Job Search 2014

So I am in the market.  This is about as public a declaration I make about such things.

The fact that I state this is not really the point however.  The point - really more of a tip - is how I am going about it.

The idea actually originated in a discussion with Bogha Frois as we were talking about different ways to job search and how it never really felt like one was making any progress.  We always found ourselves nagged by a sense of guilt that somehow we were not "doing enough", even if we could not find anything at all when we looked.

"Why do we not schedule it?"  I suggested.

The core of my idea is this:  there are only a finite number of jobs in any one industry and those are only ever listed in certain amounts - for example, in my industry most jobs tend to get published on Sundays (probably true for a lot of jobs).  There is not really any point in looking every day for the one or two that will get published in that time; instead, better to conserve one's efforts.

But the world is changing as well.  Depending on the state of the industry (and mine is a little shaky, to be honest), one should be expanding into other areas as well.  And what about those independent areas, those part time interests or hobbies that we would like to see pay for themselves rather than cost us money?  Where do those fit in?

And so I came up with the idea of the schedule, a fixed time where I would look or support different areas.  Mine currently looks something like this:

Sunday:  Current Industry
Monday:  Other Industries
Tuesday:  Hobbies/Self Developed Business
Wednesday:  Other Industries
Thursday:  Current Industry
Friday:   Hobbies/Self Developed Business
Saturday:  Hobbies/Self Developed Business

I have left my hobbies/self developed business to coincide with both my Iaijutsu on Tuesday nights (learning to someday possibly, maybe teach), Fridays (when my energy tends to be lowest and thus doing something interesting to me is helpful) and Saturdays (when I can carve out several hours of free time).

What will I do?  For my current industry it is pretty easy:  search the appropriate sites.  This will perhaps take an hour on Sunday, much less on Thursday.  Other industries are more difficult initially as I have to put together a revised resume and start seeing what is out there.  Hobbies/Self Developed Business is the true undiscovered country at this point - when I understand it, I will let you know.

The thing I like about this is that it is a schedule.  Every day I am taking action.  I can now never allow myself to point at myself and say "I did not do a job search today.  I did not not do enough."  Did I do what I was supposed to do that day?  If so, I can happily tell myself to shut up.  I am making progress.

I cannot rely on simple events or the help of those above or around me to make my current situation better - as I have to remind myself almost daily, No One Is Coming.  If there is to be change in my life, I will have to go to it - and go after it with regular, practiced action.  It will not come to me.

Send In The Clowns

Isn't it rich? Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground, you in mid-air
Where are the clowns?

Isn't it bliss? Don't you approve?
One who keeps tearing around, one who can't move
Where are the clowns? There ought to be clowns

Just when I'd stopped opening doors
Finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours
Making my entrance again with my usual flair
Sure of my lines, no one is there

Don't you love farce? My fault, I fear
I thought that you'd want what I want, sorry, my dear
But where are the clowns, send in the clowns
Don't bother, they're here

Isn't it rich? Isn't it queer?
Losing my timing this late in my career
But where are the clowns? There ought to be clowns
Well, maybe next year

- Stephen Sondheim

The Commandments of God and The Reality of Work II

So my meditations yesterday morning did little to improve the day for me.

I showed up with a sincere attitude of wanting to try to be better.  More productive.  Have a better attitude.  What I got when I arrived was a reminder of the fact that I am a small cog in a larger machine.  My roles, as I interpreted them, were answering of questions, reviewer of documents that will never see the light of day, and theoretical holder of opinions that are assumed.

It is hard to keep your spirits up in the face of such seeming irrelevance.

And yet there are the commands I listed yesterday:  do not be man-pleasers or work for eye-service but do work willingly and heartily; be submissive; be well pleasing; show good fidelity; adorn the doctrine of God.

And so I tried to carry on.  I tried to be cheerful and diligent as I reviewed page after page.  I tried to work hard all day.  I tried to keep an even keel when problems came to my attention.

And I left feeling utterly useless and forlorn.

Why?  Because the reality is that even though I tried (or thought I tried) to adapt a better attitude the reality is that the work did not change at all.  My place within the work did not change at all.  And my interpretation by those around me did not change at all. 

Did I feel the reward of God as I drove home yesterday, the reward that comes from being a good witness or carrying out His Will?  I am afraid and ashamed to say no.  I went home feeling empty and used, a vehicle for the devices and plans of others.  There was no sunlight breaking through the clouds, no sense of the divine invading my space, merely the reality of the drive home as most of my other drives home have been.

But that, of course, does not change the commands.  And so I will be at it again, trying my best to meet the commands that God has set out for those that work, in hopes that I have been missing something critical in my own attitude and that, with a little more prayer and practice, the commandments of God can become my reality of work.

The Commandments of God and The Reality of Work

I find myself conflicted in my handling of work.

I am caught.  On the one hand I have the commandments of the Bible:

"Bondservants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God.  And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; you are serving the Lord Christ." - Colossians 3:22-24

"Bondservants, be obedient to those who are masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ, not with eyeservice as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with goodwill doing service , as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free." - Ephesians 6: 5-9

"Exhort bondservants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well pleasing in all things, not answering back, not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things." - Titus:  2: 9-10

"Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh.  For this is commendable, if because of conscience towards God one endures grief, suffering wrongly." - I Peter 2:18-19

On the other hand I have the practical experience of work, which too often these days seems to be that you should be able to do more and more with less and less, accept the fact that you are always going to be behind, and that any potential advancement will be tied less to your actual output and more to your ability to curry the favor of those above you.  Not surprisingly, this breeds a certain amount of cynicism in how one approaches there job.

Here is the dilemma;  If I truly follow what God commands, then I feel as if I am on the receiving end of whatever the employer can (and wants to) do to me.  I have no ability or even right to look at my job and observe issues with it.  Instead, I should simply put my trust in God that somehow everything will be rewarded.  That is fine as an initial discussion of course; it is much more difficult when you find yourself years into a job or career with no seeming way out and no seeming way forward.

Is this the practical application of faith?  Is this where the proverbial rubber meets the road?  If so, let me say that I do not find that I like my own ox being gored.  The thought of facing work on a daily basis is difficult enough; the thought of doing it with the attitudes and outlook that God calls for in the midst of any absence that it is going to work out well seems virtually impossible.

If I were to do this - if I were to completely abandon myself as God commands and not worry about the outcome - would there come a point where I could say "He kept His promises here as well"?  Or is it the great leap of faith, clinging to his words even I find myself mentally and spiritually crushed between a load I cannot seem to bear?

This a practical living out of faith - and one I am finding incredibly difficult.

Were That I Was A Stone

Were that I was a stone,
quiet and round,
hard and settled,
lying on the ground
or in a river,
simply being.

Were that I was a stone,
without a heart
or feelings,
merely existing in
the warm days
and cold nights.

Were that I was a stone,
and simply could accept
life as it comes,
instead of trying to make
life what I think it
should be.

A Good Cut

There is something about a good cut.

You know it when you make it.  It is the way that the bokuto or katana feels in your hand as it moves through the air, the angle of the blade which is perfectly aligned as it reaches its terminal point, the pull of your muscles as they align in precisely the right way.  When it happens, it is a thing of remarkable beauty.

It does not seem to happen very often.  For every good cut one goes through many bad cuts, cuts where you hack or chop at the air and the angle of blade is looking up or down (not where it should be) and your your arm finds itself aligned more with some other part of your body.  These cuts one also knows as soon as they are executed - even as one holds the blade out or straight, the mental movie of how it got there continues to play through one's mind.

To watch a master is to watch a series of good cuts strung together.  It is a thing of grace and exquisite beauty - Elegant, as our soke would say.  It is to see everything flowing and moving in a single moment of alignment.

How does one get better cuts?  The simple answer, of course, is to take more of them.  Hundreds of them - nay, thousands.  Draw, cut, align; block, cut, align; cut, cut, align.  Movements back and forth across the imaginary plane of attackers and cutting, always seeking that one moment when everything clicks into place.  Start, stop, start stop.  Step back to the beginning position and start again.

Until...

Until the moment comes again, when everything aligns - or better, when a series of moments arrives where is cut is aligned and perfect, flowing gently in the next until one's movements become a dance of speed and grace with the blade marking time. 

I have not reached this point where I can do it on demand and very well never will - but the moments when I have are so peaceful, so graceful, that I can only continue to try until I can.

Speed

I am not a terribly speedy person.

This has become more of an issue of late, both in my professional and personal life.  In my professional life, there is some concern that I do not move projects forward quickly enough.  In my personal life, I am finding that my activities such as Iaijutsu and Highland Athletics are hampered by it.

It was most clearly presented to me last night when my friend The Viking was working with me on my Sheaf tosses last night (the sheaf, for those who do not know, is a 16 to 20 lbs bag which is tossed for height by a fork).  I can do the motion but my height suffers a great deal.  He kept having do it again and again, watching me.  Finally he said "You need to find a way to speed it up.  Without speed you will never get height".

