief that such a thing can be accomplished. Allowed to run roughshod and free it will continue to create a situation where the guilt of not doing on the one hand and the perception of not being able to on the other will always create a hammer and anvil of despair: always wanting to be more but never believing such a thing is possible.
How do I overcome this?
I can make the simple argument of reality, that one directly pays me a salary and one does not has a noticeable and realistic impact on my decision making. And to some extent that is true: I need money to survive. But the frequency and the reckless abandon with which I seem so willing to do this suggests something more than mere economics at work.
What I am wondering is that if, in my heart of hearts, I truly do not believe that what I am trying to do is going to move me forward at all.
There is an argument to made for this. Only effort in my career area has moved me forward in parts of my life, no matter how fitful that progress has been. Certainly many of the activities I have tried in the past and even some career choices never produced any more than a brief change to my life, if not a series of unintended negative consequences. And anything I consider at this point is quite likely years away from producing anything more than a sense of satisfaction doing something I enjoy.
And yet I still so easily turn away.
The irony of the situation is that the additional efforts spent in pursuit of my "career" seem equally as unproductive in the long run. The work is always followed by additional work; the effort is effaced in the cascading tasks that continually flow across my desk. The only thing that additional effort seems to supply is the fact that such effort is available and can be used with more frequency.
This is the core of the issue then: what do I believe in? Do I believe in myself such that saying "No" and drawing boundaries and putting the time into the "Yes" something else is something that I can do? Or have I become so ingrained with the division of work/life and the evidence that I cannot really do what I set out to do that I am subconsciously compensating for the fact - that I am willing to say "yes" because in my heart I know the other will lead to nothing?
If true - that I have no confidence in myself and my abilities and that I am compensating - then this is worst of all possible worlds: wanting something else desperately yet not having the belief that such a thing can be accomplished. Allowed to run roughshod and free it will continue to create a situation where the guilt of not doing on the one hand and the perception of not being able to on the other will always create a hammer and anvil of despair: always wanting to be more but never believing such a thing is possible.
How do I overcome this?
Wednesday, May 08, 2013
Demands of Time and Task I
How should I allocate my time?
I am faced with a dilemma. The workload I now balance is becoming increasingly precarious due to the fact of increased activities and acting in the place of two positions at once. As a result of this I am confronted with the issue that in order to do the work that needs to be done I have to increase my time spent at work by approximately 10-15 hours a week. Where would this extra time be drawn from? From working on my own projects, on those things I hope can someday sustain me beyond what I now do.
This frustrates me on two levels. The first one is obvious: whenever a position requires significantly more time and effort than what is typical for a position, frustration mounts because the expectation is that the work will get done, no matter where the effort comes from. The fact that there tends to be disinterest where that effort comes from detracts somewhat from the drive to see the things accomplished.
But the deeper frustration, the one which haunts me, is the assumption by myself that this is what I will do.
This is a recurring theme in my life. When required to do so by outside influences, I inevitably seem to "dig deep" and get the task accomplished. When confronted by the same concept in my own life - tasks which need significant amounts of time and effort to accomplish - I often cannot muster the same amount of drive. Worse, I am willing to sacrifice them for the demands of the tasks generated from the outside.
Why is this? Is is that I do not value what I am trying to do? I should - after all, what I am working on is ultimately designed to benefit my life (in theory anyway). Effort spent in that arena will, with the appropriate time spent, result in direct benefits to my physical and psychic health. Effort spent in the first arena will at best remove a monkey from my back which will be quickly replaced by another one requiring similar demands.
In the first scenario - demands generated by outside influences - I can legitimately say that the ultimate accomplishment of the tasks resulted in nothing significant or lasting in my life. Those from the second scenario I have taken through to conclusion have almost always done so.
Which leads me back to my question: Why do I easily do one and refuse to do the other?
I am faced with a dilemma. The workload I now balance is becoming increasingly precarious due to the fact of increased activities and acting in the place of two positions at once. As a result of this I am confronted with the issue that in order to do the work that needs to be done I have to increase my time spent at work by approximately 10-15 hours a week. Where would this extra time be drawn from? From working on my own projects, on those things I hope can someday sustain me beyond what I now do.
This frustrates me on two levels. The first one is obvious: whenever a position requires significantly more time and effort than what is typical for a position, frustration mounts because the expectation is that the work will get done, no matter where the effort comes from. The fact that there tends to be disinterest where that effort comes from detracts somewhat from the drive to see the things accomplished.
But the deeper frustration, the one which haunts me, is the assumption by myself that this is what I will do.
This is a recurring theme in my life. When required to do so by outside influences, I inevitably seem to "dig deep" and get the task accomplished. When confronted by the same concept in my own life - tasks which need significant amounts of time and effort to accomplish - I often cannot muster the same amount of drive. Worse, I am willing to sacrifice them for the demands of the tasks generated from the outside.
Why is this? Is is that I do not value what I am trying to do? I should - after all, what I am working on is ultimately designed to benefit my life (in theory anyway). Effort spent in that arena will, with the appropriate time spent, result in direct benefits to my physical and psychic health. Effort spent in the first arena will at best remove a monkey from my back which will be quickly replaced by another one requiring similar demands.
In the first scenario - demands generated by outside influences - I can legitimately say that the ultimate accomplishment of the tasks resulted in nothing significant or lasting in my life. Those from the second scenario I have taken through to conclusion have almost always done so.
Which leads me back to my question: Why do I easily do one and refuse to do the other?
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
Plans, Goals, Change
"If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build, end up building us." - Jim Rohn
Goals and plans are funny things. We tend to think of them as third party objects which we create and execute on. There may be physical executions and the outcome of the goals may be real things but the goals and plans remain (in our mind) something we have thought our or written out on paper, brought to life ex nihilo of our minds.
The reality is that goals and plans are in fact imbued with a certain amount of life. Perhaps not life as we know it, but life.
We as people are not unchanging items in a universe of change but are in fact equally as malleable as any other living thing. We may believe that we are not - we are "pessimists" or "optimists" or "really not good at anything" - but as we move through time we realize that our opinions of ourselves, much like photos, are merely a snapshot in time. It is the whole of the life that must be considered.
And this is where those goals and plans come in.
By working on the plans and goals, what we find - maybe only after the fact - is that we are molded by that for which we are working for. For example, I may start out wanting to do Highland Athletics. What I may find is not only do I get better at Highland Athletics but that I also learn to make connections with others in an environment very different from the one I typically work in; in other words I develop social skills.
Or take Iaido. I learn to use the bokuto and the shinken; what I learn by learning is the hard art of practicing and the concept of continual improvement. These concepts begin to impact other areas of my life as well: I do not just throw at Highland Games to throw, I throw to make a new personal best that may be measured only in inches; my cheese making becomes not the pursuit of one perfect cheese but the continual improvement of my cheese making art.
This concept is a subtle one and certainly not one I personally appreciated (or even knew about) growing up but I believe was (and is) evident in the minds of my teachers and the meaningful adults in my life. They knew, as they know now, the outcome of such goals and plans; I believe they understood then (as I only understand now) that one of their tasks is imbue this into the lives of their students, even if unconsciously.
I cannot promise that every goal or every plan will change one dramatically; certainly within my own life there are plenty of accomplishments which seem not to have scratched the surface of my personality. But I can only believe that like those that have consciously impacted my behavior these also in time will give rise to results that will make me say "I am glad I decided to do that. Look at what it did in my life."
Goals and plans are funny things. We tend to think of them as third party objects which we create and execute on. There may be physical executions and the outcome of the goals may be real things but the goals and plans remain (in our mind) something we have thought our or written out on paper, brought to life ex nihilo of our minds.
The reality is that goals and plans are in fact imbued with a certain amount of life. Perhaps not life as we know it, but life.
We as people are not unchanging items in a universe of change but are in fact equally as malleable as any other living thing. We may believe that we are not - we are "pessimists" or "optimists" or "really not good at anything" - but as we move through time we realize that our opinions of ourselves, much like photos, are merely a snapshot in time. It is the whole of the life that must be considered.
And this is where those goals and plans come in.
By working on the plans and goals, what we find - maybe only after the fact - is that we are molded by that for which we are working for. For example, I may start out wanting to do Highland Athletics. What I may find is not only do I get better at Highland Athletics but that I also learn to make connections with others in an environment very different from the one I typically work in; in other words I develop social skills.
Or take Iaido. I learn to use the bokuto and the shinken; what I learn by learning is the hard art of practicing and the concept of continual improvement. These concepts begin to impact other areas of my life as well: I do not just throw at Highland Games to throw, I throw to make a new personal best that may be measured only in inches; my cheese making becomes not the pursuit of one perfect cheese but the continual improvement of my cheese making art.
This concept is a subtle one and certainly not one I personally appreciated (or even knew about) growing up but I believe was (and is) evident in the minds of my teachers and the meaningful adults in my life. They knew, as they know now, the outcome of such goals and plans; I believe they understood then (as I only understand now) that one of their tasks is imbue this into the lives of their students, even if unconsciously.
I cannot promise that every goal or every plan will change one dramatically; certainly within my own life there are plenty of accomplishments which seem not to have scratched the surface of my personality. But I can only believe that like those that have consciously impacted my behavior these also in time will give rise to results that will make me say "I am glad I decided to do that. Look at what it did in my life."
Monday, May 06, 2013
Scottish Athletics as Church
Participating in the Highland Games as I did this weekend I was struck by the similarity between Highland Games Athletes and the Church.
(I know. It is not something I ever thought about either).
Similarity, you might ask? Surely I jest. There is little that is the same between the Church, the living body of Christ and a group of men and women gathered together for the purpose of throwing heavy objects long distances - if for nothing other reason the religion is not quite the first topic of choice at one of these gatherings.
But the thought hit me as I drove home that the similarities were there.
Like the Church, Heavy Athletics is a collection of people who otherwise have no relationship to each other. They are people who likely I would never meet in my life if I were not participating because they live completely different lives than myself. The differences are somewhat jarring initially, but after three hours of throwing everyone becomes supportive: after all, although we are competing we are really all there to do the same thing: our best.
The Church is like that too, although I suspect that after two thousand years we have become a little numb to it. We tend to expect people in Church that are like ourselves - in fact, we often go out of our way to find churches that are like that. There's nothing inherently wrong with that I suppose - after all, I have my own preferences of worship just like everyone else - but we cannot be so set that seeing someone who seems completely contrary to ourselves sets us off and makes us uncomfortable.
Since I have started throwing I have encountered a wonderful cast of characters: semi-professional athletes, law enforcement officers, heavy equipment operators, the retired, college athletes, computer programmers, administrators. The range of types and characters runs from the highly health minded to those who alternate Monsters and Bud Lights, from the heavily tattooed to those without them, from 250+ lbs of solid muscle to 140 lb lightweights.
All in kilts. All pulling for the same them. All (eventually) pulling for each other.
It does not matter where you are from, what you do, what you look like, what your skill level is. If you are there, you are there to compete. And you are accepted solely on the basis of that fact.
