On Jobs

I've had a lot of jobs in my life.  Notice I didn't say career because while many of the jobs were in related fields, I don't really think of myself as having a coherent career.  That could be because each job was simply what I did at the time.  Sure many of them involved a computer and built on the knowledge I may have learned from school or even the previous job, but they were connected to each other in the same way that hand-gliding and riding in a commercial jet are related.  The biggest issue I've found with my jobs is that they don't really matter to each other.  My previous experience helped me get the job I have now, but I could have done this same work ten years ago with little difference in overall performance.  What does that say about my so-called career that my jobs are all interchangeable?

Now I know several people who were fortunate enough to find a job they enjoyed early on and turned it into a career.  It seems with my generation it's becoming more likely that people will not only switch jobs, but change fields.  Sometimes it's out of necessity and other times it's forced upon them.  Thirty years ago it would have been strange for someone my age to have as many jobs as I do.  It used to be you find a job that pays you well enough and stick with it until you were too old to work anymore.  Twenty to thirty years later you called it a day and collected your pension.  The idea of me working anywhere long enough to generate a real retirement fund seems unlikely.  Not just because of the economy, but because of who I am.  I tend to have the attention span of a puppy when it comes to work.

For much of the time since I graduated from college the economy has been in a recession and in some cases I think it's been a depression.  I'm not an economist or anything.  I just know that for as long as I can remember people have worried about layoffs, downturns, and unemployment rates.  One has to wonder if the trend for the last ten to fifteen years has been overall negative then maybe it's not a trend, but just the way things are.  Of course everything is cyclical and I have to believe that eventually things will turn around.  I've just never seen it since I've been old enough to really care about it.  There are people graduating from college that can't find a job.  It's not because they are unqualified, well some of them are, it's because there's simply not enough jobs to go around anymore.  The whole situation is strange too because there's still work to be done.  I know several industries that are swamped with work, where their people are working well over forty hours a week.
One of the most hated phrases thrown around in corporate America is "do more with less", which is really just a buzz worthy way of saying that they expect the same level (or higher) of service but don't want to pay for it.  The company just laid off three hundred employees because they couldn't afford to keep them on anymore.  That doesn't mean the work those people were doing goes away.  Instead it gets redistributed to whoever is left standing.  Often times those people still with a job are just thankful they still are working and will take on the new responsibilities because if they don't, they too may be out the door.  Eventually though it just becomes standard operating procedure for people to keep taking on more work.  Their salaries or benefits don't go up because the company is trying to save money.  I get that a company's primary function is to make money. They may make computer software, or shoes, or save babies, but they need to make money in order to continue doing whatever it is they do.  So I don't think that most companies set out to screw over their employees by taking from them and giving nothing back in return.  That's not usually their intention, at least not at first.  What probably happens is that the higher ups see that they've been able to save X number of dollars after "trimming the fat" and that overall productivity and/of quality hasn't gone down, so they figure everything is fine.  What they most likely don't ever see is that the person who was already swamped with their own work now has to take on extra work from one of the people who were walked out the door.  The employees do this because what's the alternative?  If they aren't able to meet the new demands they know that the company has no problems with letting people go.  Essentially the employees are held hostage in their jobs because the other option in a recession is to join the unemployment line.  Companies know this and have a tendency to take advantage.  Like I said, things haven't been good for as long as I remember, so they know that it's unlikely there will be a sudden explosion of new jobs that people could flock to.

I think my fundamental issue with jobs is that I just don't understand how our society has gotten to the point where we're defined by what we do for a living.  My job is just the thing I do to make money so I can buy food and pay my bills.  While I'm not some kind of anarchist who thinks we should do away with jobs and bills, I do wonder why is it that we think we're so advanced and yet we still behave like ants or cavemen.  Many people think it's an unreasonable dream to do a job that you love.  They believe that you should be happy just being able to make money to survive.  What if you want more than to survive?  What if you wake up one day and realize that this is the only life you're going to get and spending forty hours a day doing a job that you loathe is a waste of your life?  Are you supposed to just accept it and sell more widgets because anything more is just a dream?  There are people out there right now who have their dream jobs.  They wake up in the morning and get excited about going to work.  They don't even think of it as work a lot of the time.  If they can do it then why can't others?  There has to be more involved than just blind luck.  Maybe it all comes down to personality where one person simply will not accept tedium for their life.  Everyone eventually gets to a point in their life where they start looking back and wondering if it's been spent wisely.  The jobs we've had should be footnotes in the story of our lives, not the defining moments.