What is it about speed that I lack? I am the first to admit that I am not the sort of person that necessarily acts speedily.  Part of that is simply in my nature:  I am person who tends to move slowly rather than quickly.  Another part is the fact that in some cases my lack of speed is a learned behavior from years of acting too quickly and suffering from bad decisions.

But there is a third part: am I simply reluctant to become speedy?

What is speed?  Speed is explosion, it is acceleration, it is execution in a quick manner.  It is knowing what you are doing to the point that you can concentrate less on the motions and more on acceleration.
 And it is effort.  It is pushing yourself beyond what you think are doing to what you think you are capable of doing.

So my speed may be less of an inability and more of a reluctance to push myself to a higher level.

The solution?  Relatively easy.  Make myself move faster.  If there are physical impediments - lack of strength, for example - fix it.  If there are mental impediments - I am unsure - master the material.  If there is indecisiveness, learn to gather facts more quickly.

But above all, learn to get faster.  Learn to be quicker.  Learn to move things with the speed of force and let the effort of gravity - physical or mental - do the work.

Metrics for God

I am trying to work out some kind of metrics for God in my life.

As I am working to get my life in order a.k.a. "Trying to get direction and leadership in my life" I realized that I am getting things backwards. I am trying to put things in first and shoehorn God in around the edges.  I realized this morning as I was praying that this does not accord with passages such as "Commit your plans to the Lord and He will establish them" (Proverbs 16:3)  and "Seek ye first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you" (Matthew 6:33"?

Am I seeking God first?  Am I seeking His kingdom and His righteousness first?  Am I committing my plans to Him, or am I huddling in my world, trying to make things work the way I want them to and hoping that they accord with God's will - but not really knowing if I am getting better or if I am more closely conforming with it?

So are there metrics that one could generate for a relationship with God, the same as one would generate for any other sort of activity or action?  It could not be solely based on time spent, because that is not a true indicator of spiritual life - yet without time spent and an amount of time that is growing, one can argue that this is not progress.

Is it giving?  I should be growing in my tithing, yet again money is no indicator of a growing relationship with God and could simply indicate I am keeping score.

Is it service?  Here again it should be something that is increasing as I serve God more actively - but again, it can become another number that makes me feel good but really indicates nothing.

So what is it?  What is the metric that will show that I am increasing in my walk with God

A couple of thoughts:

- It has to be life related.  There has to be something in my life, some evidence that I am growing or changing.

-  It needs to be measurable.  Although everything I have listed is a number, none the less what we are discussing needs to able to be tracked and measured against something.

I wonder if such a metric is both time and effort related:  not only how much time I am spending with God or on God but how much I am growing and increasing in those areas such as tithing, prayer, service?  And what about growth in holiness?  Is this something I could track, even in such simple ways as how much less time I am spending in certain activities or with certain people?

And as a family - are we doing the same thing?  Are we becoming demonstrably more Christlike, or less?  Do we look more like the world or more like Christ?

Not any definitive answers and maybe I will have to think harder.  But ultimately here is the item all Christians should be shooting for:  can I show I am growing in Christ?  And how can I know that?

Iaijustsu Practice

Flying over the
shoulder of my shitachi:
Serene Weightlessness.

Caber Toss

Behold the Caber:
Mocking as I will it to
defy gravity.

The Caber

I hate The Caber.

The Caber is my worst event by far.  It is the one event which, after three years of competing more or less, I still have yet to actually complete it (e.g. make a turn). 

The Caber is a beast.  It is 70-110 lbs and 16- 18 feet (depending on what game you are at for my age group) of wood staring you in the face.  Sometimes they are rubbed smooth, sometimes they are covered in fibrous bark (mostly cedar where I am) which comes off in your hands and on your face when you try to throw. 

And they are alive.  They have nubs and stubs that will scratch and tear at you when you try to throw them. They will cut you and rasp you, leaving marks on your neck or cheek (or even your ear) that will be with you long after the initial throw is gone.  They even, in some cases, will try to break your bones if given the opportunity.

For me the Caber is a mental challenge every time I throw it.  I can hear the dialogue in my head as I step up:  "Okay, this time we are going to do it.  It is big, but you are bigger.  You can do this."  I grasp the caber in my hands, wedge it against my neck, and slowly begin to work my way down the shaft.  There at the bottom I wait for a few moments, trying to see how it feels.  One, Two Three:  Pull with my shoulder and neck and scoop with my hands.

It is at that moment that you know whether or not you have a good pick.  With a good one, the caber is more or less balanced upright; with a bad one it is pulling back and around and over trying to reach back to the ground as quickly as possible.

It probably goes without saying that I seldom have good picks.

And thus the dialogue in my head as I get ready:  I have done this before, I not done this well before, and this is going to be just like the other times.  I can almost feel the Caber falling even as I am reaching down to try to grab it.

There is only one way through this, of course:  turn the Caber this year.  It is hard, but there are plenty of people that weigh just as much as I do that are doing it.  It is not a matter of matter so much as it is a matter of mind.

The Caber is waiting for another season, growling to come and get it.

Cuts and scrapes and rasps aside, I am coming.

No-One is Coming

No-one is coming.

I have realized (with a lot of help from Bogha Frois) that I have for a very long time - perhaps always?- been waiting for a hero.  Someone to come and resolve the unresolvable situations in my life.  To save me from the situations that I am seemingly unable to save myself from.

I have done it at work.  For how long have I always hoped that someone would come and change a situation that I was involved in?  For the last 1.5 years, I can count three different people whom I hoped would change the situation that I am currently in, would somehow sweep in and resolve every issue that I am facing, leaving to deal with the challenges of my job alone.

But no-one is coming.

I have done so in my private life as well.  How many times have I find my mind's eye wandering to come and resolve any of the situations that I have faced over their years?  If I am honest, more than I can possibly count.  Always, my mental vision turns to person - and they have varied over the years - that would make things right.

But no-one is coming.

This is a terribly difficult thought for me.  In some ways, perhaps more than I would like to admit, I am a person who likes to have some degree of hope that things will get better.  That is fine of course - but it has to hope in something other than someone else.

It makes me wonder as well if I am putting pressure on individuals unnecessarily, unknowingly.  By passively hoping that someone will come and make things better I can see where it would put pressure on any sort of relationship because instinctively someone is going to sense that you are looking for something else.

No-one is coming.

What to do?  I think that Iai may have the seeds of the answer. 

One of the questions/answers of the certification test is thus:

"What is the symbolic meaning of drawing the sword very quickly?
When you have made a decision, act immediately with hesitation."

Here then is the potential antidote:

1)  Decide.
2)  Act.
3)  Repeat.

What do you decide and act?  This is the part I have to begin work out for myself.  Here we are back to having some level of self confidence in myself, of believing that I can make rational and reasonable decisions - and then acting on them.  And doing it again.  And accepting that you will make some bad decisions but to keep going. 

There is a footnote to this process as well:  do not expect anyone to recognize or approve these decisions.  Maybe they will someday, after you have begun making progress - but by then, of course, hopefully you will not need their approval.  Just keep going, regardless of the notice - or its lack - of others.

No-one is coming.

Time to come to your own rescue.

Tilter of Windmills

I am great tilter of windmills.

They litter the landscape of my life, looming sentinels scattered hither and yon.  Each of them bears a particular memory:  here was the romance I charged that had not a change of succeeding, there is the business idea that was improbable, over there was the great crusade that I intended to undertake.  Each one of them a monument to some portion of my life where I spent time and energy chasing the unachievable, dangerous monsters that turned into the commonplace of life.

But of late I have been wondering:  Am I really a tilter of windmills? 

The activities I have been undertaking of late I have been accomplishing.  Yes, perhaps not to the extent of others - my Highland Athletics, of course, will probably never be world class - but that is not really the point. The point is that it was not a pointless charge into an imaginary foe, something that simply could not be defeated because it was not there.  Instead, progress was really made.  The lance went into something and the foe fell.

I find this strangely remarkable and encouraging.  Remarkable because such things are unexpected me.  Encouraging because it means that if the thing can be done once, or twice or even thrice, it can be done again.  And again.

As I wheel around on my Charger (who I am sure never anticipated actually having to work this hard) I see windmills farther out urging me onward.  I also turn behind me to see those windmills behind from long ago which beckon me on as well with the promise that this time, it will be different.

And so, pennons flying in the breeze, I head off.  For once I advance not with the spirit of reluctance of failure but with anticipation.  The windmills - or have they truly now become giants? - loom in the distance.

And this time, they find me eager and ready.

Interest

Why is what I do so not interesting?

This hit me yesterday as I was meandering about my day at work, attending to this thing that needed to be re-signed and that thing that need resolution and that other thing that needed my review:  I am working on nothing of interest.  Not at all.  No interest to me personally and not much interest to the market.