Like church there are rules (NASGA rules instead of the Bible), those that guide (referees instead of pastors), and share praise and encouragement (mostly shouting at each other to "Get it out here!"). True, we are not in worship - but we are all intensely focused on one thing while we are there. The world has been shut out for a period of time and only where we are and what we are doing is important.
I do not expect heavy athletics to become the norm at church services even as I do not expect the next Heavy Athletics event I participate in to break out into worship. What I do expect - of myself if no-one else - to step back for a moment and see my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ the way I see my fellow athletes: without bias to how they look or seem but focusing only on the common goal of what we are there to do, worship and glorify God - and how I can help them (and myself) to accomplish that as we all seek to do and be our best for God.
(I know. It is not something I ever thought about either).
Similarity, you might ask? Surely I jest. There is little that is the same between the Church, the living body of Christ and a group of men and women gathered together for the purpose of throwing heavy objects long distances - if for nothing other reason the religion is not quite the first topic of choice at one of these gatherings.
But the thought hit me as I drove home that the similarities were there.
Like the Church, Heavy Athletics is a collection of people who otherwise have no relationship to each other. They are people who likely I would never meet in my life if I were not participating because they live completely different lives than myself. The differences are somewhat jarring initially, but after three hours of throwing everyone becomes supportive: after all, although we are competing we are really all there to do the same thing: our best.
The Church is like that too, although I suspect that after two thousand years we have become a little numb to it. We tend to expect people in Church that are like ourselves - in fact, we often go out of our way to find churches that are like that. There's nothing inherently wrong with that I suppose - after all, I have my own preferences of worship just like everyone else - but we cannot be so set that seeing someone who seems completely contrary to ourselves sets us off and makes us uncomfortable.
Since I have started throwing I have encountered a wonderful cast of characters: semi-professional athletes, law enforcement officers, heavy equipment operators, the retired, college athletes, computer programmers, administrators. The range of types and characters runs from the highly health minded to those who alternate Monsters and Bud Lights, from the heavily tattooed to those without them, from 250+ lbs of solid muscle to 140 lb lightweights.
All in kilts. All pulling for the same them. All (eventually) pulling for each other.
It does not matter where you are from, what you do, what you look like, what your skill level is. If you are there, you are there to compete. And you are accepted solely on the basis of that fact.
Like church there are rules (NASGA rules instead of the Bible), those that guide (referees instead of pastors), and share praise and encouragement (mostly shouting at each other to "Get it out here!"). True, we are not in worship - but we are all intensely focused on one thing while we are there. The world has been shut out for a period of time and only where we are and what we are doing is important.
I do not expect heavy athletics to become the norm at church services even as I do not expect the next Heavy Athletics event I participate in to break out into worship. What I do expect - of myself if no-one else - to step back for a moment and see my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ the way I see my fellow athletes: without bias to how they look or seem but focusing only on the common goal of what we are there to do, worship and glorify God - and how I can help them (and myself) to accomplish that as we all seek to do and be our best for God.
Friday, May 03, 2013
Early Morning Productivity
I sit here this morning with my cup of "Texas Style" coffee at hand, tasting faintly of "cinnamon, chocolate and vanilla" pondering what I am going to write.
The day has already been a full one at 0630: dreams last night of a car with failing brakes (where did that come from?) ensured that my sleep was disrupted. I have performed my bible reading, prayed, did my study of New Testament Greek (Did you know there are at least four ways you can identify a pluperfect in New Testament Greek? Neither did I.), Gaelic, and Old English ("Here waes Eadward gehalgod to cinge..."). I ran: two days ago I came home drenched in sweat and today I had to run with a sweatshirt because of the weather change. I have packed lunch, eaten breakfast (half a grapefruit [ why grape-fruit? They look nothing like grapes.], one egg, 1/2 cup of dry oatmeal with yogurt), published and posted. I need only finish this, feed the rabbits, and I am on my way.
Why is this so often the most productive piece of my day?
It is not an idle question. I wish that I could be this productive throughout my day - in 1.5 hours I have accomplished more than I may in the next 10 hours. What is it that makes this a time of real production instead of just going through the motions?
What I am doing is one item. Everything I listed (with the exception of making lunch) are items which are me, which engage me, which brighten my world. By doing them I believe I am attempting to keep the "world" (so defined as the work world and my "adult" life) at bay, to maintain a shred of individuality that is still me.
Another element is time. This is the time I have to do these things - if not now, they will never find their way into my day as they will be swamped and thrust aside by more "important" issues that probably do not matter that much in the long run.
The final element, as strange as it seems, is success. I do these things because at some level I believe them to something that will give me a greater life in the end. Right or wrong I perceive that each of these activities will in the the course of my life better me, empower me, give me something which will allow me to move forward.
I look at the bottom of my coffee cup: gone but for the residual fumes. The rabbits are hopping about in the other room, patiently waiting for someone to feed them. The magical time has passed; the world is closing in.
And I wonder: what if all of my life could be spent on such useful things? How productive could I be then?
The day has already been a full one at 0630: dreams last night of a car with failing brakes (where did that come from?) ensured that my sleep was disrupted. I have performed my bible reading, prayed, did my study of New Testament Greek (Did you know there are at least four ways you can identify a pluperfect in New Testament Greek? Neither did I.), Gaelic, and Old English ("Here waes Eadward gehalgod to cinge..."). I ran: two days ago I came home drenched in sweat and today I had to run with a sweatshirt because of the weather change. I have packed lunch, eaten breakfast (half a grapefruit [ why grape-fruit? They look nothing like grapes.], one egg, 1/2 cup of dry oatmeal with yogurt), published and posted. I need only finish this, feed the rabbits, and I am on my way.
Why is this so often the most productive piece of my day?
It is not an idle question. I wish that I could be this productive throughout my day - in 1.5 hours I have accomplished more than I may in the next 10 hours. What is it that makes this a time of real production instead of just going through the motions?
What I am doing is one item. Everything I listed (with the exception of making lunch) are items which are me, which engage me, which brighten my world. By doing them I believe I am attempting to keep the "world" (so defined as the work world and my "adult" life) at bay, to maintain a shred of individuality that is still me.
Another element is time. This is the time I have to do these things - if not now, they will never find their way into my day as they will be swamped and thrust aside by more "important" issues that probably do not matter that much in the long run.
The final element, as strange as it seems, is success. I do these things because at some level I believe them to something that will give me a greater life in the end. Right or wrong I perceive that each of these activities will in the the course of my life better me, empower me, give me something which will allow me to move forward.
I look at the bottom of my coffee cup: gone but for the residual fumes. The rabbits are hopping about in the other room, patiently waiting for someone to feed them. The magical time has passed; the world is closing in.
And I wonder: what if all of my life could be spent on such useful things? How productive could I be then?
Thursday, May 02, 2013
Social Facade
We live in a social media era. We live in an era of careful crafted and controlled personal appearances and perceptions. More and more it often seems the case that what we want to live and been seen as is our Facebook updates or online avatars, where generally we do no wrong, our teeth are straight and our kids are doing well in school. But the reality is in fact that we are the same people we ever were, with the faults and flaws that we carry inside. We just kid ourselves that they are less relevant.
However there come moments where the facade is removed by others - often unsuspectingly - and the soft underbelly is revealed.
Such an incident happened to me yesterday. It was a chance conversation that I was tangentially involved in - but one for which the words stuck in my heart like arrows.
I reeled back in internal confusion for a moment. Not me - I was not this way. I mentally started making a list of all the ways I did not seem like that and all the ways I did not share those characteristics. The instant justification and vociferous voicing of my inner defender surprised me with its intensity.
And then I stepped outside of myself for a minute and tried to look at myself, not as I would from a social media standpoint (how carefully we choose our pictures of ourselves that we want to show to others) but simply from the cold hard facts of the words. And looking at it that way, there were shared similarities.
It is odd how we couch the evil in ourselves as not as a bad as it really may be.
It provoked a good afternoon of thought which was needed. But what it really provoked was a re-examination of my own life - not as I present it to others, but as it would be presented if my own thoughts and internal dialogues were put on display for the world to see.
In such a case, I fear my social media facade would scarcely match the internal things - the "me" that I like to gloss over" - that I know are within me.
However there come moments where the facade is removed by others - often unsuspectingly - and the soft underbelly is revealed.
Such an incident happened to me yesterday. It was a chance conversation that I was tangentially involved in - but one for which the words stuck in my heart like arrows.
I reeled back in internal confusion for a moment. Not me - I was not this way. I mentally started making a list of all the ways I did not seem like that and all the ways I did not share those characteristics. The instant justification and vociferous voicing of my inner defender surprised me with its intensity.
And then I stepped outside of myself for a minute and tried to look at myself, not as I would from a social media standpoint (how carefully we choose our pictures of ourselves that we want to show to others) but simply from the cold hard facts of the words. And looking at it that way, there were shared similarities.
It is odd how we couch the evil in ourselves as not as a bad as it really may be.
It provoked a good afternoon of thought which was needed. But what it really provoked was a re-examination of my own life - not as I present it to others, but as it would be presented if my own thoughts and internal dialogues were put on display for the world to see.
In such a case, I fear my social media facade would scarcely match the internal things - the "me" that I like to gloss over" - that I know are within me.
Wednesday, May 01, 2013
Cursor
Back and forth, back and forth
the cursor wanders the linear paths:
filling the void with words,
then hurrying back to erase the electrons.
First the words seem to form a thought -
but no, they are banished to the netherworld
of the unrealized.
Now a haiku - Wait!
Too many syllables; again the cursor performs
its destructive dance
Back and forth, back and forth
the cursor wanders the linear paths,
trying desperately to create
but seeming only to destroy.
the cursor wanders the linear paths:
filling the void with words,
then hurrying back to erase the electrons.
First the words seem to form a thought -
but no, they are banished to the netherworld
of the unrealized.
Now a haiku - Wait!
Too many syllables; again the cursor performs
its destructive dance
Back and forth, back and forth
the cursor wanders the linear paths,
trying desperately to create
but seeming only to destroy.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Eight and Out
For two weeks in a row now I have had Mondays where I instituted my Eight and Out goal: eight hours at work, then leave. It is one of the hardest things I have done.
Why so hard? Because I have built up the habit over many years of staying beyond 8 hours, of having a "flexible" plan which meant that 8.5, 9 or even 9.5 hours were become the norm. There was no real sense on rushing to everything because I had no definitive time when I was going to leave.
That changes with a set time. Suddenly everything is measured in terms of when I need to walk out the door. All time becomes cross-referenced to the hour and minute hand. One actually has to select tasks which need to be accomplished and those which will not be accomplished that day.
Has my work load decreased? Not at all - in fact, I am probably more busy than ever. But what has changed, if ephemerally, is the sense that my "job" is the all consuming area of my life. Now I am defining limits on where that consumption ends - and starting to find a place to put the extra time.