On Changing Horses

For many of us our path through life is set before we really have much say in it. That's not to say we have no choice but there is a lot of factors beyond our ability to change. Let's say you grew up wanting to be a robotics designer because it seemed like something wonderful. You live in a rural area where the majority of people around you go into trades rather than high tech industries. It's not impossible to follow the path, it's just that you're going to have more influences that steer you towards something else. Possibly something you didn't even think of in the first place.

It's seems that everyone has goals for their life and that's good because it gives you something to strive for. It creates purpose beyond simply existing for the sake of existing. These goals could be as common as graduating, getting married, or finding a job that pays you a lot of money. They could be noble like moving to Africa to help those in need or searching for a cure to a cruel disease. What do you do if you don't have goals? I'm not talking about lazy people who are content with doing nothing for as long as possible. I'm talking about those who just don't know what they want. For them trying to figure out what they want from life is like a baby trying to express the fact that it's hungry, they don't even know how to ask. Looking around it may seem like everyone else has it figured out or at least is on the path to figuring it out. They have things they're working towards or they've accomplished already, meanwhile your own life seems to be stalled as you try and figure out which direction you're supposed to be pointed in.

So you're on your road of life that was set out for you and you start to wonder if where you're going is really the place for you. Everything up until that point could have been working towards something that is now in question. Is it possible to step off the path and go somewhere else? It seems that it's very hard to make the change once you've committed to something. There are those out there who would say something about making a bed and sleeping in it but this life where it's entirely possible there isn't anything afterwards. We don't know how long we're here for so shouldn't every attempt be made to get the most out of it? For some they don't get to change direction until they've already spent a lifetime going down another road. After thirty years they can finally retire from the choices they made a long time ago. That can't be the only option though. So how do we change horses midstream without falling in?

On Living

Have you ever found yourself being introduced to someone and immediately asking them a question like "So what do you do for a living?" If you think about it, it's kind of a strange thing to ask someone. It's a great ice breaker and it can at least guide you towards something to talk about. But what are you really learning about that person by finding out how they go about making money? Sure if you come across a contract killer then it's probably saying a lot about their personality, but in the end for them it's just a job. Is it really all that different from someone who has decided to spend forty hours under florescent lights staring at a computer monitor or the guy who owns a restaurant? Then again, maybe in certain situations the job does a very good job of summarizing who that person is or at least who they are willing to be for money. Finding out what someone's does for work doesn't necessarily speak to who they are. If you really wanted to know about a person then you could ask them "So what do you do for life?"

Of course if you're anything like me and were asked that question I would have a hard time answering it. In fact I have a difficult time answering my friends when they ask me what I do for fun. Sometimes I wonder if our forms of entertainment are compromises as much as the jobs we tell ourselves that we need to take in the name of practicality. I watch television because I've always liked television. I read because I've always liked the different stories. Still, in a way they are both practical forms of entertainment given my situation, which itself isn't all that bad. Now I have no desire to scale K2 or sail around the world, but maybe I don't have the desire because it seems unrealistic and unlikely. First off, if I tried to climb K2 I would most likely die. I get winded climbing three flights of stairs at a mile high elevation. Add another 23,000 feet and my heart would probably explode from trying to force blood through my weakened body. I can't even imagine the person who would consider the whole prospect fun in any way.

Various people may ask you what your dream job would be. What would you do if there was nothing holding you back? The biggest thing holding us back is ourselves. It seems almost obvious when you think about. Sure in a lot of cases it could be money, geographic location, training, or family obligations that prevent us from dropping what we've settled for and going for what we want. To be honest some of those factors are there for a reason and in a way they hold us back from jumping off a cliff. On the flip side though I think it's very possible that we allow ourselves to be constrained by limitations. These could be self-imposed or put on us by others. Limitations could come in the form of expectations. For a lot of people there are set expectations that guide what they allow themselves to do or even think. I've talked about dreams and practicality before. Most people have to try and balance what they want and what they have to do. In some cases doing what's necessary overshadows everything. Still this may in fact be the only life we get and one has to question an entire existence spent doing things that don't make one happy. Maybe there is an afterlife where everything is sex and roses, but there is a good chance that this is it. So why not make the most of it before it's over?