When I let this thought settle in for a moment I was a bit appalled - after all, a great many of the jobs I have held have all been working on things that for one thing or another were interesting: interesting technologies, interesting applications.  Even in the midst of the tasks that I do (which across companies have been very similar and, let us face it, mundane) there was always that element of doing something that that was interesting and innovative.

I miss that.  I think that may be part of the reason that I find my energy has slacked off so much for what I do - it is that I am doing it for something for which I find no more excitement or interest.  Work has simply become somewhere that I go to do things.

Value, you may say.  Are you bringing value?  Because f you are bringing value then that is what can motivate you and drive you forward.  Work can be interesting or not - it is how you work at it when you are there that is the important item.

I agree in the concept of bringing value.  I agree that value should be the ultimate measure.  At the same time, I struggle with the fact that value is not recognized as the only universal and lone metric.  One can bring all the value in the world and be ignored or put aside because of other elements - here, office politics can play a brutal role.  Or simply the bias of some that some functions are more important than others based on a particular view of the market place.

This is where interest can play a crucial role. Interest can push me forward when a lack of recognition cannot.  If I am a perhaps bringing value but am not recognized, interest in what I do can keep me moving forward.  But a lack of these two - interest and recognition - is a recipe fora long life of sameness.

How do I resolve this?  Pretty simple really:  find something interesting.  Easy to say, difficult to implement as the things that I would find interesting are not in this area.

Which leaves a question:  if the choice is between interest and stability, to where does one turn?

Environment and Direction

So just like every other time I am away and return, I could feel the enthusiasm and energy drain out of my like a sieve upon my return to work.

This has become a typical occurrence, something that I have come to expect and anticipate as part of where I am currently working - simply put, the return simply brings back all of the issues that never went away while I was gone.

I used to believe it was myself, that there was something that I could do about it, that there was something that I could do about it, some way I could magically will myself into changing my energy levels such that I could reverse the trend and be motivated, become a thermostat rather than a thermometer.  Alas, that seems to have passed.

Why?  I suppose I underestimated the power of the work environment and the power of a company's directions.

Environment and direction have a powerful impact on morale.  With a good environment and an comprehensible direction, the worst of tasks can seem like it at least has purpose because it going in a direction.  Without such things, all effort feels wasted, all improvements meaningless, all the hard work trickling away into a pit that has no end.  The ability to become better at what one does gets lost in the mire of trying to get through just another day with a long line of tasks that never seem to get closed.

What to do? There are only two options:  improve the environment and direction or move on.

Can I improve my personal environment?  Possibly.  Can I improve the greater environment?  Not likely -I simply lack that power.  And can I improve the direction of the company?  Not really - I am not in a position where such a thing is possible.

Which leaves....

Having said that, I am not sure what that truly means.  I do not know what form that will take or even how that works out in the greater areas of my life.  What I do know is this:  I am not growing and the situation I am in is not helping me grow - at this point, there is only one choice if I want to reach what I am capable of, and it is not waiting here for things to "magically" get better.

Overly Dependent

After a lot of thinking this weekend, I realized that I am exceptionally dependent on the opinions of others.

This has gone on for a very long time- how long, I cannot fully say.  What I can say without question is that when I look back over the course of my life, I rely heavily on the opinions of others for my own self image.

This is incredibly crippling, as you might think.  It ensures that I will never truly "do" anything as I will always be looking over my shoulder for approval.  It ensures that I will never truly be able to move forward because I am constantly looking for the "recognition"  (read "approval") of others.  It means that opinions and thoughts and dreams of my own become subject to whatever other people think.

I am clever about it too, almost deviously so: I try to get others to share my interests or thoughts so that I am passively getting their support.  Random comments thrown out in hopes that I will have them engage support is hardly a sign of independence on my part.

So what to do?  It is incredibly easy yet incredible difficult:  learn to go on without being emotionally dependent.

It sounds like it should be simple, but there is a certain mental toughness involved - something that I lack at the moment.  There is also the very real possibility that those who previously believed that they had a power over you by your emotional dependence will become angered and upset when they realize that are no longer subject to their whims.  That you will do what you will do whether or not their emotional support is there.

The possibilities entice me; the level of adjustment to get to it terrifies me.  But am in my mid-life and am rapidly reaching a crossroads:  spend the second half as I did much of the first, looking to others to make me feel better about myself, or boldly press on in the knowledge that I am truly capable, no matter what others may think.

Letting Go of C

Apparently I have been dragging someone with around with me for twenty five years.

I was not really conscious of it until this week.  All of a sudden this person, whom I had though had long ago moved on, reared their head again in my life.  The reality is of course this person has long ago forgotten me - I can guarantee that.  Yet here I sit with them in my conscious brain as if not a single day has passed.

What do you ask the incoporal:  What are you doing here?  Why are you  still here?  Why will you not let me go?

Oddly enough, they will respond, a sort of ghostly hologram running a preprogrammed message:  I am here because you keep me here.  I cannot tell you why I am here because you cannot tell yourself why I am here.  I cannot let you go because you will not let me go. 

And there the finger goes, right back at me. 

It is a shock, of course, to realize that something buried this deep has been kept there because you wanted it in some way.  Oh, you tried to convince yourself that it was gone, that it needed to be gone, that it should be gone - yet it keeps popping it and suddenly you realize you are cliniging to it with a death grip.

Why?  Because letting go of an old hurt can be the most painful thing of all.

I thought I had let go - years ago.  Uisdean Ruadh and I made an event of it:  everything I had that was involved went into the stove, where we burned it.  Nothing remained, I thought.  Apparently I was wrong - everything important remained.  I just dumped the physical manifestation of it.

How do you complete an action that happened so many years ago?  How do you simply say "Yup.  What I really felt at the time was legitimate.  It was awful, but the feelings were legitimate.  Sometimes people treat people poorly.  It is just the way of it."

I needed the closure. I I guess I was denied it, never having the opportunity to deliver it and so close the gap - and so for all of these years, buried beneath my relationships and my hopes and fears and dreams and fantasies is the C, standing behind and over it all.  The bitter part is that I kept them there. 

So now I need to let go.

Easier said than done, of course.  I have been done this path once before and that apparently was not enough.  I am not sure what the letting go will truly look like, nor is something I think I can rush at this point.  There is simply too much overlaying it at this point for me to pick a time and shout "I am done!"

But I brought them all this way.  I carried them through my life.

And I am the one that will have to let go.

Finding Courage

I am working to find the courage to write more publicly.

No, not here.  This - for the simple fact that this anonymity allows me a certain latitude in what I write - remains my refuge, my testing ground, my sounding board, my lab.  Here I can throw out whatever wanders into my mind and feel that at some level I can write without fear.  This is, and will remain so as long as I can write, my pet project.

No, I am talking about other places.  I do have one,  a place where I am started writing in hopes of creating more of a business oriented area.  I have kept it up over the years - at least three - but it has been a struggle to provide content for it, not at all like the relative ease it is to write here.

But herein - thanks to Carrie Wilkerson and The Barefoot Executive  - lies the problem:  if I never develop the public aspect of the work, I will never ultimately have a chance to be rewarded for it.  In other words, if I want to begin to try to transition to a new area and hopefully some kind of income from it (it does not take much to make me feel like I am a success!), then I need to start writing and acting more as myself.

My initial reaction was, of course, a sigh.  two blogs to keep up.  If I wanted to work as hard on that as I did on this, even more writing to do every morning.  Learning new technologies like websites and webcams and some thing called Audio Forge to record things.

But then I shook myself a bit.  Really?  Me - the great learner of obscure facts, shying away from having to learning something new? Me - the guy who has made himself write at least 5 times a week for 5 years now?  That guy?   I cannot put in a little more effort for the purpose of trying to make my life a little more like I want it?

But that is not the real issue of why I will or will not move forward.  The real issue is courage - the courage to write as who I am.

It is easy to write like I do here - some people know who I am, some people do not.  But to write as myself, to throw one's name out into the ring of those that write, is to run the risk of criticism.  Of seeming trite.  Of seeming stupid and sophomoric.  Of realizing that one really did not have anything to say  - and finding out that others think that too.

But there is the other side, the side I hardly acknowledge:  maybe not.

Maybe it turns out I can write to impact somebody's life.  Maybe  one of the pithy parables I am experimenting with will actually make sense to someone.  Maybe I can encourage one more person to move forward in their own life.  Heck, maybe I can sell a book or two.

So here is the question:  I know what I need to try to do to make it happen.  The question is, will I?

Can I find my courage?

Saguaro

Cool desert mornings
belie the heat that is here
when the cactus blooms.

On The Question of Being Great

 "Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be." - Charles de Gaulle

Am I determined to to be great?

No no, not the greatness the world so often confuses as greatness:  the attention, the money, the glamour, the power over the wavering masses entranced by one's brightness and glory.  The greatness I am referring to is that simple greatness where we simply are everything that we can possibly be.