Extra time? Just in commuting alone, leaving and coming home at a different time can add 1 to 1.5 hours to my life every day. The few times this has happened I find myself almost luxuriating in the fact that it is not even 4:30 and I am already home.
Fear not about the extra time - it is already trying to find ways to be used in my life. But this time I am trying to use it strategically, to begin to advance towards a more rewarding career.
In other words, after Eight and Out I am still using that time for work - it is just that I am reallocating that time to a new boss: me.
Why so hard? Because I have built up the habit over many years of staying beyond 8 hours, of having a "flexible" plan which meant that 8.5, 9 or even 9.5 hours were become the norm. There was no real sense on rushing to everything because I had no definitive time when I was going to leave.
That changes with a set time. Suddenly everything is measured in terms of when I need to walk out the door. All time becomes cross-referenced to the hour and minute hand. One actually has to select tasks which need to be accomplished and those which will not be accomplished that day.
Has my work load decreased? Not at all - in fact, I am probably more busy than ever. But what has changed, if ephemerally, is the sense that my "job" is the all consuming area of my life. Now I am defining limits on where that consumption ends - and starting to find a place to put the extra time.
Extra time? Just in commuting alone, leaving and coming home at a different time can add 1 to 1.5 hours to my life every day. The few times this has happened I find myself almost luxuriating in the fact that it is not even 4:30 and I am already home.
Fear not about the extra time - it is already trying to find ways to be used in my life. But this time I am trying to use it strategically, to begin to advance towards a more rewarding career.
In other words, after Eight and Out I am still using that time for work - it is just that I am reallocating that time to a new boss: me.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Adding and Subtracting
As I was sitting on my bed on my birthday's eve, it occurred to me that I should start doing something on my birthday for myself: that I should start adding and subtracting things.
Not the basic math, you understand. Instead I am referring to the act of adding something to and subtracting something from my life every year. Birthdays are the perfect sort of event for this sort of thing:
1) They are annual.
2) They are a fixed date one can always remember.
3) It is a time for giving gifts - why not to yourself?
What do I mean? Simply that going forward on each birthday I will make a decision of at least one thing to add to my life (start doing) and one thing to subtract from my life (stop doing).
Is this not the same as setting goals or intentions at New Year's? It is generally the same I suppose - with the difference that I am trying to think of it different (add to and subtract from rather than do/do not do) and that it does not happen when everyone else is also trying to set their resolutions.
What to add and subtract? It occurred to me that these can be as varied as I would like them to be. They can be an activity. They can be an attitude. They can be an action. The only rule is that the addition must improve my life and the subtraction must remove something I no longer want or need from my life.
How did I do? I came up a list of four items for each, a mix of actions and attitudes and perhaps an activity. I need to go back this week, review them, and rank them in order of how I would like to see them dealt with.
But make no mistake: I intend to do it. After all, birthdays are a fine time to receive gifts - and what better gift than that of self improvement.
Not the basic math, you understand. Instead I am referring to the act of adding something to and subtracting something from my life every year. Birthdays are the perfect sort of event for this sort of thing:
1) They are annual.
2) They are a fixed date one can always remember.
3) It is a time for giving gifts - why not to yourself?
What do I mean? Simply that going forward on each birthday I will make a decision of at least one thing to add to my life (start doing) and one thing to subtract from my life (stop doing).
Is this not the same as setting goals or intentions at New Year's? It is generally the same I suppose - with the difference that I am trying to think of it different (add to and subtract from rather than do/do not do) and that it does not happen when everyone else is also trying to set their resolutions.
What to add and subtract? It occurred to me that these can be as varied as I would like them to be. They can be an activity. They can be an attitude. They can be an action. The only rule is that the addition must improve my life and the subtraction must remove something I no longer want or need from my life.
How did I do? I came up a list of four items for each, a mix of actions and attitudes and perhaps an activity. I need to go back this week, review them, and rank them in order of how I would like to see them dealt with.
But make no mistake: I intend to do it. After all, birthdays are a fine time to receive gifts - and what better gift than that of self improvement.
Friday, April 26, 2013
Things of Little Import
An overcast morning this morning. The rain we have been expecting seems to have come early this morning so the patio has acquired the darker color of wet stones. Opening the window I feel the cooler air - remarkably unusual for this time of year, so my local friends tell me.I hear the conversation of the the local avian conversing about some matter of great importance.
I have taken the day off today and so as I write, later than usual for me, the house is filled with the sounds of silence. Kiki the Songbird occasionally chirps away - to talk to the rabbits? Who knows. The coffee from earlier this morning is not steaming hot but warm enough to be consumed.
Mornings like this seem to come far too rarely these days. The sense of things rolling around in my mind in the silence of the moment have become times to be treasured - so often it feels as if I am rushing from place to place and thought to thought in such a hurry that little if anything of importance gets done.
Things of importance. Aye, there is the rub. I so often seem enmeshed in things of little importance, tasks that are great only in the minds of the small. I feel as if I spend my life on things of no substance, waiting for the things of substance to someday appear.
But do they appear? Or are they something that must be sought out? It is a truth that small things and things of no import will always multiply to fill all available time in our lives. They seemingly require no encouragement to do so and feeding them in slightest only results in a sudden explosion of their activity.
The things of import, the things that matter - the thoughts that need time to ponder, the writings that need time to be written, the relationships that need interaction to be built - all of these are built on the edifice of time and attention, items that the things of little import seem to steal relentlessly.
How does one make such time? I wish I knew. The things that I have tried - carving out time, delegation, even planning - never seem to get the job done. I may start strong, but inevitably find myself falling back to being controlled by the trivial things of life.
Perhaps it is different. Perhaps it is a matter of simply beginning to address the big things rather than trying to make time and space to carve out to address the big things - a sort of directly doing rather than indirectly planning to do, if you will. At least if one addresses something it has to be dealt with then rather than being shelved.
But something must be done. Time is relentless - and the things of little import will happily eat everything available until the moment of death.
I have taken the day off today and so as I write, later than usual for me, the house is filled with the sounds of silence. Kiki the Songbird occasionally chirps away - to talk to the rabbits? Who knows. The coffee from earlier this morning is not steaming hot but warm enough to be consumed.
Mornings like this seem to come far too rarely these days. The sense of things rolling around in my mind in the silence of the moment have become times to be treasured - so often it feels as if I am rushing from place to place and thought to thought in such a hurry that little if anything of importance gets done.
Things of importance. Aye, there is the rub. I so often seem enmeshed in things of little importance, tasks that are great only in the minds of the small. I feel as if I spend my life on things of no substance, waiting for the things of substance to someday appear.
But do they appear? Or are they something that must be sought out? It is a truth that small things and things of no import will always multiply to fill all available time in our lives. They seemingly require no encouragement to do so and feeding them in slightest only results in a sudden explosion of their activity.
The things of import, the things that matter - the thoughts that need time to ponder, the writings that need time to be written, the relationships that need interaction to be built - all of these are built on the edifice of time and attention, items that the things of little import seem to steal relentlessly.
How does one make such time? I wish I knew. The things that I have tried - carving out time, delegation, even planning - never seem to get the job done. I may start strong, but inevitably find myself falling back to being controlled by the trivial things of life.
Perhaps it is different. Perhaps it is a matter of simply beginning to address the big things rather than trying to make time and space to carve out to address the big things - a sort of directly doing rather than indirectly planning to do, if you will. At least if one addresses something it has to be dealt with then rather than being shelved.
But something must be done. Time is relentless - and the things of little import will happily eat everything available until the moment of death.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Change Where You Bang Your Head
"Above all, avoid banging your head against the same piece of wall. The wall will not get any softer." - Felix Dennis
There comes a moment - really a series of moments I suppose -when the realization comes that a certain thing is simply not going to change. You may hope it will change. You may think the requirement for change is patently obvious, not just to you but to everyone around you. You may even think that the readily viewable consequences of this thing are so visible that to continue forward is this way is a retrograde action similar to driving over a bridge that is obviously half finished.
And still, nothing changes.
It is what you do at that moment that is important.
Why is it important? Because in fact the thing that needs changing is within you.
Whatever this thing that you cannot change is, it is not changing because it is (obviously) out of your control - if it were, you would have a more direct ability to change it. Why it is out of you control is relatively unimportant: perhaps it is because a decision must be made by someone who does not want to make them or perhaps someone else's pride and prestige are involved or perhaps the power of inertia is simply more powerful than the need to resolve it. In any case the "why" might make for an interesting theory over coffee but will not change anything.
And a change is the key. The wall, as Mr. Dennis points out above, will not become any softer by you hammering it with your head. And the wall will not move. You are the one that needs to change your position.
This realization is a large step - but an important. It takes the focus off of the wall (which had no intention of relocating) and puts it squarely on you (the one who is capable of moving away). It grants you the power of decision, of intiation. Rather than waiting for the wall to change you can turn your efforts to finding what else you can change, what is actually in your control.
A word of warning: when making this discovery do not suddenly become depressed by the fact that changes you are able to make do not seem to immeidately address the wall. Often the initial changes that we can make are small in comparison to the wall we have been hitting our head against. But small changes properly executed can lead to bigger changes and bigger changes to real revolutions.
And who knows -the changes you can make and do make may actually allow to rent the bulldozer to drive over and through the wall where you used to hit your head.
There comes a moment - really a series of moments I suppose -when the realization comes that a certain thing is simply not going to change. You may hope it will change. You may think the requirement for change is patently obvious, not just to you but to everyone around you. You may even think that the readily viewable consequences of this thing are so visible that to continue forward is this way is a retrograde action similar to driving over a bridge that is obviously half finished.
And still, nothing changes.
It is what you do at that moment that is important.
Why is it important? Because in fact the thing that needs changing is within you.
Whatever this thing that you cannot change is, it is not changing because it is (obviously) out of your control - if it were, you would have a more direct ability to change it. Why it is out of you control is relatively unimportant: perhaps it is because a decision must be made by someone who does not want to make them or perhaps someone else's pride and prestige are involved or perhaps the power of inertia is simply more powerful than the need to resolve it. In any case the "why" might make for an interesting theory over coffee but will not change anything.
And a change is the key. The wall, as Mr. Dennis points out above, will not become any softer by you hammering it with your head. And the wall will not move. You are the one that needs to change your position.
This realization is a large step - but an important. It takes the focus off of the wall (which had no intention of relocating) and puts it squarely on you (the one who is capable of moving away). It grants you the power of decision, of intiation. Rather than waiting for the wall to change you can turn your efforts to finding what else you can change, what is actually in your control.
A word of warning: when making this discovery do not suddenly become depressed by the fact that changes you are able to make do not seem to immeidately address the wall. Often the initial changes that we can make are small in comparison to the wall we have been hitting our head against. But small changes properly executed can lead to bigger changes and bigger changes to real revolutions.
And who knows -the changes you can make and do make may actually allow to rent the bulldozer to drive over and through the wall where you used to hit your head.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
The Bargain Wall
We made a visit to our local regional used book store last night.