Now I'm not saying that you can disregard everything except what makes you happy. The world just doesn't work that way. There are times when you have to put your head down and just get through it. For how long though? What's the point of working in a terrible job for thirty years, only to retire and die in your recliner a few months later? It reminds me of the horse from Animal Farm, trudging forward assuming that if they work hard eventually things will get better. Sometimes they do get better and the hard work is rewarded. More often than not though your only reward is being sent to the glue factory because there's nothing left to take.

I was thinking a bit about our society and how we move through it. From the ages of five to eighteen we're required to go to school and get an education. This education is designed to prepare us for either college for additional education or for entering the workforce. Let's say you go to college. The whole purpose there is to gather even more specialized knowledge. That knowledge is going to be essentially be used for one thing in today's world: to make money. That money will go into paying for our home and our food and whatever else we can think to spend it on. So is that basically saying that our entire education is built on the necessity of earning a wage? The five year old is being taught the alphabet so that eventually they can move onto math and from there understand that forty hours worth of work translates into X amount of money? Are our lives just a great big build up to an eventual paycheck? It makes our society seem like a half-realized idea.

We're a long way from doing something simply for the sake of doing it. I think part of the appeal of Star Trek is that they've managed to create a society that doesn't work because of money. Instead they work for the betterment of everyone. Now it's science fiction because it has aliens and space ships that travel faster than light, but I think the real fantasy is the world were mankind has figured out how move beyond where we are now and onto something greater. Here's a question to think about. Would you continue to do your job if they weren't paying you? Now assume for a second that you didn't actually need the money from your paycheck. Your home was already paid for. You and your family had enough food every day. Add to that you didn't have to live like a hermit and could enjoy life in much the same way you do now. Would you want to do the job you have now or would you go do something else? So when they ask that question about your dream job, that's how it should really be phrased. Is it something you'd do without pay because you love it? If that were the case then an answer to a question like "What do you do for a living?" would really have meaning.

On What's Next

Have you ever found yourself thinking about what comes next? The answer is most likely yes. This could be anything from what you're going to do after work. What's happening next weekend. What your next project is going to be. What's next for your career. Who are you going to sleep with next. I think it's a natural thought process to wonder about what comes next. As a species we're somewhat forward thinking. Well at least some of us are. There are those people out there who are perfectly content with right now. I kind of envy them because for some reason my mind can't find contentment with the present very often. I'm always thinking about the future or what I'm going to be doing. To quote that little green guy; "All his life has he looked away to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. What he was doing." That's me exactly and I wish sometimes I could break the habit.

It's entirely possible that by focusing on what's next you've essentially let the present get away from you. We've all heard phrases like "Seize the day" or "Make every moment count". Those are all great ideas, but they're not always practical because if you think about it, that type of mentality would be exhausting after awhile. Some days are better than others. Sometimes you put forth more effort into right now than you do in other cases. I'm not sure there's anything wrong with allowing yourself to just coast. For some people though coasting is almost the same thing as wasting time. If you're not moving towards something or figuring out what you're going to do next then you're sitting idle. For them being idle is about as close as you can get to being dead while still having a pulse. Now I'm not that fanatical about my time, but I do find myself watching the metaphorical clock of life. It's ticking away and every moment spent in a situation that doesn't feel right is a moment lost forever.

Maybe it's not as common as it used to be, but there was this idea that if you paid in advance now then eventually you would be rewarded for your efforts later. Eat your vegetables and you can have dessert. Problem was that sometimes you were too full for dessert because the vegetables filled you up. If you were like me, that didn't stop you from eating the dessert anyway because you earned it and it would be stupid to not take what you worked for. That same general idea comes into play with working for over thirty years until you're eligible to retire and then you can go enjoy yourself. Sure along the way you can take vacations or holidays so it's not like you've spent every day trudging towards your reward. Still by the time you make it to that promised land of retirement you're much older than when you started out and in some cases the options you once had are no longer valid. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that everyone who retires is too old to enjoy it, but maybe we've created a situation where we spent most of our best years working towards what's next rather than actually enjoying it.