Why is this important?  The reality is that greatness as the world defines it will always be a very small percentage of the world, too small for too many things that need doing not to get done.  By surrendering to less than greatness, to believing that being great (and therefore doing great things) is reserved for a particular or peculiar few, we cede the power we each have to accomplish anything.

We become the less great, the average, the mediocre, those that exist in the twilight of "The Great Ones", seeking to capture a piece of their limelight or convincing ourselves that we are supremely happy in just being noticed by them or being in their presence.  And thus we wander through our lives, hapless shadow beings that never seem to do what we need to or want to and accomplish nothing of significance or benefit, perhaps wondering why our time has never come but sure that greatness is for the great, not for us.

But this revolves around our definition of greatness.  If greatness is only achieved by fame and recognition, then this is true.  But if it is not- if it is achieved by each of us being the best "us" that we can be, then it is a false statement. 

A thing which is otherwise small may great to the one to whom it impacts - even if that one is a single person for which no-one else will recognize or know.  The greatness in inherent in us becoming the person to do the great thing, not in the visibility or greatness of the thing.

The world is in desperate need of great deeds to resolve signficant issues and to encourage others that such things are possible.

Determine to do great things.  Determine to be great.

The Abandoning of E-mail

I am giving serious consideration to abandoning e-mail.

I looked at my e-mail in-box over the course of this week and realized that I had over 400 unopened e-mails.  That seems like a great deal - I mean, I was conscious of the fact that the amount had been growing but it was leaping up exponentially.  So  I decided to take a look.

My e-mail box was even more of a disaster.  I do not know how many e-mails I have in my box at this point but I would estimate it is easily close to a thousand.  Trying to locate a specific one is the proverbial needle in the haystack procedure.

How did they all build up?  The best of intentions, of course.  The exponential growth in e-mails was due to my habit of signing up for lists - "Oh, that sounds interesting.  Let's sign up for that - after all, it is just e-mail.   It will not take up very much room".  Likewise the growth in my in-box was due to my habit of saving things "to get to later":  "That is an interesting quote.  I cannot write it down now - let me save it for later"  or "I need to respond to that.  I cannot do it now - let me save it for later."

You are seeing a trend,  I hope:  It does not take up much space and I will do it later.  As sadly true in the rest of my life as it is true in my electronic life.

I went through and deleted a great number or earmarked others for action - in a couple of cases I simple unsubscribed.  Well and good.  But as did this it was with the unconscious thought that this is only a temporary solution:  the avalanche will be back, given one or two days of non-attentiveness.

Which brought up the next thought:  what if I just sought to reduce my e-mail presence completely.

What are the legitimate uses of e-mail in my life?  Occasional contacts from friends and family.  E-mail transfers from home to work (although a thumb drive works as well).  And information - scads of information that I thought was important at one time but now threatens to bury me beneath a rigorous program of dealing with it because I hate the thought of deleting it lest I lose some minor critical item.

What if I significantly scaled back my e-mail presence?  What if I vigorously reviewed every list I am on, every newsletter I receive for actual use and purpose in my life?  My suspicion is that I would see a significant lessening of the daily and weekly e-mails I received - perhaps to the point that I could actually use the ones I have.

Because, oddly enough, 20 years ago most of us had heard of e-mail but it was the stuff of legend and technology, a mystical thing that appeared as if a pronouncement from Mt. Olympus  - and most of us survived.  And still talked to our friends.  And still got things done.  It was not what it has become now, an almost mindless exchange of everything that takes no time for someone else to send but valuable time for us to even evaulate if it is important.

I may not completely divorce myself from the medium, but it has certainly reached the point where it is no longer adding significant value in my life.   And our lives, being so short, should be filled as much as possible with things of significant value.

And Now For Your Regularly Scheduled WInter

Howling, the wind brings
not cold but a taste of spring:
trees dance in delight.

A Want And A Need

What I want is not always what I really want.

I forget this a great deal of the time.  You see, I am easily confused by what is near to me or most pressing on my mind at the moment.  I often confuse my own immediate wants and needs with the things that I really want or need - like trying to pull a scab off for relief when what I really need is to let it stay there and heal.

This is more dangerous than I like to let myself believe - giving the reins to my immediate wants is the sort of thing that has gotten me into bad places in the past?  Why is this?  Because I convince myself that what I need, I need now.  And when this happens it has seldom gone as well as I might have hoped for myself.

The key is to understand what I really want.  Or need.

Polling myself on this things is difficult.  I can be a biased respondent.  For example, I could easily convince myself that what I want is to not do what I am doing now.  But given my tendency to act as soon as I think of that, that chain of logic leads me to throwing a letter across someone's desk this morning.  But that is not what I really want - what I really want is an engaging career, which is hardly found by an abrupt change in employment.

Sometimes the confusion of one for the other is relatively harmless.  But sometimes it is not so harmless - sometimes, in fact, such things can be inadvertently life changing.  And the same kind of logic applies - I want this, so I need to do something about this right now.

The true adult - the mature person - is able to wade through all of these wants and needs.  They are able to take each in hand, examine it dispassionately, and make an assessment as to what is truly required in their life.  They seldom make the precipitous decision that cause wild swings in the nature of the existence.  If needed, how do we get there quickly?  If wanted, is it a true want?  I would think that they seldom confuse wants with needs because they are able to look at things as they truly are.

Would that we all had this kind of insight.

On The Rewriting of Opening Sentences

I have rewritten this sentence four times.

Sometimes it is a struggle sitting down with the laptop and writing something - not so much from lacking the thought about which to write but being frightened by what one wants to write.  How can writing be frightening, you might ask.  After all, it is just the placement of words on paper, the arrangement of thoughts in a coherent fashion for the purposes of communication.

But it can be more.  Sometimes, when we least expect it, parts of our innermost lives leak out on the page.

That is not really supposed to happen, of course.  We are supposed to keep our writing at a level that we can control and manipulate, that we manage our thoughts and feelings within the context of walking away from the keyboard and going on to our daily lives - after all, who knows who reads these things.  Certainly we do not want to have potentially embarrassing things outside of our heads.

But there comes the moment where one sits down, starts typing, and then looks at the words on the page and realizes "Is that what I really want to say?"  The finger poises above the "Backspace" button as we look at the words which confess a deep unhappiness or reveal a surprising hatred or speak of an unspoken love or describe something which, if we said out loud, would get us fired or ostracized.

Or free us, maybe.

That is the risk, of course.  That something we write will actually loose the chains of conformity and mediocrity from our souls.  That we will find the courage in that moment to reach down into the recesses where we store such things and bring them out into the light of day.  That we will become that person who burns in our thoughts.

Ray Bradbury said "Let the world burn through you.  Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper."  Yet by this form of self editing the world does not burn through me; instead I blow it out lest the flames reach up and engulf not only the paper, but my life.  For, of course, the difficulty with flame is that once it has been lit it becomes uncontrollable.

And yet...

And yet the lines are there, buried beneath thoughts and good sense and the risk/reward ratio which only the soul believes it knows how to calculate.  They remain there, snug as daffodil bulbs beneath a winter's blanket, waiting for the day when, like the rising of the spring sun, they will be spilled out onto the page.

And then just stand there in glorious black and white as the next sentence is typed.

Ice Storm

Cardinals that sang
in warm weather two days gone
now huddle in ice.

Two Men Trying To Live In My Head

There are two men that seem to be trying to live within my shell.

The first fellow is a self confident one.  He seems to have plans and is ready and eager to carry them out.  He seems himself in positive light:  strong, confident, a leader, a swordsman and writer, ready to accomplish whatever he puts his hands to.  He has goals that he is ready to share with you, even if you find them to be two hundred years out of date.  He is bold and daring, paying no heed to those that are naysayers. 

The second fellow is much more quiet - almost invisible.  He seems to be making do with life as it is.  He is much quieter than the other fellow and his goals seem to be non-extant except for a general sense of making it through the day.  He will tell you that after doing the work that needs to be done because this is the work that he has, there is little left for following goals which seem to have no relevance to his actual life.  He theoretically believes he can do things but seems to have a very low threshold for what can be done.

It is not that these two argue so much when they bump into each other in the confines of my head, it is that they are both competing for space at the same time.  It is hard to be self confident and lack self confidence, to have great plans yet feel you cannot carry them out, to want to do great things yet feel as if you have no time to do them.  This leads to a great deal of confusion and even paralysis in dealing with any situation, a sort of back and forth motion as I move to do something in fits and starts before convincing myself it is a pointless pursuit - although I really want to do it.

How do I resolve this?  I am not sure.  I can grasp that at some level the two men cannot ultimately exist together for the simple fact that they will cancel each other out, leaving nothing.  It has to be one or the other:  either boldly facing the sun of achievement or retiring to the shadows of complacency.  These are the options.

Why then do I feel reluctance to face the sun of achievement?  It seems foolish, does it not?  Who likes constantly feeling as if they are trapped or held back, waiting for a day that will never happen?