If you suspect that I am a easy target for such a place, you are right. As The Ravishing Mrs. TB would happily tell you, one of my "failings" is that a love books - perhaps a little too much, judging from the bookshelves that push out from the sides of our walls.
I will also admit that I have come to love the used book store more than the (essentially) single remaining monolith that dominates the book store industry. Why? Because entering a used book store is always a sort of adventure: one never knows precisely what one will find there. Sometimes I can spend an hour and find nothing that I want to take home. Other times I can be there two minutes and be gone, or else suffer from a cornucopia of items I wish to acquire in which case I end up taking an hour to make a simple decision of what to buy. By entering such a place I always have the sense of adventure hanging just to the left of vision, barely visible in my sight.
As a matter of course in my wanderings I always take the opportunity to walk by "The Bargain Wall" - the last stop for books that have not sold. Here, books have been brutally slashed in their already low prices in order to do anything with them other than have to continue to maintain them on the shelf or send them to wherever the truly unsellable books go to live.
Looking at the books as I wander by, I am always struck both by the variety and the wording of the texts as I go by. "New York Bestseller" says one. "Recommended by X" says another. "As featured on A Really Important Television Show" says a third. All of them trumpeting their importance, their relevance, the reasons why you should be procuring their books.
And I then I pick one of them up. "$24.95" says the original cover which is now overlabeled with "$1.95". I flip over to the back to read about the author, who maybe I recognize - or maybe not. Maybe they went on to write five more books. Perhaps they never wrote another book and were never heard from again.
Do I begrudge them these prices and this exposure? Not at all. The fact that we live in a society where books can continue to exist and serve long after their authors are gone or have fallen from visibility is a miracle to me, a testimony to the power of literature and the existence of such things.
But was does give me pause as my eyes wander the shelves is what ultimate end is represented here.
Writing a book is hard work, even if one is skilled at it. It is hours of writing, then editing, then rewriting, then sighing as others criticize, then rewriting - and then comes the process of convincing someone else it is worthy enough to get published. And as many authors as not think that they are contributing something great to the world, something that will make a difference in the lives of others. "I have written the next world changing novel" or "I have spoken a great word" or "I have created a force of entertainment which will create a media empire" are thoughts which, if authors were honest, probably rolls through their heads more than they care to admit.
And here the book sits, marked down to $1.95. After having been marked down three times before.
The thing it makes think about as I return the book to the shelf is the reality of the effort of so much of our lives, that we put so much time and effort into those things that we think are of great importance only to realize that, too often, they are merely things which eventually get moved to the bargain shelf - and conversely, those things which we may consider of lesser importance, things that we moved out of the way to do the things of "great importance", are often the very things we should have spent our time on.
Will such a thing deter me from trying "greater things"? No more so than the $1.95 price of a book will deter me from buying it. But hopefully what it will do is give me a more moderate sense of the fact that the "great things" I often convince myself I am doing are not very far away from being essentially irrelevant and forgotten.
Except by bargain hunters and those who frequent second hand stores.
If you suspect that I am a easy target for such a place, you are right. As The Ravishing Mrs. TB would happily tell you, one of my "failings" is that a love books - perhaps a little too much, judging from the bookshelves that push out from the sides of our walls.
I will also admit that I have come to love the used book store more than the (essentially) single remaining monolith that dominates the book store industry. Why? Because entering a used book store is always a sort of adventure: one never knows precisely what one will find there. Sometimes I can spend an hour and find nothing that I want to take home. Other times I can be there two minutes and be gone, or else suffer from a cornucopia of items I wish to acquire in which case I end up taking an hour to make a simple decision of what to buy. By entering such a place I always have the sense of adventure hanging just to the left of vision, barely visible in my sight.
As a matter of course in my wanderings I always take the opportunity to walk by "The Bargain Wall" - the last stop for books that have not sold. Here, books have been brutally slashed in their already low prices in order to do anything with them other than have to continue to maintain them on the shelf or send them to wherever the truly unsellable books go to live.
Looking at the books as I wander by, I am always struck both by the variety and the wording of the texts as I go by. "New York Bestseller" says one. "Recommended by X" says another. "As featured on A Really Important Television Show" says a third. All of them trumpeting their importance, their relevance, the reasons why you should be procuring their books.
And I then I pick one of them up. "$24.95" says the original cover which is now overlabeled with "$1.95". I flip over to the back to read about the author, who maybe I recognize - or maybe not. Maybe they went on to write five more books. Perhaps they never wrote another book and were never heard from again.
Do I begrudge them these prices and this exposure? Not at all. The fact that we live in a society where books can continue to exist and serve long after their authors are gone or have fallen from visibility is a miracle to me, a testimony to the power of literature and the existence of such things.
But was does give me pause as my eyes wander the shelves is what ultimate end is represented here.
Writing a book is hard work, even if one is skilled at it. It is hours of writing, then editing, then rewriting, then sighing as others criticize, then rewriting - and then comes the process of convincing someone else it is worthy enough to get published. And as many authors as not think that they are contributing something great to the world, something that will make a difference in the lives of others. "I have written the next world changing novel" or "I have spoken a great word" or "I have created a force of entertainment which will create a media empire" are thoughts which, if authors were honest, probably rolls through their heads more than they care to admit.
And here the book sits, marked down to $1.95. After having been marked down three times before.
The thing it makes think about as I return the book to the shelf is the reality of the effort of so much of our lives, that we put so much time and effort into those things that we think are of great importance only to realize that, too often, they are merely things which eventually get moved to the bargain shelf - and conversely, those things which we may consider of lesser importance, things that we moved out of the way to do the things of "great importance", are often the very things we should have spent our time on.
Will such a thing deter me from trying "greater things"? No more so than the $1.95 price of a book will deter me from buying it. But hopefully what it will do is give me a more moderate sense of the fact that the "great things" I often convince myself I am doing are not very far away from being essentially irrelevant and forgotten.
Except by bargain hunters and those who frequent second hand stores.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
The Fine and Pleasant Art of Stealing Back Time
You cannot make time.
This is a misquotation that we often use in our own society. We speak about "making time" for this and that, as if we somehow had the ability to control quantum physics and generate additional seconds ex nihilo.
Instead, what we seem to mean is that "I will find some time to do that" - which again seems like a bit of a mis-statement. Time is the invisible and ephemeral; like the wind, we can only see its passing by the running of clocks and the stretch of seasons into years.
Almost everyone wants more time. It is something that we never seem to have enough of, something that we pay millions of dollars every year to "save" (Yes, you guessed it - we can no more save time that make or find it and even if we could, how would we store it?). I want it as bad as anyone else - if for no other reason that to do something of the things I really would like to or need to.
So if we cannot make, find or save time, how do we get it? There is really only one answer: we take it back.
I know - taking it back sounds as unreasonable as the other concepts I have just proposed as silly. And in a sense we cannot take it back physically - but we can recover it. And when I say recover it, I really mean steal it back (which sounds a great deal more exciting than merely recovering it, you have to admit).
The reality is that every activity we do - sleeping, eating, working, writing a blog, running - consumes a certain amount of the 24 hours we are given every day. Accept the fact that certain biological facts - sleep, for example - take a certain amount of time whether or not we care to admit it. What is left is that 16 to 18 hours a day we call life.
To get the time we want to do the things we want, we have to learn to steal it from other places in our lives. Am I suggesting stealing time from your employer, for example? Perish the thought - but what I am suggesting is that you may be giving away your time to your employer for free (not that they will mention that to you, of course). And something as simple as commuting can double or triple, depending on the time you do it. Yes, there are such things as Books on CD and How to Learn Czech for the car - but how much better if you were not limited in the use of that time"
And think about the activities that you do in a day. Are all of them necessary? Important? If you took time away from something of lesser value for something of greater value, would your life really be that much emptier? Or over time, would it be more full?
It is all about priorities of course, the practice of determining what is more important and less important in our lives. But the greatest effort in prioritization will matter not at all unless we are able to match it with the time to meet those priorities. And that time will only come when we remove it both physically and psychically from somewhere else.
More time is not being manufactured nor is it being given away - so go wrest your time back and, as they say, "Drive it like it was stolen".
Because it will be.
This is a misquotation that we often use in our own society. We speak about "making time" for this and that, as if we somehow had the ability to control quantum physics and generate additional seconds ex nihilo.
Instead, what we seem to mean is that "I will find some time to do that" - which again seems like a bit of a mis-statement. Time is the invisible and ephemeral; like the wind, we can only see its passing by the running of clocks and the stretch of seasons into years.
Almost everyone wants more time. It is something that we never seem to have enough of, something that we pay millions of dollars every year to "save" (Yes, you guessed it - we can no more save time that make or find it and even if we could, how would we store it?). I want it as bad as anyone else - if for no other reason that to do something of the things I really would like to or need to.
So if we cannot make, find or save time, how do we get it? There is really only one answer: we take it back.
I know - taking it back sounds as unreasonable as the other concepts I have just proposed as silly. And in a sense we cannot take it back physically - but we can recover it. And when I say recover it, I really mean steal it back (which sounds a great deal more exciting than merely recovering it, you have to admit).
The reality is that every activity we do - sleeping, eating, working, writing a blog, running - consumes a certain amount of the 24 hours we are given every day. Accept the fact that certain biological facts - sleep, for example - take a certain amount of time whether or not we care to admit it. What is left is that 16 to 18 hours a day we call life.
To get the time we want to do the things we want, we have to learn to steal it from other places in our lives. Am I suggesting stealing time from your employer, for example? Perish the thought - but what I am suggesting is that you may be giving away your time to your employer for free (not that they will mention that to you, of course). And something as simple as commuting can double or triple, depending on the time you do it. Yes, there are such things as Books on CD and How to Learn Czech for the car - but how much better if you were not limited in the use of that time"
And think about the activities that you do in a day. Are all of them necessary? Important? If you took time away from something of lesser value for something of greater value, would your life really be that much emptier? Or over time, would it be more full?
It is all about priorities of course, the practice of determining what is more important and less important in our lives. But the greatest effort in prioritization will matter not at all unless we are able to match it with the time to meet those priorities. And that time will only come when we remove it both physically and psychically from somewhere else.
More time is not being manufactured nor is it being given away - so go wrest your time back and, as they say, "Drive it like it was stolen".
Because it will be.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Taking Action
I need to be more about the doing.
This has always been one of the weaknesses in my life. I am great dreamer. I am a great one for painting pictures and imagining scenarios and planning. But I too often fall down in execution.
Why? A plethora of reasons I suppose. Execution is not fun. It is the actual hard work after the hard work of thinking. A thousand things try to steal your attention away from the task you are currently at. And it always seems to take much longer to accomplish something that what you envision it would.
But reputations are made on execution. Results are based in execution. The doing is ultimately what determines the rewards that come in life.
If I looked at my life over the past year and rated it not on what I had thought about or dreamed about but what I actually accomplished, my sense of my life would be greatly changed. I would have far fewer things to point to as accomplishments - family, professional, personal, spiritual - than I would than to what I had thought about accomplishing during the last year.