It doesn't really matter how good your situation could be. Sometimes it can't be helped to think about the next thing. Monday comes and thoughts of Friday start filling our heads. The week itself may be filled with various events, both good and bad or maybe just bland. The circle of thought has already started though. If on Monday we think about the upcoming Friday, then it doesn't take a large leap on Friday to know that Monday is just around the corner, in which case we've created a trap for ourselves where the present is always taking a backseat to the future. By doing that can we really ever enjoy either?

Some people are happy with their current situation. They enjoy the moment for what it is, because those moments are somewhat precious if you think about it. We don't know how many we're going to get. As I've mentioned, everything is fleeting so today doesn't necessarily equal tomorrow. These people could be fortunate enough that they've found what they're looking for or they simply don't worry about what comes next because for the most part they're in a pretty good place. Now that's not to say that people who are happy don't think about the future or the next thing. I'm sure happy people put forth a lot of effort to make sure that their situation is what they want it to be. There are probably situations where circumstances just fall into place for them so it takes very little effort. If your situation isn't quite what you want then it's probably natural to start wondering how you're going to get to where you want to be. I'm of the mind that if you're not happy with something then time spent that way is being wasted. Sometimes we have to do things that we don't want because the payoff later is worth it. That's just how life is sometimes. I get that. Still unlike some people I just don't want to accept something that in my mind is second best when I know what I really want may be just around the corner. I suppose the trick to it all is keeping an eye on what's next, but also enjoying what you have now. If someone figures out how to do that, please tell me how.

Moving On

Even the best moments in our lives are fleeting. Nothing lasts forever, even if we wish it would. In a way we're always moving on from something. Life is change. Sometimes we fight against that change or try to hold it back so that things can remain the same. We may be successful for a short time, but in the end the moment will come when it's time to move on. What we move on towards could be something good or it could be worse than what we currently have. Whatever the situation is though, this too won't last forever, although in some cases it may feel like forever. If you're fortunate enough to be moving onto something better, then hopefully you'll remember to enjoy it while it lasts. If circumstances have moved you into something that feels terrible, know that there is always potential for things to change again. The cynical side of me used to have a phrase "Nothing in life is so bad that it can't get worse". While that is technically true, it's also true that nothing in life is so perfect that it can't get better.

About three years ago I finally got to a point where I was just tired of feeling like things were never changing. People around me seemed to be having experiences, both good and bad. They say life can be a roller-coaster of emotions, but for me things felt stagnant. The highs felt muted and the lows, while bad, were seemingly insignificant because overall everything felt like it was lacking a true impact. These feelings had been there for years and like most people, I pushed them aside because as an adult we're often times forced to endure things we may not like. Part of being a responsible adult has always been doing what is necessary. So after much deliberation I made a change and walked away from nearly everything that I had established. Sure I had this partially formulated plan that I would return to school and potentially further myself both in education and career. Fast forward to now and I learned a lot, most of it not from college. The things I learned were those little life lessons that smack you in the mouth when you're not expecting it just to make sure that you remember it.

Those three years were actually exactly what I was looking for, even though there were several times throughout that I wished I could go back to the stability of the mundane. I joke that it was a preview of what retirement would be like. More importantly though I've found that how I spent my time was more in tune with who I am, which I suppose some people would label as lazy. As I've mentioned before I've always had a difficult time when it comes to a career. Everything has more or less felt like a job. It was just a way to get money to pay for the things I really wanted. I think part of that comes from the fact that I feel like people forced to sit in cubicles is the equivalent of cattle who spend their life in a cage. You're expected to produce and when you no longer provide you're taken out. Granted people don't get a bolt gun to the forehead like a cow, but talk to someone who has spent most of their adult life working at a single place how they feel when it's taken away from them. I have a feeling that the impact may as well be physical. For me the last three years feel like I simply circled back to where I started. The job I have now is roughly the same as the one I left before. The people and places are the same, which is not at all a bad thing. The whole thing feels a little like being lost in the woods where you travel for hours only to find yourself back where you started. Where you started may be safe and comfortable, but you're no closer to finding your way home.