The only thing I can grasp is that somehow I believe that acting boldly - accepting the role of the self confident self - will result in one of two things:  complete failure (for it is confidence based in my dreams and not in something sturdier) or that it will create issues in the lives of those around me.

To the second point, those around me have adapted to the way I am. To change that abruptly - to change into someone who does not fall back into the shadows or turn aside from goals or is even bold from time to time- is a change to the operating relationship.  That can create issues.

To the first point, this is  the challenge I have faced my whole life:  am I capable?  Can I?  Do I possess the abilities and more importantly the will to do what I set out to do?  Is what I want right?  I am constantly looking for verification from God and others that I am doing the right thing in the right way, sometimes to the point that I will do nothing without that verification.  I lack the confidence that I myself have chosen the correct path - and that I am capable of doing it.

How does this end?  After almost 30 years of fighting, I have to make a choice.  Believe - or not.  Move forward - or retire.  Confess that you believe that you can - or agree that you cannot.

There are two men that seem to be trying to live within my shell.  Ultimately only one of them can.

The No-Man's Land of Mid-life Crisis

A mid-life crisis moment has blown its way in with our recent arctic blast.

It is interesting in that it is not like the sorts that I have had to deal with before. There was really no depression, hardly any anger, and no perceived longings that I was aware of.  Instead, the thing that characterized the whole event was a sense of listlessness.

I had no energy.  I had no direction.  I had seemingly endless options that I could work on, but I felt as if I did not want to make the effort to work on any of them.  Why?  Because none of them seemed to have any meaning or move me in any direction other than the one I am going in.

Maybe the year end meeting at work was a contributor.  Realizing the effort you put in simply  brought you to an almost parity state like last year is not a true motivator - and looking down the road at the coming year and seeing nothing changing seems to eliminate any real sense of next year will be better.

But it is my own personal life as well.  I still continue to struggle with arriving at goals for 2014, now almost a month after the year has begun.  Why?  Because the goals I have written down seem the same as the year before, and the year before that, and the year before that:  things that I want but I have either no ability to accomplish or, if accomplished, have no ability to transform my life.

My life feels more and more that it is being tucked into the fringes, hidden amidst the jungle of the major responsibilities of what I am supposed to do - and even when I come up with the things I would like to do these seem almost immediately overgrown by the reality of a work and a family that has their own set of activities and realities to accomplish.

The issue, of course, is that this is where many people step off the cliff:  hounded by a set of realities they feel they cannot change anything significant about their life and so they "mid-life crisis off", acting foolishly at best and erratically at the worst.  A new car, an expensive something they cannot afford - in the most extreme of cases, a new life.

 None of this comes without a price of course, from ruptured bank accounts to ruptured lives.  But I suppose - based on observation of others - that such things are hardly considerations or, if they are, they are counted as less important than the sensation of being alive.

If I think about it, that is the real point of a mid-life crisis:  it is exorcising the spirit that one has become somehow less than alive, an automaton, a series of tasks and duties with all meaning, all beauty, all passion scrubbed from one's daily existence.  To break free even in random and possibly dangerous directions is be re-injected, even if briefly, with the sensation of a life bursting with excitement and possibilities.

Do I have a solution?  No.  Merely submerging things once again, playing the faithful family hound, is just an adult version of kicking the can down the road.  And I have a shade too much responsibility to do something wildly erratic, as I am too realistic to downplay the real cost of things to others.

Which leaves me where I was Friday:  in a no-man's land wants and desires and needs and realities, staring over the top of the trench to the ground I dare not try to attack - yet desperately need to.

An Unexpected Gift

Today I received an unexpected gift:  A snow day.

Well, it was not completely unexpected.  I had a suspicion this would happen yesterday when they started trumpeting "Blizzard 2014", predicting a "wintry mix" of snow and ice.  And not that much either - which is not really the problem here in New Home.  Here, the problem really is ice - and the fact that people forget how drive when the ice is present, which results in crashes, traffic, and general unpleasantness.

The ante was upped last night as one by one the local school districts began declaring "delays" in opening, foreshadowing the cancellations everyone knew was coming but no-one could actually mention before the ice was on the ground. I had hoped that my employment would have made the same determination as well but they did; the matter was not even mentioned, a perhaps a sort of vain hope that the whole thing would go away.

And then, on arising, comes the glorious text:  "X is closed.  Notify your team".

And now, for the first time in a long time, I have the unexpected pleasure of an unplanned day.

Unplanned?  Yes.  This was a day that was supposed to be spent at work.  Instead, I have been given 10-12 hours to spend any way I choose with no repercussions of something else not getting done.  It is time without guilt.

What is somewhat shocking to me if I think about it is that this is such an anomaly.  I am presented with a short period of time that I can call my own with no prerequisites for use. This is the first time that this has happened in a long time.  Otherwise my time seems to be very carefully allocated and planned, set in stone for me weeks and months before I reach it.

I will enjoy the day,  watching the ice melt under the sun curled up with the luxury of Cafe du Monde coffee late in the day.  I will choose one or two projects that need attention - or maybe not.  Maybe I will just give myself the luxury of reading at home in a comfortable chair with no concern about having to go out.

Or perhaps more usefully, I will try to find ways to make days like this more common.

Finding Clarity

How do I maintain periods of clarity?

It happened to me yesterday.  The moment of clarity which I had yesterday was wiped out by 4:00 PM.  I could feel it happen:  one event occurred, one text diverted my mind, and suddenly I was trapped right back where I was before I left on Friday.

This bothers me greatly.  I desperately need those times of clarity, those deep thoughts which allow me to actually gain some perspective on where I am in my life and what I need to do to move forward.  Instead they seem to get subsumed and then buried in the simple reality of my day to day life.

So how can I preserve this clarity in the face of a work, home and family life which is constantly in motion?

1)  Read - I have emphasized this in the past, but I need to set aside time to read - and not the five to ten minute slices I seem to allow myself but a minimum of 30 minutes a day.  And it needs to be uninterrupted time, not punctuated by conversations or emergencies.

2)  Focus - I tend to want to know everything that goes on.  It is the unfortunate outcome of being blindsided more than once - I want to know what is coming before it hits me.  But the realities are that I cannot know everything nor is everything relevant to me.  I need to focus on what is truly important and pay attention to that.

3)  Think - Again, this is something that I need to set time aside to do:  to think, to write, to ponder, to make conclusions and ask questions.  Without questions there is no clarity.

4) Concentrate on Higher Things - I allow myself to get bogged down in the minutiae of the day and what I am doing at the moment.  This means that the real work of life - thinking, making connections, improving - is always being overrun by the trivial.  I may have to do ordinary things, but I need to ensure my mind is not focused there.

One thing is certain:  without more of these moments of clarity I will continue to flounder.  For my own mental wellness and continual advancement, I need to make opportunities for myself to do the hard but necessary work of self improvement

32,000

I had an epiphany this morning.

During this most recent trip I read one of the books I procured for myself for Christmas, Mastery by Robert Greene.  I had enjoyed Mr. Greene's previous works - The 33 Strategies of War  and The 48 Laws of Power because he has the ability to take biographies and stories from all over the world an use them to demonstrate the points he was making.

As I worked through the book one of the points that kept coming up was time:  time spent on the skill or skills that the individuals profiled in the book were trying to master.  The number he used was 10,000 hours - very similar to the 10,000 hours concept introduced by Malcolm Gladwell in his books Outliers.  10,000 for the beginning of mastery, up to 20,000 for a true master of the subject.

After I finished the book something nagged at my mind last night, something that I could not turn away from in my head.  I tried by writing out whatever was in my head before I went to bed but nothing; I went to bed with the same nagging feeling.  I awoke and the thought appeared in my head:  time.

I did some rough calculations:  if one spends 2000 hours a year at work (40 hours a week for 50 weeks), then the average to gain "mastery" of the job one is doing should be about 5 years.  I did some quick calculations:  I have 32,000 hours in my industry, 25,333 of those in my current area, and 22,500 of those in a managerial role.

It hit me.  I feel like I have mastered nothing.

That is a great deal of time to spend doing anything.  To subconsciously - and now consciously - grasp that this actually amounts to nothing, that I am doing the same sort of tasks I did at 5,000 hours for essentially the same rate and in the same atmosphere tells me one of three things:
1)  I have not been doing the right things.
2)  I have not done them in the right industry.
3)  I have wasted my time.

This bears every sign of a wasted effort.

Now it makes sense.  My dissatisfaction goes far beyond the narrow bounds of who I report to or what I am working on at the moment.  It reaches to the very core of the thing we call accomplishment:  hours and hours - years and years- spent to remain in a holding pattern instead of moving forward.

What am I to do?  I am not clear on this yet.  Waste no more time is the obvious outcome - but if one is not to waste it, what does one need to spend it on?  And can the time I have already spent be redeemed in some fashion?

I am not sure of the implications but I am sure of one thing:  I cannot - and will not - waste what years I have left on pursuit of mastery in an area or subject that simply cannot be mastered -or in one where such mastery is not recognized and rewarded.