What is the solution? Fairly straightforward of course, as most of the really important things are: Do. Understand what it is that I want to accomplish and take some action on them every day. Begin to incorporate what I have done in to the metrics of my success, not just what I have thought about doing.
Words alone will not accomplish great deeds. Action is called for.
P.S. Here is a splendid article by Kirstin O'Donovan on 4 Ways That You'll Ensure Failure. It summarizes the concept quite nicely.
This has always been one of the weaknesses in my life. I am great dreamer. I am a great one for painting pictures and imagining scenarios and planning. But I too often fall down in execution.
Why? A plethora of reasons I suppose. Execution is not fun. It is the actual hard work after the hard work of thinking. A thousand things try to steal your attention away from the task you are currently at. And it always seems to take much longer to accomplish something that what you envision it would.
But reputations are made on execution. Results are based in execution. The doing is ultimately what determines the rewards that come in life.
If I looked at my life over the past year and rated it not on what I had thought about or dreamed about but what I actually accomplished, my sense of my life would be greatly changed. I would have far fewer things to point to as accomplishments - family, professional, personal, spiritual - than I would than to what I had thought about accomplishing during the last year.
What is the solution? Fairly straightforward of course, as most of the really important things are: Do. Understand what it is that I want to accomplish and take some action on them every day. Begin to incorporate what I have done in to the metrics of my success, not just what I have thought about doing.
Words alone will not accomplish great deeds. Action is called for.
P.S. Here is a splendid article by Kirstin O'Donovan on 4 Ways That You'll Ensure Failure. It summarizes the concept quite nicely.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Barrenness and Busy
"Beware the barrenness of a busy life." - Socrates
This quote flashed at the bottom of the one of the newsletters I subscribed to years ago in my e-mail. I looked at it briefly then immediately closed down the window and scurried off to the next task that I had to accomplish. The thought lingered though, through a day of meetings and trainings and conversations - in other words, a day of being busy.
I have already pondered the fact that my time seem scarcer than ever and the result was a consideration of looking at what I was trying to accomplish. But I wonder if I am looking deeply enough.
The quote itself seems initially contradictory. If one is busy, the assumption is that one's life is full of something - after all, to be busy is to be busy about something. It is not as if one is being lazy; one is doing things.
And barrenness has an ugly connotation. It is not just the sense of less; it is the sense of nothing. Think of some of the desert landscapes you have viewed in pictures or even driven through in travels: rock, gravel, scrub brush. Little indications of life; almost no indications of comfort.
And this, suggest Socrates, can be the outcome of a busy life.
Why? It makes sense if one gives it some thought. A fruitful life, like a fruitful landscape, takes care. It takes attention. It takes an investment into what one is doing. If you have ever planted or landscaped or gardened, you know that to truly grow something you just spend five minutes occasionally on the plants and then immediately move on. To be busy, to be rushing from thing to thing without investing the time and energy to make sure that something actually succeeds, will ultimately insure that nothing succeeds. We can always be doing but can end up never accomplishing.
The impact for me? I always feel like I am am busy: at work rushing here and rushing there, at home always immediately trying to take care of the list of items I have which I want to do because they are the reminders of a life not totally tied up in work.
But am I accomplishing anything? Or, as Socrates suggests, am I merely insure that my life we become barren, another testimony to the fact that busyness is not always indicative of true accomplishment?
This quote flashed at the bottom of the one of the newsletters I subscribed to years ago in my e-mail. I looked at it briefly then immediately closed down the window and scurried off to the next task that I had to accomplish. The thought lingered though, through a day of meetings and trainings and conversations - in other words, a day of being busy.
I have already pondered the fact that my time seem scarcer than ever and the result was a consideration of looking at what I was trying to accomplish. But I wonder if I am looking deeply enough.
The quote itself seems initially contradictory. If one is busy, the assumption is that one's life is full of something - after all, to be busy is to be busy about something. It is not as if one is being lazy; one is doing things.
And barrenness has an ugly connotation. It is not just the sense of less; it is the sense of nothing. Think of some of the desert landscapes you have viewed in pictures or even driven through in travels: rock, gravel, scrub brush. Little indications of life; almost no indications of comfort.
And this, suggest Socrates, can be the outcome of a busy life.
Why? It makes sense if one gives it some thought. A fruitful life, like a fruitful landscape, takes care. It takes attention. It takes an investment into what one is doing. If you have ever planted or landscaped or gardened, you know that to truly grow something you just spend five minutes occasionally on the plants and then immediately move on. To be busy, to be rushing from thing to thing without investing the time and energy to make sure that something actually succeeds, will ultimately insure that nothing succeeds. We can always be doing but can end up never accomplishing.
The impact for me? I always feel like I am am busy: at work rushing here and rushing there, at home always immediately trying to take care of the list of items I have which I want to do because they are the reminders of a life not totally tied up in work.
But am I accomplishing anything? Or, as Socrates suggests, am I merely insure that my life we become barren, another testimony to the fact that busyness is not always indicative of true accomplishment?
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Deciding
So yesterday I made a decision.
I know what you are thinking: a decision. Good heavens, I make fifty of those a day. I decide things in my sleep. Why is he going on about making a single one?
Fair enough - except that for me, making a decision does not happen often enough.
It was noteworthy in that if felt different - not the typical feeling of "Hey, I am deciding to do this" which I can often flippantly say. It was much different than that: it was as if a lock clicked somewhere inside when I made it, a simple but profound sense of "Yes, I am going to do that".
It was the sense that for once something is going to be followed through on, that instead of my too-often wild commitments just rolling out of me a calm, deliberate course of events was going to take place which would lead to a conclusion.
It interests me because I am often not one for really deciding - from early years, I have been gifted or bedeviled with the inability to make a firm decision. Why? Because I like to have options, because the world seems too often too big to narrow focus on deciding something.
Because decisions are really doors.
We like to pretend they are not, that they are just something we do that we can go back through at any time. But in reality - and maybe this is a lesson that we simply learn when we become older - every time we make a true decision we walk through a door, a door that will often close behind us and cannot be easily re-opened.
People may react this in one of three ways. They may find that they like the finality of making decisions and come to engage in such decisions every day. They may kid themselves into the idea that they can always go back so they either "decide" in such a way that there is no real decision or airily do not remember makining any decision at all. Or, like me, they can simply avoid making decisions about things as long as possible in hopes they will not have to decide.
My way does not work of course - there are simply decisions that one has to make. Granted, it works no better than the one who pretends they did not decide when in fact they did because circumstances and others will hold you to your decision even if you yourself try not to. It seems that only in the process of deciding and doing so conciously that we seem to find both the greatest freedom and the greatest ability to move forward in our lives - for by pretending to decide or by not deciding at all we are always looking back. It is only in deciding, in going through and closing the door behind us that we are able to give our full attention to the road ahead.
So yesterday I made a decision. The timing may not be what I want in the end. The road may not be quite the journey I am hoping for. But at least the sound I heard in my soul was not the whine of inconstancy but rather the loud "click" of the lock tumblers engaging.
I know what you are thinking: a decision. Good heavens, I make fifty of those a day. I decide things in my sleep. Why is he going on about making a single one?
Fair enough - except that for me, making a decision does not happen often enough.
It was noteworthy in that if felt different - not the typical feeling of "Hey, I am deciding to do this" which I can often flippantly say. It was much different than that: it was as if a lock clicked somewhere inside when I made it, a simple but profound sense of "Yes, I am going to do that".
It was the sense that for once something is going to be followed through on, that instead of my too-often wild commitments just rolling out of me a calm, deliberate course of events was going to take place which would lead to a conclusion.
It interests me because I am often not one for really deciding - from early years, I have been gifted or bedeviled with the inability to make a firm decision. Why? Because I like to have options, because the world seems too often too big to narrow focus on deciding something.
Because decisions are really doors.
We like to pretend they are not, that they are just something we do that we can go back through at any time. But in reality - and maybe this is a lesson that we simply learn when we become older - every time we make a true decision we walk through a door, a door that will often close behind us and cannot be easily re-opened.
People may react this in one of three ways. They may find that they like the finality of making decisions and come to engage in such decisions every day. They may kid themselves into the idea that they can always go back so they either "decide" in such a way that there is no real decision or airily do not remember makining any decision at all. Or, like me, they can simply avoid making decisions about things as long as possible in hopes they will not have to decide.
My way does not work of course - there are simply decisions that one has to make. Granted, it works no better than the one who pretends they did not decide when in fact they did because circumstances and others will hold you to your decision even if you yourself try not to. It seems that only in the process of deciding and doing so conciously that we seem to find both the greatest freedom and the greatest ability to move forward in our lives - for by pretending to decide or by not deciding at all we are always looking back. It is only in deciding, in going through and closing the door behind us that we are able to give our full attention to the road ahead.
So yesterday I made a decision. The timing may not be what I want in the end. The road may not be quite the journey I am hoping for. But at least the sound I heard in my soul was not the whine of inconstancy but rather the loud "click" of the lock tumblers engaging.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Running After Boston
I"ll go running again this morning.
It will probably be like every other morning I run. It will be dark. It is cooler than it was yesterday (just stuck my head out the door) so the chance that I will be wringing with sweat will be less.
I'll head out of here in a bit, pounding the pavement in the early morning air with probably not a thought in the world except putting one foot in front of the other and trying to avoid landing my foot at the wrong angle and possibly even give my time a consideration. I'll dodge around cars and move to the side to accomodate the early morning dog walkers, smell the smoke of the occasional first cigarette and ponder what the weather will be like today. All as it should be.
The thing I would not have considered - the thing I should not have to think about - is thought of an explosion going off as I round the corner to finish. That is because no-one in their right mind should have to consider the possibility of such a thing.
I did not, and I am sure a great many people yesterday did not as well - until Boston happened.
Now, everywhere, every race will be touched with concern. Racers and runners this weekend will approach the course with perhaps a touch of apprehension. Somewhere on every course will be the thought by at least someone "Is there something there? Are we safe? Is this Boston again?"
I am not a one man army. I am not an investigator. I am not a first responder. There are a great many things which I cannot do.
But there is one thing I can do, one act of defiance I can offer to those who seek to haunt and terrify with fear.
I can continue to run.
We can continue to run.
Catch us if you can.
It will probably be like every other morning I run. It will be dark. It is cooler than it was yesterday (just stuck my head out the door) so the chance that I will be wringing with sweat will be less.
I'll head out of here in a bit, pounding the pavement in the early morning air with probably not a thought in the world except putting one foot in front of the other and trying to avoid landing my foot at the wrong angle and possibly even give my time a consideration. I'll dodge around cars and move to the side to accomodate the early morning dog walkers, smell the smoke of the occasional first cigarette and ponder what the weather will be like today. All as it should be.
The thing I would not have considered - the thing I should not have to think about - is thought of an explosion going off as I round the corner to finish. That is because no-one in their right mind should have to consider the possibility of such a thing.
I did not, and I am sure a great many people yesterday did not as well - until Boston happened.