The past few years have been increasingly difficult for a lot of people for various reasons. The world economy is a much harsher place than it has been in a long time. People everywhere are being forced to make hard decisions about what they're willing to put up with simply to survive. I would imagine the hope is that eventually things will change for the better and people can stop thinking about just survival and move onto greater things. As I've mentioned before, when you're primary concern is how you're going to feed your children or how to pay for your mortgage, then little things like dreams get put on the back burner. Those dreams could stay back there so long they get forgotten. Some could say that's just how life is and maybe that's true, but if that's the case then we aren't much better off than a pride of lions, who's main concern is where the next meal is going to come from. As people our greatest strengths come from moving beyond just survival and overcoming the world around us.

Sometimes it's hard to accept the fact that things will constantly be changing around us. The things we have now may not be around forever. This could include not just material possessions, but people and situations. Everything is always in motion and with that there will come a time when everything you're near will move away from you and you from it. That doesn't mean that by moving on you'll never return. It just means that in this moment right now you're going in a different direction. Just as everything has a force, everything has a direction. You can embrace it or deflect it, why oppose it?

On Reversals of Fortune

"Sometimes you're ahead. Sometimes you're behind. The race is long and in the end, it's only with yourself." I grew up thinking certain aspects of life were like reading a book. Everything would be building towards a singular climax, which was known as adulthood. In my mind it was almost a destination that you reached. Once you were there things were different for you. You somehow magically were aware of answers that eluded you while growing up. I wasn't sure when this kicked in, but I assumed it had to be somewhere in your twenties because the eighteen year old people I knew seemed just a clueless as me, they just had more experience at it. This idea of destination also led me to think that once certain things were achieved they couldn't be undone. We all have losses and gains throughout our lives. It's not always easy to accept that today doesn't equal tomorrow. What you have now might be gone in an instant. When you weren't looking something great gets dropped in your lap.

I've had a few reversals of fortune in my life and I expect before I'm done, I'll have a few more. Each one felt unexpected, even if looking back I could have predicted them well in advance. The first one I remember was in 7th grade. Somehow I had gotten a large amount of money. Well large for a 7th grader, which was about $75. I started making all these plans for what I was going to do with that money, which included going to the art supply store and stocking up on various paints and pencils. Unfortunately for me I brought this money with me to school. Not wanting to keep that amount of money on me, I decided to put my wallet in my locker. You can pretty much see where this is going. The next time I opened my locker my wallet was gone. At first I thought maybe I had misplaced it, but it didn't take long for the sinking realization to hit me that someone had stolen it. I remember thinking at the time that all my plans for artistic greatness had just been destroyed. For weeks afterward that loss hung over my head. I kept replaying in my mind what my life would have been like if only I still had that money. The thing is that my life was pretty much the same as it was before I got the $75 in the first place.

Jack said "It's just, when you buy furniture, you tell yourself, that's it. That's the last sofa I'm gonna need. Whatever else happens, I've got that sofa problem handled." There is an assumption that certain things in your life will need to be taken care of once. You'll always need to buy food, get gasoline, or pay for your home in some form or another. Those are expected expenses that everyone just factors into their lives. Things in life can change pretty quickly and it can go in either direction. Sometimes this happens so fast that we're just not prepared for it. It's not limited to financial position in life either, although we tend to put a lot of value into that, maybe more than we should. A sudden injury can change your life forever. Everything that came before is changed because of it. Our bodies are both resilient and fragile at the same time. It doesn't take much of a push to break us to the point that we will never be the same again even if we survive the initial impact.