Two Sides

It is interesting to me how a single situation can be seen two completely different ways.

On the one side is the individual that lives in the situation, that is forced to work in it.  From their point of view, little is able to be accomplished: management is controlling and does not allow anything of consequence to be undertaken or performed without some level of approval and oversight.  That which is accomplished goes unnoticed; that which fails seems mercilessly thrown back as proof that nothing can be done correctly.

On the other side is the individual who is in the same situation.  From their standpoint much can be accomplished; that which is not officially proscribed is allowed.  Initiative is rewarded in this world and in fact the expectation is that initiative is expected.  Outside of a narrow band of items limitations do not exist - and in fact, this person is surprised at the reluctance of so many to take some sort of action.

So here is the question:  who is correct?

This revolves around the question of limitations and control:  what are the actual limitations, what are the actual controls, and who is subject to them.

Do we create an environment where creativity and action are encouraged.  Or do we create an environment where control is the most critical aspect and changes - unless properly submitted and approved - are frowned upon?  The atmosphere resulting from this basic standard is what comes to permeate whatever organization it is involved in.

People are not, generally speaking, stupid.  They respond to inputs.  And if the inputs are "Try something without permission and get dinged" or "Decisions may only be made by a chosen few" they come to internalize that.  This may not be true for everyone - certain individuals have a degree of initiative that may not be allowed to the entire organization.  But the reality is that for most, such things are not tried because the underlying rule is that without taking all the appropriate steps and getting all the appropriate buy in, there will be nothing allowed.  The only surprising thing at that point is that often the people in charge are stunned that no-one will take initiative. 

How is this combated?  There are only two options.  One is for a true internal look at the soul of the organization and what it has come to practice (and by practicing, demonstrates its beliefs) about ideas, change and initiative - and make changes.  The other choice is for those that wish to do such things to look elsewhere. 

For without changing the real nature of control, all the lip service to "We wish people were more self motivated" will drift into the wind of the organizational reality

January?

Watching blue white skies
belies that winter chill is
one cold front away.

Christian Gimmickry

One of the goals on this year's list - in fact, one of my recurring goals - is to have a better relationship with God and be a more authentic Christian.  This has always been something of struggle for me - I can do some of the outward motions but am I really growing as a Christian?  Am I truly growing in my relationship, becoming a better Christian?

One of my resolutions to find a better way is to read Christian biographies.  Not a bad thought, right?  Look at the historical figures of the past who made the lives count for Christ both to be encouraged by their example as well as to find out what they did so that I can add it to my life.

Currently I am reading George Muller of Bristol:  His Life of Prayer and Faith by A. T. Pierson.  It chronicles the life of George Muller, a German who emigrated to England in the early to mid 19th Century and was renown for a series of orphanages he opened which he operated completely by prayer and dependence on God, besides becoming a Christian speaker and founding an bible institute.  Mr. Muller was known as a man of deep prayer, who prayed before any decision.  He never once asked for any donations to support any of the operations publicly; instead, he prayed and God supplied.

As I have been reading through this book I find the places that I highlighted or underlined last time as important points or things that I should remember.  "Ah"  I say, "this is what I need to do: pray as he did, read the Bible on his knees as he did, spend x amount of hours a day with God."

And then last night I realized I have missed the whole point.

I am looking for Christian Gimmickry like the world looks for to solve any issue.  "What can I do to get the same results?" I ask, when that is not the question to ask at all.  The reality is that these men and women performed these actions as an outgrowth of their relationship to God, not as a means to get to that relationship.  It was their focus on God and their dependence on Him that led them to taking the actions that they did - not that those got them to God, but that those were impressed on their hearts by God to help them get closer to God and be more effective in their ministry.

Does that mean such actions should not be undertaken?  Of course not - there is great benefit in any spiritual discipline.  But what it does mean is that the focus of my effort needs to be not specifically on any action but on the development of my own relationship with God through prayer and reading His word - just as all of those whom I read of did. It only through this that the relationship can be developed, and through the relationship being developed the ability to listen developed, and through the ability to listen being developed the discovery of those actions which will help me become a more effective servant of God - not a practitioner of gimmicks.

Why Now?

This week as I was surfing around the industry papers I found a reference to a company which had purchase the rights to the product that the company I was employed with was working when I got laid off and ended up in New Home.  It seems that one of the products we had in-house has been put through another round of testing and has been found to have a significant impact on the life of cancer patients - so significant, in fact, that they stopped the trial early.

Of course one is gratified when any advance is made and cancer and, since I still know some of the people who work there, I am happy for them.  But then the question crept into my head:  " Why Now?"

Why now?  Why not 5 years ago, when the layoffs happened (actually 5 years ago next week)?  Especially given the issues that I am having now, why could not the trial have been effective then?  So much would be different.

To be fair, when I say this I have to admit that I am biased.  I am seeing everything through the lens of  a single point of dis-satisfaction - perhaps the only point of dis-satisfaction - my job.  It ignores all of the good - and there has been good, so much of it that it has impacted every member of this household with the opportunities that have been afforded, the friends made, the activities undertaken.  In so many ways we have done so much differently - and hopefully for the better - since the move.

And the job?  I have to believe that if all else has gone as well as it did, the job will work itself out in some form or fashion as well.  The answer is here somewhere - I just have to find it.

So I managed to accept (perhaps not as gracefully as I should have) the success of my former product and company.  In fact, there is some joy to be taken in that in some small way, I may have contributed to a product that could help the lives of others.

All that and iaijutsu and Highland Athletics.  Life is pretty good.

When To Go

How do you know when it is time to move on?

I was discussing this last night in the context of the situations of employees that I have dealt with last night.  I believe (and maintain) that it is the job of managers to ensure that those who work for them develop themselves to the fullest, even if it is not at the current place of employment.  All jobs, like food, have expiration dates:  those who are aware understand what those are and help others to see them.  But what happens when you are the one involved in the discussion, not someone else?

It is interesting because there is a direct comparison with marriage in this case - another relationship where we can spend our whole lives but where many end up feeling that is time to move on before the "death do us part"  stage.  And yet there are cases of marriages lasting 60 years.  Obviously there is not a complete comparison - there is seldom romance about a job and children are (usually) not involved - but many people go in thinking one thing and leave before they thought they would thinking something else.  Are there any signs or things that can be bridged?

1)  Inability to Grow:  This is the one that immediately jumps out at me.  It is time to go from a job when there is no ability to grow further in your position.  One can only perform the same tasks with little difference from year to year before inertia begins to set in.  The same can be said of failed marriages:  How often have we heard from separating couples "We were no longer growing in our relationship"?

2)  Inability to Move Past Emotions:  Bad things happen at work:  careers are stymied based on incorrect assumptions, decisions affecting individuals are made without consulting them which turn out to be unsuccessful, bosses play favorites.  Some are able to take this in and move on; others cling to the past as evidence of how things will go in the future.  When this sort of bitter clinging becomes endemic in an individual, it is probably time for them to move on - much like in a failing marriage where one individual cannot get beyond the feelings of bitterness and anger that them have.  For at that point no matter what changes are made, it is likely that it will not be seen as enough.

3)  Inability to Imagine a Different Future:  When an individual can no longer see that they place they are at has a path forward  - perhaps not specifically to them but to the organization as a whole - they have one of two choices:  remain knowing that things have little chance of changing or move on.  If they become trapped in their vision of the future, they quite often will begin to act as if their contributions make no difference - and why would you, when your actions make no impact on the ultimate outcome of things.  Again, as in work, as in marriage:  people stop caring when they believe that their efforts are (and will always be) unrecognized and what they have now is what they will have forever.

Why are these indicators that one should move on?  Because extrapolated to their logical conclusion, one finds an individual who is trapped where they are with no hope of moving forward, no hope of a different outcome, and a hard core of anger or resentment that tinges their every day interactions. 

The odd thing is that when these are not dealt with they can become a self fulfilling prophecy:  the one who is not growing and exudes hard feelings, trapped in a narrative of what they feel likely to happen, is often the the individual who is seen as the most expendable when a change needs to be made.

So the question is not really how we should guide others to this realization.  The question is, how do we guide ourselves?

Test Preparation

We are so very close to the certification test for Iaijutsu.

This is the certificate presented by a sensei which says that a student has a certain level of knowledge and could (potentially) teach.   There are three levels, each of advancing difficulty.

The test is in April.  It includes a paper, terminology, basic memorized knowledge, tameshigiri (test cutting), open hand, and sword.

I was reflecting last night as I drove home from class that this is something that has been as long and intense as any college degree.  A B.A. is 120 hours of education; an M.A. is 30-40 hours beyond that.  By the time I test, I will have well over 200 hours into this (over four years).