Now, everywhere, every race will be touched with concern. Racers and runners this weekend will approach the course with perhaps a touch of apprehension. Somewhere on every course will be the thought by at least someone "Is there something there? Are we safe? Is this Boston again?"
I am not a one man army. I am not an investigator. I am not a first responder. There are a great many things which I cannot do.
But there is one thing I can do, one act of defiance I can offer to those who seek to haunt and terrify with fear.
I can continue to run.
We can continue to run.
Catch us if you can.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Seeing the Potential
What is your core?
This the question that Santa Claus asks of Jack Frost in The Rise of the Guardians: what is your core, the thing that you are ultimately about? Figure this out, understand what it is that truly motivates you beyond all the things that you think motivate you, and you can find the thing that will empower you to move forward.
I have been pondering this thought in the back of my head ever since we saw the movie, not so much for the profundity of thought as for the simple acknowledgement of the fact that such a concept exists - and I do not know what the answer to it is for me. If the core is really the gifts God implants in all of us, that one thing or even things that He has given to us to do, what is it?
I think I may have finally figured my own out. It is trying to help others be better.
If I look back over the course of my life - the attempts to enter seminary that lead nowhere, the short gigs of teaching, leading a study group, my oft-marred attempts at leadership, even my writing - all of them revolve around some level of trying to help others figure out what they should be doing with their lives and then trying to figure out ways to get them there.
It is like a puzzle. I see them, see their interests and talents, and somehow see their potential - what they could be doing if they could (fill in the blank here). It is then my "job" to help them to see the potential that I seem to see in them and to get them moving in that direction.
There is little that brings me more joy that the notice that a friend or acquaintance has succeeded, especially when they have done so in a way that uses the gifts they have. It is like seeing the bloom of a flower which you knew was going to be beautiful finally appear to the world around it that never gave it a second glance.
I have seen it with my friends; I have seen it with The Ravishing Mrs. TB; I am even beginning to see it with Na Clann as they begin to reach the point that their own gifts are appearing.
But what do I do with this? I do not really know. It is not as if there is a job category for "Potential Seer", and I have no initial thoughts on how I could apply this in a way that would significantly help others and let me make a living at it.
But I have found this upon reflection: my core, my gift, is seeing what is possible for those I know - and then helping them to see that is as well and launch towards it.
You see what you do. I see what you can do.
This the question that Santa Claus asks of Jack Frost in The Rise of the Guardians: what is your core, the thing that you are ultimately about? Figure this out, understand what it is that truly motivates you beyond all the things that you think motivate you, and you can find the thing that will empower you to move forward.
I have been pondering this thought in the back of my head ever since we saw the movie, not so much for the profundity of thought as for the simple acknowledgement of the fact that such a concept exists - and I do not know what the answer to it is for me. If the core is really the gifts God implants in all of us, that one thing or even things that He has given to us to do, what is it?
I think I may have finally figured my own out. It is trying to help others be better.
If I look back over the course of my life - the attempts to enter seminary that lead nowhere, the short gigs of teaching, leading a study group, my oft-marred attempts at leadership, even my writing - all of them revolve around some level of trying to help others figure out what they should be doing with their lives and then trying to figure out ways to get them there.
It is like a puzzle. I see them, see their interests and talents, and somehow see their potential - what they could be doing if they could (fill in the blank here). It is then my "job" to help them to see the potential that I seem to see in them and to get them moving in that direction.
There is little that brings me more joy that the notice that a friend or acquaintance has succeeded, especially when they have done so in a way that uses the gifts they have. It is like seeing the bloom of a flower which you knew was going to be beautiful finally appear to the world around it that never gave it a second glance.
I have seen it with my friends; I have seen it with The Ravishing Mrs. TB; I am even beginning to see it with Na Clann as they begin to reach the point that their own gifts are appearing.
But what do I do with this? I do not really know. It is not as if there is a job category for "Potential Seer", and I have no initial thoughts on how I could apply this in a way that would significantly help others and let me make a living at it.
But I have found this upon reflection: my core, my gift, is seeing what is possible for those I know - and then helping them to see that is as well and launch towards it.
You see what you do. I see what you can do.
Friday, April 12, 2013
Trenches and Change
I need to make some serious changes to my life. I am in a rut - and what is worse, the rut seems to be settling in deeper and deeper.
How did I get here - Oh, the usual way I suppose. There are large landmarks that are defined in one's life - work, family, activities. These landmarks become the thing by which our day becomes linked, and then our days linked into weeks. To and from, back and forth, the path remains the same as the line of traffic gets driven deeper and deeper into the ground.
Suddenly you look up and realize that the path has reached the point that the edges are over your head. You have wondered why you cannot ever seem to break out of the rut and you become aware that when you are marching body level through a trench the chances of turning off suddenly become very rare indeed. And still you pound down the rut day after day, hoping for something that will be something different even as you tacit acknowledge by your choice of paths it never will be.
A trench. I had never thought of that terminology until now but that is quite accurate - and more alarming. Ruts are small sounding things, things we trip over and step out of. Trenches are deep and far more forboding.
How do we step out of trenches? It is, unfortunately, much more like the trench warfare of World War I - one has to climb out of the trench and start down a new path (although hopefully not with shells going off). It obviously takes a great deal more effort than a simple rut - but then again if you have building something for years it is not surprising that it will take longer to rectify the issue.
So here I sit at 0600, realizing that I need to make some serious changes but having no real idea how to go about implementing those changes.
How does one choose a change? Where does one choose to climb out of a trench?
How did I get here - Oh, the usual way I suppose. There are large landmarks that are defined in one's life - work, family, activities. These landmarks become the thing by which our day becomes linked, and then our days linked into weeks. To and from, back and forth, the path remains the same as the line of traffic gets driven deeper and deeper into the ground.
Suddenly you look up and realize that the path has reached the point that the edges are over your head. You have wondered why you cannot ever seem to break out of the rut and you become aware that when you are marching body level through a trench the chances of turning off suddenly become very rare indeed. And still you pound down the rut day after day, hoping for something that will be something different even as you tacit acknowledge by your choice of paths it never will be.
A trench. I had never thought of that terminology until now but that is quite accurate - and more alarming. Ruts are small sounding things, things we trip over and step out of. Trenches are deep and far more forboding.
How do we step out of trenches? It is, unfortunately, much more like the trench warfare of World War I - one has to climb out of the trench and start down a new path (although hopefully not with shells going off). It obviously takes a great deal more effort than a simple rut - but then again if you have building something for years it is not surprising that it will take longer to rectify the issue.
So here I sit at 0600, realizing that I need to make some serious changes but having no real idea how to go about implementing those changes.
How does one choose a change? Where does one choose to climb out of a trench?
Thursday, April 11, 2013
What Do I Really Want to Do?
What would I do if I really could do anything I wanted? I used to know; I am not so sure that I do any more.
This bothers me a bit. After all, it is not as if my current line of work has served to generate any deep sense of career satisfaction - it has been a vehicle to pay for things, nothing more. There is not more passion for what I do than there is for the fact that I need to do maintenance on the cars on a regular interval - it is just part of living life.
But if I had the choice, what would I do? I can honestly say that I have no idea what that would really look like.
Why? Is it a series of finding things I did not want to do that has finally made me reluctant to consider things I would want to do? Is it the occasional failures I have had? Or is it simply the sense that after years of essentially surrendering to the inevitability of "being responsible" the thought of doing anything else is killed before it even sees the light of day?
More importantly, how do I break out of this box? The situation as it is only ends one way: keep doing something until that opportunity is pulled away from you by loss of job or loss of industry and discover that you cannot do anything else, then scramble at a host of things you cannot really do and do not enjoy at all to make things meet.
Passion is the key - the problem is, I feel almost no discernible passion about anything. And as I've pondered before, my time has been wedged into bits and pieces that seem to be unusable.
But I need to think harder about this - quite hard. My time doing what I am doing is ultimately limited by factors beyond my control. And there is nothing worse than being at the mercy of that which you cannot control.
Where is my passion? And why can I not seem to connect with it?
This bothers me a bit. After all, it is not as if my current line of work has served to generate any deep sense of career satisfaction - it has been a vehicle to pay for things, nothing more. There is not more passion for what I do than there is for the fact that I need to do maintenance on the cars on a regular interval - it is just part of living life.
But if I had the choice, what would I do? I can honestly say that I have no idea what that would really look like.
Why? Is it a series of finding things I did not want to do that has finally made me reluctant to consider things I would want to do? Is it the occasional failures I have had? Or is it simply the sense that after years of essentially surrendering to the inevitability of "being responsible" the thought of doing anything else is killed before it even sees the light of day?
More importantly, how do I break out of this box? The situation as it is only ends one way: keep doing something until that opportunity is pulled away from you by loss of job or loss of industry and discover that you cannot do anything else, then scramble at a host of things you cannot really do and do not enjoy at all to make things meet.
Passion is the key - the problem is, I feel almost no discernible passion about anything. And as I've pondered before, my time has been wedged into bits and pieces that seem to be unusable.
But I need to think harder about this - quite hard. My time doing what I am doing is ultimately limited by factors beyond my control. And there is nothing worse than being at the mercy of that which you cannot control.
Where is my passion? And why can I not seem to connect with it?
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Work That Matters
I want my work to matter.
There, I've said it.
I want what I do to have an impact on others for good. I want what I do to make a difference - a real difference, not just a sense of doing what has to be done because it is required.
What I don't want - what it seems like I have too often lived - is essentially going through the motions of a career, doing what needs to be done, all without the sense of having an impact or reaching a point at which there is a sense of accomplishment: a finish line, something that says "Yes, we did get here".
What I don't want - what I too often seem to end up with - is the sense that no matter what I do, there is no impact. That no matter how hard I work, there is no finish line, no stepping up to the next height of the mountain; instead, there is only the endless track through the same wilderness through which we have just come.
I wonder, in all my looking, if I have subtly undone myself because I simply bear in the back of my mind that I do want to have an impact and I do want to do something that has measurable steps to it - that to this point over the last four years (if not longer), I am always looking at versions of what I am doing now.
If I want to be honest, why did I change course in 1996? Surely it was not to do something different - I had like what I was doing in business college teaching much better. It was the money and benefits.
And why did I suddenly change course again for The Firm? At the heart, it was concern for money, of being left behind as success came and went for others but not for me.
And how did that all work out? It has not been a total loss - the industry I am in pays well (better than most) and has allowed us to do some wonderful things and provide Na Clann with an education I might not have otherwise been able to.
But looking at today, almost 15 years in, with the upcoming promise of another day of arriving with more than I can do and leaving with the same situation only to find the same thing tomorrow, I still wonder if it was maybe the right decision but not necessarily the best decision.
But if that is the case, what do I do about it?
There, I've said it.
I want what I do to have an impact on others for good. I want what I do to make a difference - a real difference, not just a sense of doing what has to be done because it is required.
What I don't want - what it seems like I have too often lived - is essentially going through the motions of a career, doing what needs to be done, all without the sense of having an impact or reaching a point at which there is a sense of accomplishment: a finish line, something that says "Yes, we did get here".
