petrified, horrified, terrified.
Random Observation/Comment #237: I’ve reduced my global status updates to weekday observations about work and recommendations to the really cool and geeky stuff I read when I get off work. In my opinion (and many will argue if this is true or not), I’m giving some useful information and relatively staying on topic without flooding people with useless updates. With this in mind, I feel there should be a limit to the number of updates some of my friends should be able to post. It’s like the whole Mitch Hedberg idea of the car horn. “I wish I hadn’t seen Jimmy on the street!”
This will be the 4th post I’ve had after working for 7 weeks. I find this lack of writing blasphemous! I had so many fun topics that I wanted to rant about, but they were somehow pushed aside by my overall lack of desire to do work outside of work. I’ve brainwashed myself with the phrase, “Hey, I worked a 9-hour day in front of a computer – all I want to do is turn off.” It’s everything I feared from working coming true.
Even though I have free nights for optimal coding and writing, I spend the bulk of this free time doing my old time-consuming crap that I told myself to stop due to un-productivity. I’m not exactly sure why I want myself to be this well-oiled crazy working-machine, but I think it has something to do with the fact that this world is so damn-fascinating (or damn fascinating). Whatever the motive, I find a certain bitter taste in my mouth about this decision. I appreciate the praise from my parents who have become so thrilled that I’ve stopped my “useless travels around the world,” yet there is a side of me that feels like I am letting a small population of friends down. My move towards finance and settling down is like Anakin Skywalker turning to the Dark Side. Somehow, the power of money and greed has poisoned my desire to pursue education and capture the full extent of the world.
How did this happen? What happened to “All is well?” Where is that passion now? I wish I could say it hasn’t taken a back seat, but it’s hard to fit it in between my winks of sleep. I was fully aware that this move was a risk towards my metaphysical levels of freedom. I can treat it as a learning experience to expand my knowledge of a working routine all I want, but at the end of the day, it’s just so different. Was I supposed to feel overwhelming success and pride in representing the company or crossing off tasks? Should I jump for joy because I did a good job writing documentation? I think there needs to be something more to keep me enthralled. I’ve come up with the little things along the way, but maybe I need a big thing. I need a new approach that will just revolutionize work.
Back in the day, my parents didn’t have a problem finding that goal – it was a sacrifice made from love for children and family that led them to keep working. Maybe I can make the same sacrifice they made for me to let them discover the next phase. Well, it may be true, but I don’t think shifting dreams back and forth should be the driving force. We’re not living on a see-saw – I want to see the arrow or web or huge matrix – Whatever it is.
I guess I don’t want to just treat a job as a source of income – I want to treat it as an adventure. It’s the whole idea of finding a career and specializing in something that you’re good at which should be a driving force, right? And if what you’re good at is in high demand, and you get really good at it along some crazy coin-collecting route towards a level-up, then I think success will follow.
Although I still have an inconsistency with my current plan: What is this finance thing, again? I don’t know anymore: It’s just a part of the adventure. If my life is a book, I can’t wait for the chapter where I lose my mind and live on an island with fiber optics. I’d just do stuff for free and pick up star-gazing again. Hey, look: a new dream to add to the list.
~See Lemons Avoid a Routine