I am still worried, of course:  my open hand is still not what it needs to be and my I have the tendency to freeze up when I forget things.  But of all the things I have worked on, this is one of the longest sustained efforts I have made.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I have a picture of finishing the test and holding the certificate.  It is visualization of course, something I am not always convinced works, but it helps to see that picture and feel myself holding it in my hand.

It is the almost completion of any objective that can be the most difficult period of all.

External Limitations

I have come to realize that not of my limitations come immediately from myself.  Some of my limitations come from the environment in which I work and live.

Example:  No matter how much I intend to develop myself at my current line of work (until it is not my current line of work) the fact remains that there are simply not enough of us to do all the work.  What does this mean? I can think of all the improvement projects and self development in the world but it will never escape the fact that when push comes to shove, work needs to get done - and in a small department, the likelihood is that more often than not, there will be "regular" work to do.

What is the implication of this?  Pretty simple:  either the place that I work (wherever that is) needs to invest in the resources to make the improvements possible or I need  to find such a place.  It is clear, but that does not make it simple, of course.

I am debating how much of this I need to bring to the attention of those with the power.  Because this becomes the second issue:  my willingness to speak to this truth.  As I have alluded to multiple times before, I am a somewhat reluctant spokesman for myself - I become more concerned that people like me and feel good about me than I actually speak up for myself, even if it is the truth.

But there is the second reality of course:  the reality I that I do nothing and I say nothing and 12 months from now I am here - again. 

"Lost time is never found again" said Benjamin Franklin.  I cannot - and will not - lose another year.

Mastery

"To stick to a thing until you are master, is a test of intellectual discipline and power." - Orison Swett Marden

How often do I undertake things with the thought of mastering them?  This is something that seems to keep resounding from my reading of An Iron Will by Orison Swett Marden.  The book, in case you have never heard of it (or the author), is a 19th century inspirational work about the power of the will, how it matters, and how important it is to adopt one.

But back to mastery.  How often do I undertake things with the thought of mastering them?  How much do any of us, if I desire to spread the pain a bit?  I think the reality is most people -certainly myself - undertake things unthinkingly without the first of thought of coming to master them.  We dally with a multiplicity of thing like a dilettante rather than take the time to actual master what we do.

The interesting thing is that our society values mastery but in very odd ways.  We recognize Olympic athletes yet we have built an entire industry on "Online Gaming" where people spend the same amount of time and effort mastering that which does not exist as for that the does.  We say that we value the level of craftsmanship and performance that comes with anything built by one who has spent the long hours mastering a skill or item, yet would rather spend our money on the cheap and pleasing. We claim that we want our personnel to master what they do, but we refuse to pay the wages for what a mastery of that skill would look like.

Is it wrong to not master everything we put our hand to?  Of course not.  Experimenting is the great spice of life - without experimenting in different things, I would never have discover many of the activities that I enjoy today.  We need to look to different areas, to try, to explore, to find things that are worthy of our time.

But once we find such things we need to make a commitment to them not just to continue to play in the shallows of the knowledge, but to go deeper.  It is like swimming:  as a child it is wonderful to paddle our way in the shallows but as an adult such paddling looks ludicrous and is counterproductive to actually swimming anyway. 

And such commitment - this mastery - is one that requires of us to do a number of things:

1)  Focus:  Our focus narrows as we continue to learn and practice one things.

2)  Effort:  The amount of effort required to master something is always greater than the effort to just participate in it.

3)  Intellectual Engagement:  As we seek to master something, we will find that our minds become consumed by it.  It haunts our waking thoughts.  It is applied in every situation.

4)  Discipline: To become a master of anything is to stick to it until it is mastered.  To do this correctly it requires a significant application of discipline, to the task of getting the thing done until it is done.

Focus, Effort, Intellectual Engagement, Discipline - are these not things that make for better people, better lives and better societies? 

The benefits of mastery are there - the question is, are we - am I - willing to pay the price?

Wild Temperatures

Freezing on Monday,
And now warm rain fills the streets:
Can this be Winter?

Just ________

Driving home yesterday in what was the worst traffic we have had to date this year I began to get frustrated - frustrated with my life, frustrated with my situation, frustrated with my ability to move any part of my life forward  "How am I going to accomplish anything trapped in this car as I go back and forth?"  I bewailed.  "How am I going to do anything of value where I am now?"

And then the answer came back to me "Just Do It."  Yes, just like that "Just Do It" from Nike.

Just do it.  Just do what you need and intend to do.  No excuses.  No reasons not to.   Just start.  Even if you make an inch of progress, just do it.

This thought permeated my brain all the way back to my house.  No more obstacles can be used as reasons that I cannot do a thing.  I simply need to be about it.

This led directly back to my goals that I have been  haphazardly working on over the last two weeks. I thought I had them nailed down but found that there was little enthusiasm for me to move forward on them.  So I changed them.

It is a subtle change.  Instead of saying "I need to participate in 5 runs at less than 8 minute miles and improve my Highland Athletic personal records" I changed it to "Just lose weight" with four supporting items:  Lose sugar (really need to do this), lose weight, run 5 races with less than 8 minute miles, and improve my Highland Athletic personal records"

Or writing.  I changed it from the vague listing I had of all the different things I was working on to "Just Write":  Blogs, Book. 

As I did this, I found that the unanticipated benefit was that I was defining things in terms of action verbs:  Just Write, Just Lose Weight, Just Speak, Just Pray.  And action is precisely what I need to be taking.

Do I believe this is the panacea to all my goal setting woes and lack of achievement?  Not at all.  Words without deeds accomplish precisely nothing.  But for the first time since I started working on the goals for this year I actually felt a slight degree of anticipation and ownership, of having something that I can work towards and make progress on.

It is easy.  Just _________.

1000 Cut Drill

Last night we did the Thousand Cut Drill.

The Thousand Cut Drill, for those who have never been exposed, is simply that:  1,000 cuts.  The cuts can be of any variety - we tended to do overhand  and one handed kiroroshi but anything can be done. 

Not so bad, you might think.  After all, the bokuto weighs what - 3 lbs?  5 lbs?  You might find yourself a little sore but that is probably it.  And then you start.

If you are on the middle it is the most intense:  one kirioroshi, 180 degree turn, one kirioroshi.  This is one cut of 50 (i.e. 100 cuts).  If you are on the outer edge, you cut kirioroshi each time the center person turns to you.  This is 50 cuts.  If you rotate through the cycle you will have done 100 cuts.

The first end is not too bad:  you cut and raise overhead back to jodon.  Watch the person in the middle, try to time your cut to theirs.  Remember to breath out when you cut.  You find yourself anticipating their cut.  Slow down, match their speed.

Then you move to the middle.  Starting out is okay; we have done this before.  As you go you notice that your foot is as straight as it should be; try to correct that.  Your cuts are not as straight up and down either.  Work on that.  And then you notice that intersection of your arms and shoulders is beginning tighten up, even to hurt.  Your pace is slowly down while the count still goes on:  "Forty one, Forty two".  By the time you reach 50 your arms are shouting that you should be done.

And then you go to the other side.  Fifty cuts again.  Your right hand is starting to hurt from holding the tsuba in nigiri no kata - as if your were twisting a towel.  As a result your cuts are not s straight as they should be.  Sensei calls out to work on the grip.  You try to comply but know you do not have it right.

Finally you finish.  Move off to the side to rest while others go.  Make the count for them.  And then enter the cycle again.  Your muscles are more sore this time, the foot even a little more off, the cuts not nearly as straight.  You are a little slower.  But you get through.

Next rotation:  right hand only, 25 cuts.  Part of the difficulty is finding where to hold the bokuto so you can cut - you have to move your grip up.  The count goes as your blade seems to make wider and wider circles.

Then the left hand.  This was the worst of all as you very seldom use your left arm for cuts.  you should practice more often, apparently - they are wild, your pace is slow, the bokuto seems completely unbalanced in your hand, to the point you are worried it will slip out.

Next rotation:  the subarito, the heavier practice blade.  Only 10 round (20 cuts) this time:  the weight seems heavier because it is, but after the debacle of the left hand it seems better if for no other reason than you have your form back.

Finally to triangle drill, a six cut drill in which you make a triangle:  suheigiri cut right, flip the blade over into wakinokimae, cut up on a diagonal right to left shoulder in yokokesa-giri then rotate the blade around your head to cut back right to left in kesa giri.  Flip the blade behind you right in wakinokimae, suhei giri cut left, cut up on a diagonal left to right should in reverse yokokesa giri, then rotate the blade around your head to cut back left to right in kesa giri.  Flip the blade back into wakinokimae.  This is one set. 

You start off well but find that your timing is slightly off from your counter.  You try to match up with him but then find you are cheating your cuts.  All the time as you go your muscles are getting more tired, your cuts a little less precise, your timing a little more off.

And then it happens.

Tired and behind and perhaps in desperation you start making your cuts bigger, more flowing.  Your hips are moving more as you reach into the cuts and then fall back into them.  Your timing seems to have suddenly taken care of itself as you move with your counter almost in unison  In the midst of screaming muscles and imprecise cuts you find the unity of motion the true practitioner always seeks:  your body is moving with blade but you are not thinking about the body or the blade.  You are merely thinking about the next cut. 

