Think Like An Ant

I find that I'm less and less happy with my current quality of life. And it's not one person, job or thing that is making it negative.

What I've decided is that it's my own non choice. My non-choice to prioritize my time makes me feel like a victim to my own schedule. And a victim to my own expectations and the expectations of others. Scratch that, make it the expectations that I perceive others to have on me.

In short, I can't say no. I don't say no enough to the wrong things, and don't say yes enough to the right things. My dad tells me that's the difference between having a job and having a position. You have to work at leaving work at work -- and work on getting actual work done at work.

I have spent a year living like this...and I think this is the point where I raise my hand up and say no more. It's not good for my health. It's not good for my family and not good for me.

I'm thinking like an ant as Dr. Cloud says in The 9 Things You Simply Must Do. The small goal to making this change is to stop working every night from home and start taking a lunch hour.

I'm traveling this week. Heading to Atlanta for a gathering of other child advocates. It's always a great time, but at the same time very overwhelming because there is always so much more I could, should, ought to be doing. I will be thinking of those ants again and hope to at least being doing SOMETHING.

My short term goal this week is to work out or doing something active while I'm out of town. And continue that pace when I come home. My body cannot continue on this diet rich in cortisol.

Dark Clouds

So I'm brooding and grouchy. Not sure why. Perhaps the BS of a job, any job really, is getting old. The attempts to stab people in the face with information...how can we package this different, better? Does the general public know where Georgia is? We don't want to spoil this Olympic swimming medal haze to actually think about a real crisis.

So there is that. There is the sad fact that I'm impatient. Have been and always will be. Being peppered with questions from people twice my age about things I can only profess to have a minimal knowledge is getting old. I'm getting old, I've realized. I don't care to "expand my portfolio" in an industry that seems to be flailing and bailing water. But I will expand because I love this profession and don't want to be seen as unyielding or unsure of how to progress in an ever-changing world. I tell my boss, "I'll do what you want me to do," but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

How did I get here, I don't know. But the general malaise, is becoming just that, a sickness that I'm quite sick of. I keep thinking of ways to be excited about a professional I've spent most of life pursuing. Maybe it is investing in new technologies and finding new ways to tell stories, different ways. Ways that I must be in control of and be willing to give 12-hours of my time to each day. There's the rub. That is the real root of all this. I'm not lazy, but I'm not interested in investing my free time to a skill, when I'm nearly a third of the way through my life span and I want to invest in things outside of work. There has to be a balance I'm sure, but what I've learned is that I don't know how to balance the time I put into my craft -- something I love.

So there is that. Just ranting. Thank you for reading, all three of you. :)