What I don't want - what I too often seem to end up with - is the sense that no matter what I do, there is no impact. That no matter how hard I work, there is no finish line, no stepping up to the next height of the mountain; instead, there is only the endless track through the same wilderness through which we have just come.
I wonder, in all my looking, if I have subtly undone myself because I simply bear in the back of my mind that I do want to have an impact and I do want to do something that has measurable steps to it - that to this point over the last four years (if not longer), I am always looking at versions of what I am doing now.
If I want to be honest, why did I change course in 1996? Surely it was not to do something different - I had like what I was doing in business college teaching much better. It was the money and benefits.
And why did I suddenly change course again for The Firm? At the heart, it was concern for money, of being left behind as success came and went for others but not for me.
And how did that all work out? It has not been a total loss - the industry I am in pays well (better than most) and has allowed us to do some wonderful things and provide Na Clann with an education I might not have otherwise been able to.
But looking at today, almost 15 years in, with the upcoming promise of another day of arriving with more than I can do and leaving with the same situation only to find the same thing tomorrow, I still wonder if it was maybe the right decision but not necessarily the best decision.
But if that is the case, what do I do about it?
Tuesday, April 09, 2013
Monday, April 08, 2013
Sorting
One of the great(?) things about beginning to contemplate moving is the process of getting ready to pack. This in turn leads itself to the act of The Great Review of Stuff.
Charles Swindoll once commented that stuff has a way of growing: when he and his wife first got married, they could move in a car. Then they moved again, and that took a small trailer. Then again, and it took a large truck - finally, they reached the point of needing a whole fleet of trucks when they moved.
I'd laugh, but it is too true. We have a huge collection of stuff - not only in our house, but in our garage and in a shed as well.
Where did this stuff come from? It is hard to remember that once upon a time we, too, had not a lot of stuff. I can remember the first time after I moved off campus from graduate school that I, too, had only enough stuff that I could fit in the back of my car. It consisted of books, clothes, an Apple computer and a futon to sleep on. The furniture I had was a cardboard chest of drawers that I assembled for socks and underwear.
And now we seem to have so much that I too often seem to stumble over it when I move around.
One of the theoretical advantages of moving is that you have the opportunity to review everything you are living with and make changes. There is no sense in packing stuff, moving stuff, and unpacking stuff only to find you do not really need it anyway. But to do that it requires a special ability: the ability to let go.
I wonder if our enchantment with stuff is not partially due to a combined sense of selfishness and security. We want to keep it because it is ours; we want to keep it because it offers us security. Perhaps once we got rid of something and then suddenly needed it; forever after we convince ourselves that we must keep everything in case we have need of it.
Another potential factor: we get stuff at certain times in our lives when we are interested in certain things. We may move on from the interests; the stuff either serves as a reminder of that which we used to do and enjoy. To let it go sometimes seems like letting parts of our souls go as well.
But the move is coming regardless: smaller house, no shed, a garage I would like to park in someday. The change needs to be made, the stuff sorted and moved on. The question too often is if we have the ability and emotional fortitude to do it.
Charles Swindoll once commented that stuff has a way of growing: when he and his wife first got married, they could move in a car. Then they moved again, and that took a small trailer. Then again, and it took a large truck - finally, they reached the point of needing a whole fleet of trucks when they moved.
I'd laugh, but it is too true. We have a huge collection of stuff - not only in our house, but in our garage and in a shed as well.
Where did this stuff come from? It is hard to remember that once upon a time we, too, had not a lot of stuff. I can remember the first time after I moved off campus from graduate school that I, too, had only enough stuff that I could fit in the back of my car. It consisted of books, clothes, an Apple computer and a futon to sleep on. The furniture I had was a cardboard chest of drawers that I assembled for socks and underwear.
And now we seem to have so much that I too often seem to stumble over it when I move around.
One of the theoretical advantages of moving is that you have the opportunity to review everything you are living with and make changes. There is no sense in packing stuff, moving stuff, and unpacking stuff only to find you do not really need it anyway. But to do that it requires a special ability: the ability to let go.
I wonder if our enchantment with stuff is not partially due to a combined sense of selfishness and security. We want to keep it because it is ours; we want to keep it because it offers us security. Perhaps once we got rid of something and then suddenly needed it; forever after we convince ourselves that we must keep everything in case we have need of it.
Another potential factor: we get stuff at certain times in our lives when we are interested in certain things. We may move on from the interests; the stuff either serves as a reminder of that which we used to do and enjoy. To let it go sometimes seems like letting parts of our souls go as well.
But the move is coming regardless: smaller house, no shed, a garage I would like to park in someday. The change needs to be made, the stuff sorted and moved on. The question too often is if we have the ability and emotional fortitude to do it.
Friday, April 05, 2013
Time Speed
There is the distinct sense in my life at the moment that things are moving more quickly than ever. Time seems to be a commodity that has rapidly disappeared as an item which is present in my life.
When did this happen?
I am not really sure. I seem to remember (as through a hazy mirror) years in which time seemed to be always available to me to do the things that I wanted. Even more recently, time seemed to be something that was available in at least small chunks for spending on things that I might want to do.
Unfortunately, this is no longer the case. Time is now the thing that I always seem to be running behind, trying to capture more of.
The argument can be made (I suppose) that workday time is simply scarcer because there is more to do. That could be true -the combination of a great deal of activities combined with a commute that seems to take longer has stretched a 9 hour day into 10 hours or more - and even those hours are now filled more and more with meetings to do and places to be and things that need to be accomplished.
But my non-work time? This too has become compressed into smaller and smaller quantities for reasons that I cannot seem to understand, to the point that it almost feels there is a schedule running somewhere in the back of my mind to get those things that I would like to do done. Even 5 minutes doing something can be begrudged when something else I really want to do is not accomplished.
Where does this end?
I wish I knew. I suppose I keeping hoping that I will reach a point of stasis or even reversal, that at some point the business will start to subside and I can begin to get a handle on managing my time and perhaps even beginning to do some of the things I want again.
But if my time has slipped away through circumstances I do not understand and cannot control, what are the chances that those same circumstances will suddenly - magically - allow me to slow down?
When did this happen?
I am not really sure. I seem to remember (as through a hazy mirror) years in which time seemed to be always available to me to do the things that I wanted. Even more recently, time seemed to be something that was available in at least small chunks for spending on things that I might want to do.
Unfortunately, this is no longer the case. Time is now the thing that I always seem to be running behind, trying to capture more of.
The argument can be made (I suppose) that workday time is simply scarcer because there is more to do. That could be true -the combination of a great deal of activities combined with a commute that seems to take longer has stretched a 9 hour day into 10 hours or more - and even those hours are now filled more and more with meetings to do and places to be and things that need to be accomplished.
But my non-work time? This too has become compressed into smaller and smaller quantities for reasons that I cannot seem to understand, to the point that it almost feels there is a schedule running somewhere in the back of my mind to get those things that I would like to do done. Even 5 minutes doing something can be begrudged when something else I really want to do is not accomplished.
Where does this end?
I wish I knew. I suppose I keeping hoping that I will reach a point of stasis or even reversal, that at some point the business will start to subside and I can begin to get a handle on managing my time and perhaps even beginning to do some of the things I want again.
But if my time has slipped away through circumstances I do not understand and cannot control, what are the chances that those same circumstances will suddenly - magically - allow me to slow down?
Thursday, April 04, 2013
Balancing
I had an epiphany at work yesterday.
I was scurrying around trying to manage a major action item while mentally keeping track of a host of smaller action items. Periodically (as it happens every day) I would suddenly get a question about a particular item from someone else: "What about this particular issue? How do I address it?"
As I continued to whirl through the day and came to the end, I was once again overwhelmed by the fact that I had seemingly accomplished nothing while others had successfully moved single items off their plate. I felt extremely depressed about this - once again, look how much I had failed - and then the epiphany came.
These individuals are only working on small amounts of things at a time.
They have the time and effort to address one thing and then another because the scope of what they do is overall smaller. They can dedicate 4 hours to resolving a document because they do not have 40 other things that must also be accomplished at the same time and have the same (or greater urgency).
It was not the fact that I could not do it; it was the fact that I am responsible for doing far more.
This was a comforting thought - even (dare I say) an empowering one. Does it mean that this solves all my issues? Not at all. I still need to learn to prioritize better. I still need to practice the art of delegation more actively. I still need to learn to lead better, work more effectively and be more focused.
But what it does mean to me is that if only I can figure my way through this, I can come out of the other side a far better worker - perhaps even a better person. For to learn to accomplish important things simultaneously in the past is the mark of someone who can do such things - for himself or others - in the future.
I was scurrying around trying to manage a major action item while mentally keeping track of a host of smaller action items. Periodically (as it happens every day) I would suddenly get a question about a particular item from someone else: "What about this particular issue? How do I address it?"
As I continued to whirl through the day and came to the end, I was once again overwhelmed by the fact that I had seemingly accomplished nothing while others had successfully moved single items off their plate. I felt extremely depressed about this - once again, look how much I had failed - and then the epiphany came.
These individuals are only working on small amounts of things at a time.
They have the time and effort to address one thing and then another because the scope of what they do is overall smaller. They can dedicate 4 hours to resolving a document because they do not have 40 other things that must also be accomplished at the same time and have the same (or greater urgency).
It was not the fact that I could not do it; it was the fact that I am responsible for doing far more.
This was a comforting thought - even (dare I say) an empowering one. Does it mean that this solves all my issues? Not at all. I still need to learn to prioritize better. I still need to practice the art of delegation more actively. I still need to learn to lead better, work more effectively and be more focused.
But what it does mean to me is that if only I can figure my way through this, I can come out of the other side a far better worker - perhaps even a better person. For to learn to accomplish important things simultaneously in the past is the mark of someone who can do such things - for himself or others - in the future.
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
The Perils and Problems of Group Sit
Yesterday I made an important discovery about myself. There are significant limits to my ability be in or around a group of people and continue to get things done.
I have suspected this for quite a while. An introvert by nature, I tend to find continued interaction with larger groups of people to be somewhat wearing and ultimately exhausting. Making a trip to the mall or attending a larger social function are hardly my sensation of having a good time.
But that is my social life. I had never taken a good look - perhaps never had to take a good look is more accurate - at how I work and my ability to produce. And perhaps I have never looked because I have never had to - for the past 10-12 years I have had a location in either my own office or in a quiet work area.
But no more. Currently - and for the last two months or so - I have been working in a shared cube in the midst of shared cubes. In one sense it is definitely an improvement as I am able to much more directly interact with individuals on a frequent basis and in real time. I am equally fortunate in that those with which I share cubes are those with whom I enjoy working with.
However what I think I have found is that working in this environment is not necessarily enough to give me the work environment I need to work as well as I could. Why? I do not know that I can distinctly tell you. Certainly focus is one thing - my ability to focus is greatly influenced by having a quiet environment around me, not only in the sense of noise control but in the sense of having a controlled environment, the ability to shut the door and go about my business. My current situation now is that I am available to everyone who walks through the door of the cube - and now that I am more centrally located I seem that much more available to all.
