I've found myself checking in with Diana a lot lately about my general lifestyle. I have this guilty feeling that I'm not doing anything, as if I'm not meeting my work ethic.
OK, so the first part of that is, holy shit, I have a work ethic. For all of the times I'd come back from lunch and think I couldn't take another four hours of this, that's a real shocker. Granted, this is part of my domestication (in Four Agreements Terms) or whatever the hell you call it in proper psychology (I wouldn't know because I only went to the class three times for my C-). Culturally we're made to believe that we aren't shit without our jobs. I know that made me miserable in the tough times of 2001, and I see it making a lot of good friends nervous and stressed out lately. Ironically they're the ones who still have jobs.
But whatever causes it, the feeling is real, and I'm trying to figure out how to adjust. In a general sense, I notice that I get up in the morning, do "feeding" work for my sites for an hour or so, get three decent hours of project work done in the afternoon, and then another three hours or so of work late in the evening. I'm thinking about doing a spreadsheet to track my own time, so I can weigh it against income or my own typical hourly rate in the field. I need to feel like what I'm doing has some value, in the short or long term. I'm thinking, gasp, like I'm running a business.
I've already identified some opportunities, and, believe it or not, have endeavored to do some work for CoasterBuzz v4. Yeah, I can't believe it either. I've come to realize that I can certainly live off of this stuff in the short term if I so choose, so why not use the time appropriately?
I've been talking with a potential employer that really has my interest. It's less down and dirty code work and more like process guidance and architecture. That pleases me. I think it's something I want to do. But the upside of it is that it won't start for several more weeks, so I've got time to make a go of projects I've neglected for years. Who knows what I might accomplish?
In the mean time, I'll get up when I feel like it, play some video games, do hobby stuff, and enjoy summer. I'd be an idiot not to.
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