For one brief instant four hundred years of swordsmen cut with you in unison.

Sensei calls for a stop.  Final count:  1050 cuts.  More than last year and now we have a target for the following year.

You are exhausted.  Your biceps and shoulders are notifying you that they may consider taking the day off.  Your sweat is mingled with the smell of everyone else as they fold up their hakama until next week.

But in your mind as you fumble with your keys in the car door, you do not remember the pain of the preceding 900 cuts.  You remember the last 100, when your body flowed.

Traction On The Year II: Work

Yesterday was a lost cause at work.

As usual I came in with the best of intentions:  work on things, be productive.  What I found by the end of the day was that I was feeling distracted and unproductive.  Fine. This has happened multiple times of course; to improve I need to understand exactly what went wrong.

1)  Goals:  Yes, I know.  I have sort of beat this into the ground.  But I still have to be honest in that I do not really have any goals for work.  I can come up with a plethora of reasons why such goals are very difficult to generate at work (which they are), but in point of fact I do not have any.   Why does this matter at all?  Because without goals for work I find myself drifting from emergency to emergency or item to item without any drive as to how things will fit into the larger picture - or in my case, how I get up or get out.

2)  Focus:  I am a social creature.  I am also someone who does not deal well with repetitive tasks or boredom.  Thus, when I have to do much of what I have to do my mind tends to wander:  I get pulled into the conversations of others or "suddenly" have to find out information about this or that.  Part of this is a diversion on my own part to keep myself from doing that which is not interesting or informative, the other is an admission that my job is not challenging me at the highest levels.  While I feel trapped by my inability to change my current position, this does nothing to enhance my efforts and ability to get out of that position.

3)  Talk:  As I mentioned above I am a social creature.  As such, I like to talk.  I enjoy speaking with others (well, at least some others).  It is very helpful to my line of work; however, I find that I have the tendency to like to talk. A lot.  About things we have already discussed.  I took a quick mental note yesterday as I left concerning the amount of time I spent talking and was amazed (not in a good way).  What I found was I have the tendency to rehash and smoulder rather than actively work at getting things done.

The underlying problem here is that none of these failings move me any closer to finding something I really want to do.  They just act as a mitigation to a situation that I do not particularly care for.  I need to realize that these are symptoms of a larger problem - and then move on to address the larger problem.

Otherwise, I will find that this year looks remarkably like the one just past.

Traction On The Year

I am trying to get some traction on the year.

Doing vacation at the end of the year this year was confusing to me.  1 day on, 2 days off, 2 days on, 2 days off, 2 days on, 1 day off, 2 days on, 2 days off.  And suddenly the first week of the New Year has flown by.

I was lamenting to Snowflake that this whole chain of events bothered me.  There was not really a sense of being away from work or being with my family, more of a series of weird days off that weren't quite sick days (so I did not feel like I could truly "loaf about" and rest) nor were the truly vacation days (so I did not feel the urge to do something "fun").  The change from old to New Year was especially troublesome as well:  I left work with one set of problems, had a day off, and suddenly it is a New Year and I have the same set of problems.  There was no separation, no sense of having reached the end of something and beginning of something else.

And that, I said to Snowflake, impacted getting my goals out the door.  Because I am almost obsessive about the concepts of endings and beginnings.

I remember in college when I would go away and it would get to be time to move back, I would have a careful ritual where by I would slowly begin the process of packing things up to get ready to go.  My things would go into a smaller and smaller pile and become more and more organized until by the end I had my bed, a change of clothes, and maybe one or two things on the desk for use.  Even in living here before everyone else arrived I found that I reverted to that same behavior:  as the time came to move to the house, the items got more and more compact until there were none.

I like endings.  I like beginnings.  I like the the sense of timing and space that they bring.  That is why I like having a New Year's Day to have new goals for.  There is a sense in which I can say "I am done with the past; here is the future."  But to do this, of course, you need to actually have an ending and a beginning, not just a day sandwiched between two significant events to make the transition.

Christmas, I believe, falls on a Thursday this year, which means that the possibility exists that I can get 12 days of vacation for the cost of 5.  I will make a serious attempt to reserve that vacation for the end of the year:  not just because I need the time off, but because I need the space and sense of ending that such time brings.

A Season to Change

Every year about this time I get the urge to look for a new position.  It has become as regular as clockwork at this point:  I work on my annual review, I look around at my job, and I say to myself "I really need to find something else".  This year has already been more challenging than others simply from the fact that I only took New Year's Day off:  thus, the things I was working on last year became the things I came in to work on this year.

It is somewhat different this year though, in the sense that I would actually like to make a change, not just talk about it.  Looking at my review, realizing that I have been almost five years at the same position with little movement and no potential for anything new or any movement is enough to make one think (once again) that there needs to be a change.  But this time I really need to make one.

But how do I go about doing this?  This is the thing that I need to wrap my arms around.  The "old" way of doing things - get a resume, search online, apply - has not worked out for me as I might have hoped.  Yes, I understand that there are extenuating circumstances and yes, I understand I am out of state for 49 states, but the results have been negligible.  

Am I barking up the wrong tree in believing that I can only do what I do in the industry I am doing it in?  Two days ago I would have said no, but I have data suggesting that this is not the case either.  People are doing it.

No, the problem seems to come down to something more basic and personal:  it is me.

I am not hungry enough for the change.  I am not willing to pay the price necessary to bring it about.  I say I want change but I hardly put in the effort to make it happen.  The result?  Every year about this time, I go through the same thought process. 

How can I change this to move it from the intellectual and theoretical to the actual?  This is the part that constantly eludes me.  I need to find the motivation from somewhere other than the usual places to make it happen - and then take the steps to accomplish it.

Because if I am truly honest, everyone around me really is moving on and doing something with their lives.  It is time for me to do likewise.

God as Goal

I was challenged last night by the fact that in my proposed 2014 goals, I seem to have left God out.

This bothered me when I sat down and thought about it for a bit.  Here I am, someone who is proclaiming that I am a Christian and that God is central to my life - yet my goals concerning Him are always mushy and ill-defined at best.  That struck me as odd, because the rest of the goals in my life for any given year are much more solid and well defined - and, if I were honest, looked forward to with more anticipation.

It is a repeat offense for the problem that I have had in my daily life, trying to fit everything in and then trying to place God in the cracks and crevices on the side in other words where He fits, not where He should fit.  I like to pretend that I am doing otherwise, but the ugly truth is not that God is first but that He is more often the thing that I have good intentions about but seldom move forward with.

This needs to change - not only for myself and for the example that I need to provide to my family but to a world where increasingly Christianity is known more by the stereotypes and bad information than by the actual example of knowing a Christian.

How to implement this?  I realized as I sat last night that I start by making God one of many goals.  What would happen if I reversed this process, if I started from making God the first goal and then worked my way backward from there.  What might this look like?  How do I fit God in
 - in private worship?
 - in public worship?
 - in daily prayer?
 - in service at my church?
 - in service to my community?

In answering the questions and then implementing them, I would begin to make God first in my life.

And the other things?  This is the difficult part for me.  It would become the process I had previously practiced with God:  putting things into the cracks.  Looking at the things that were previously on the list and admitting that some of them were not going to be accomplished - and being okay with that.

The entire process is a reverse to my typical way of thinking about goals and something that I am struggling my way through.  But in considering it I am left with a question, a question that has been at the back of my mind for four years (since we moved):  am I growing in my faith or failing in it?   And if I am failing in it, what practical steps am I willing to take to reverse that situation?

An Open Letter to 2014

Dear 2014:

Well, I see you have come.  Welcome.  We have managed to arrange some sun and blue skies for your arrival today, which I hope make the day go a little better for you.

Let us start with the point that you are an anticipated arrival.  People throughout the world - even here - have been looking forward to your arrival.  Some have been looking for weeks, some perhaps for months - while others just realized that Christmas went by and something else was following close on.

Why?  For some it is that this year has been a year the likes of which they are simply ready for it to be over.  For others, they are ready for you not so much because last year was bad but because they want to make a new start.  And for a third group last year was a great year for which they want to do even better.

You are a rarity for the human experience:  you arrive as a harbinger of hope.  You are both a known and unknown entity:  known because we know precisely how long you are, unknown because what you bring in that period is shrouded in mystery.  We tend to associate the new and unknown with better, even though we we instinctively know better that such is not always the case.

For myself, I have been deeply looking forward to your arrival - not just because the sense of hope you bring but because I have much to do with you this year.  Every year I get a little bit better at figuring out what I need to pack inside of you, of what I want to see at the end of you.    You offer the ability to live another year, to achieve more, to make more of an impact.

Welcome to you.  I think we are going to have a productive and good time together.

Sincerely,

Toirdhealbheach Beucail