Another factor is the noise level. The sense of having a constant background of noise is much more disruptive than I would have anticipated. It is as if a string of thoughts is constantly getting cut off and then restarting each and every time.
The result of all this? My focus definitely seems to be less. My output seems to be less. My stress level definitely seems to be higher.
But perhaps it is not noise alone that is creating the issues. Now that I reflect on the matter, the issue of control of my own time looms larger in my mind. I feel as if I am constantly exposed to the wants and needs of others - I cannot count the times that someone brings something to our area and, seeing that I am there with only my back turned to the entrance, feels completely justified in sitting down and engaging in conversation to have their issue resolved. There is now no door between myself and others, no barrier I can engage to set aside blocks of time to work.
What to do? I am not sure. I have very little control of my sitting arrangements. Noise eliminating headphones? Possibly - that would seem to be the most useful option to at least cut down on the noise.
The question of accessibility? I have no ready answer for this except the impractical one of relocating myself periodically to not make myself so available, which sort of undermines a primary belief that at some level my job function should be available for questions and comments.
But availability is not should not be complete access and participation in the work life should not be a complete overwhelming one's ability to focus.
I have suspected this for quite a while. An introvert by nature, I tend to find continued interaction with larger groups of people to be somewhat wearing and ultimately exhausting. Making a trip to the mall or attending a larger social function are hardly my sensation of having a good time.
But that is my social life. I had never taken a good look - perhaps never had to take a good look is more accurate - at how I work and my ability to produce. And perhaps I have never looked because I have never had to - for the past 10-12 years I have had a location in either my own office or in a quiet work area.
But no more. Currently - and for the last two months or so - I have been working in a shared cube in the midst of shared cubes. In one sense it is definitely an improvement as I am able to much more directly interact with individuals on a frequent basis and in real time. I am equally fortunate in that those with which I share cubes are those with whom I enjoy working with.
However what I think I have found is that working in this environment is not necessarily enough to give me the work environment I need to work as well as I could. Why? I do not know that I can distinctly tell you. Certainly focus is one thing - my ability to focus is greatly influenced by having a quiet environment around me, not only in the sense of noise control but in the sense of having a controlled environment, the ability to shut the door and go about my business. My current situation now is that I am available to everyone who walks through the door of the cube - and now that I am more centrally located I seem that much more available to all.
Another factor is the noise level. The sense of having a constant background of noise is much more disruptive than I would have anticipated. It is as if a string of thoughts is constantly getting cut off and then restarting each and every time.
The result of all this? My focus definitely seems to be less. My output seems to be less. My stress level definitely seems to be higher.
But perhaps it is not noise alone that is creating the issues. Now that I reflect on the matter, the issue of control of my own time looms larger in my mind. I feel as if I am constantly exposed to the wants and needs of others - I cannot count the times that someone brings something to our area and, seeing that I am there with only my back turned to the entrance, feels completely justified in sitting down and engaging in conversation to have their issue resolved. There is now no door between myself and others, no barrier I can engage to set aside blocks of time to work.
What to do? I am not sure. I have very little control of my sitting arrangements. Noise eliminating headphones? Possibly - that would seem to be the most useful option to at least cut down on the noise.
The question of accessibility? I have no ready answer for this except the impractical one of relocating myself periodically to not make myself so available, which sort of undermines a primary belief that at some level my job function should be available for questions and comments.
But availability is not should not be complete access and participation in the work life should not be a complete overwhelming one's ability to focus.
Tuesday, April 02, 2013
Knowledge?
I am re-reading Brian Tracy's book Victory!: Applying the Proven Principles of Military Strategy to Achieve Success in Your Business and Personal Life and found myself this morning finishing up the section called "The Principle of Intelligence - Get the Facts". From the chapter:
"Knowledge and know-how are your keys to the twenty-first century. The more accurate information and knowledge that you acquire and apply to achieve results, the more valuable you will be come. The greater your value, the more you will be paid and the faster you will be promoted." (P. 117)
As I pondered this a bit running this morning I thought about knowledge - what I have and what I do not have. It is true that we work in a largely knowledge based economy, although that knowledge base can reflect either learning or actual physical knowledge/on the job training as well. At the same time, we live in a world that is becoming more and more knowledge based - and competitive as a result.
I look at my own career in my industry - 15 years as of next month - and both the advances and changes that have occurred within it. One thing that has become increasingly apparent to me as I progress through the years is that knowledge (and the skills that come from that knowledge) are good, but they are not everything. The greatest amount of knowledge in the universe cannot substitute for a place for that knowledge to be used.
This is the thought that is beginning to nag at my mind.
As I review resumes for Fear Mor's replacement, I am finding people with the same years of experience as I have - or more - looking for a position two steps down. People that have the knowledge and skills but are looking to essentially start over.
What do I do with this? I am becoming increasingly conscious at this point that my own education and background, which were never the typical education for my field, are more and more becoming a liability as I am in the mix with individuals who have a much more typical path. And eduction - a four to six year process - is not quite in the cards for me at this moment.
Where does that leave me? Unstable, perhaps clinging a bit more than I would like to a profession and position that is not my ideal. The problem, of course, is that clinging produces desperation and desperation produces unhappiness. Reveal your desperation and you have revealed the fact that you are a tool to be used and discarded rather than an asset to be treasured and kept.
We do live in a knowledge based world - but knowledge alone is not enough to create the product of me or put it in a stable environment and gaining more knowledge in that field is not a guarantee of continued success. Would that I could see the knowledge that would make such product creation and stability possible.
"Knowledge and know-how are your keys to the twenty-first century. The more accurate information and knowledge that you acquire and apply to achieve results, the more valuable you will be come. The greater your value, the more you will be paid and the faster you will be promoted." (P. 117)
As I pondered this a bit running this morning I thought about knowledge - what I have and what I do not have. It is true that we work in a largely knowledge based economy, although that knowledge base can reflect either learning or actual physical knowledge/on the job training as well. At the same time, we live in a world that is becoming more and more knowledge based - and competitive as a result.
I look at my own career in my industry - 15 years as of next month - and both the advances and changes that have occurred within it. One thing that has become increasingly apparent to me as I progress through the years is that knowledge (and the skills that come from that knowledge) are good, but they are not everything. The greatest amount of knowledge in the universe cannot substitute for a place for that knowledge to be used.
This is the thought that is beginning to nag at my mind.
As I review resumes for Fear Mor's replacement, I am finding people with the same years of experience as I have - or more - looking for a position two steps down. People that have the knowledge and skills but are looking to essentially start over.
What do I do with this? I am becoming increasingly conscious at this point that my own education and background, which were never the typical education for my field, are more and more becoming a liability as I am in the mix with individuals who have a much more typical path. And eduction - a four to six year process - is not quite in the cards for me at this moment.
Where does that leave me? Unstable, perhaps clinging a bit more than I would like to a profession and position that is not my ideal. The problem, of course, is that clinging produces desperation and desperation produces unhappiness. Reveal your desperation and you have revealed the fact that you are a tool to be used and discarded rather than an asset to be treasured and kept.
We do live in a knowledge based world - but knowledge alone is not enough to create the product of me or put it in a stable environment and gaining more knowledge in that field is not a guarantee of continued success. Would that I could see the knowledge that would make such product creation and stability possible.
Monday, April 01, 2013
On Hold
I am struggling to find my sea legs in the storm.
The reality - and Snowflake finally managed to make me admit it to myself - is that I am depressed. And not an ordinary sense of depressed - no, this is sort of depression that is new to me. How is it that it is new? Because it belies the fact that most of the rest of my life is going okay.
Na Clann are doing fine in their school, their activities, and their spiritual life. My marriage is going well. I have a secure job with all the required benefits. We put a contract on a house this weekend. Our cars run. We have food in the house. Our utilities work in summer and winter. In other words, everything is going pretty well and I should have no reason to be depressed. But I am.
What seems to be the hallmark of this depression? A very real sense of entrapment. The sense that nothing really gets better or changes for the better from here. My work is simply that: work, a job that I go to every day to realize that I do not have enough time to do every thing that I required to do and the larger sense that even if I did all that, it would not matter a bit. My activities seem to lead nowhere, things that I do and redo and find that I seem to be neither getting any better nor am as satisfied with them as I used to be.
My spiritual life? I feel a little lost in my relationship with God. It feels as if we are blessed with so much yet seemingly I cannot find God acting in my life in a way that I am growing in my relationship with Him, a sort of spiritual holding pattern waiting for something to happen.
A holding pattern. That describes how I feel about my life at the current time. My life feels as if it is on hold: everything is going fine but it seems to be going nowhere, held up by something or someone not allowing it to move on.
The hardest thing - and perhaps this is the basis of my depression - is to get up every morning knowing that today is going to be like the day before it. By the end of it I will be tired for lack of sleep, stressed from too much work and not enough progress, and feeling that everything I do is simply running in place.
The way gets off of hold is by the person on the other end taking one off hold or hanging up and starting to call again. But if I don't control the person (God?) on the other end and I do not even really understand where I am calling, how can I hang up? And if I did hang up, who then would I call?
The reality - and Snowflake finally managed to make me admit it to myself - is that I am depressed. And not an ordinary sense of depressed - no, this is sort of depression that is new to me. How is it that it is new? Because it belies the fact that most of the rest of my life is going okay.
Na Clann are doing fine in their school, their activities, and their spiritual life. My marriage is going well. I have a secure job with all the required benefits. We put a contract on a house this weekend. Our cars run. We have food in the house. Our utilities work in summer and winter. In other words, everything is going pretty well and I should have no reason to be depressed. But I am.
What seems to be the hallmark of this depression? A very real sense of entrapment. The sense that nothing really gets better or changes for the better from here. My work is simply that: work, a job that I go to every day to realize that I do not have enough time to do every thing that I required to do and the larger sense that even if I did all that, it would not matter a bit. My activities seem to lead nowhere, things that I do and redo and find that I seem to be neither getting any better nor am as satisfied with them as I used to be.
My spiritual life? I feel a little lost in my relationship with God. It feels as if we are blessed with so much yet seemingly I cannot find God acting in my life in a way that I am growing in my relationship with Him, a sort of spiritual holding pattern waiting for something to happen.
A holding pattern. That describes how I feel about my life at the current time. My life feels as if it is on hold: everything is going fine but it seems to be going nowhere, held up by something or someone not allowing it to move on.
The hardest thing - and perhaps this is the basis of my depression - is to get up every morning knowing that today is going to be like the day before it. By the end of it I will be tired for lack of sleep, stressed from too much work and not enough progress, and feeling that everything I do is simply running in place.
The way gets off of hold is by the person on the other end taking one off hold or hanging up and starting to call again. But if I don't control the person (God?) on the other end and I do not even really understand where I am calling, how can I hang up? And if I did hang up, who then would I call?
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