Some people never recover from certain reversals of fortune. It's strange because in many cases those situations are recoverable, but the loss itself feels more devastating than it really was. Most people have a great ability to endure. No matter the situation, they can survive it and in some cases overcome it. Lost your job after ten years. Figure out how to live without a steady income until another job comes along. The economy for the past few years has knocked down several people when they least expected it. People who were making six figure salaries are taking two or more jobs to pay for everything. In some cases people are using the whole thing to permanently change their situation. A reversal of fortune can put you back to a point where you get a chance to do things differently. We rarely get opportunities for a do-over, but there are moments in life where we're presented with a chance to go a different route. Each setback or leap forward could be seen as simply moving you to the point you're supposed to be at. I used to have a plan for myself. It was this idea of how I wanted my life to play out. As we learn, very few things go according to plan. Every time something didn't go how I had planned, it would bother me because it felt like my plan was crumbling around me. Looking back all those reversals of fortune both for good and bad have led me to this moment here and now. Being here and having experienced all that came before will hopefully prepare us for what comes next, even when it feels like an unexpected hit from the left.

On the Family Business

I've always wondered what it would have been like growing up with a family business. As it was the very idea seems somewhat foreign to me. On one side my grandparents were dairy farmers and on the other it was...well I'm not exactly sure what they did, but it wasn't exactly a line of work that could be followed. Both my parents were in the military for a short time and did various jobs before settling into government-related work. So growing up I thought that a job was just something you went to do in order to earn money, which it in fact is, but the work my parents did wasn't anything that they wanted to pass down to me. Some people grow up in a family of cops or business owners. So in those situations it may seem somewhat logical that the career choice was a bit more predetermined. They say you can be anything you want when you're growing up. While that may be true for some people in some situations, for a lot of people there are limitations to what our career choices may be. Having family that already owns a chain of McDonald's would certainly help someone if they too wanted to get into the restaurant business.

I've often wondered how family businesses even get started. My entire adult career has just been a series of jobs in offices. For the most part I'm very interchangeable with the other drones who sit in a cubicle all day. It's not exactly a bad thing because apparently the modern world needs people like me, who are willing to contribute to the process, whatever that may be. Then there are others who have stepped off the path and ventured out on their own. There are some very enterprising people out there. Someone could look at a location and realize that there is a need for a vending machine. At first it may be a means to make a little additional money. If the location is good and they're contentious about stocking it, a vending machine could make you a fair amount of money. Using the proceeds from that one machine a person could potentially buy more machines and expand to a point where it becomes their primary source of income. To me it's that first step of deciding to buy a vending machine that would never occur to me. Is that because of my upbringing when it comes to jobs? Maybe partially it prevented someone like me from ever straying from the traditional sense of work.

Growing up I had no idea what I wanted to do for a living. Truth is I'm still not entirely sure. I know that I want and need money so I just do what seems rational to get it. It was very late in high school that I even decided where I wanted to go to college or for what major. The whole thing was almost on a whim. I knew I liked computers. I knew that I had at least some talent when it came to them and they were still considered to be fairly new in terms of everyday use. Before they were being run by guys in California who knew how to speak the incomprehensible language of the computer and had math skills that made normal people run in fear. At least that was the perception we had of computers in those days. A recruiter came to our school to talk about a technical college that would get me a Bachelor's degree in three years. A real degree too, not some fake degree you'd get from the University of Grenada. Up until that point I had carried around this idea that maybe I'd become a robotics designer, not knowing anything about the field except that it sounded cool. Having done some research it was going to be less about designing The Terminator and more about building a robot that welded a bumper onto a truck. Not the most exciting work out there. Plus the math required was intimidating. While I was good at math at the time, it wasn't exactly the kind of thing I wanted to spend my life doing. So after the recruiter's presentation I met with him to talk further about his college. Thing went very quickly from there. I suddenly had a direction and I just went with it.

While I was in school I was more or less on autopilot. I started this education path that would lead to a career field, so I was going to do what was necessary to finish it. Part of that was because I had never failed when it came to academics so failure to graduate didn't seem like an option, as cliche as that may sound. The other part came from the fact that I couldn't think of anything else to do should I not like where I was going. High school is almost like a salad bar when it comes to subject matter. They offer you a bunch of different information, but you ultimately take what you want and go with it if you're interested. I won't say high school was uninteresting, but nothing had really sparked for me. At least not until I started using computers. Really my career has been based on the fact that as a teenager I lacked the imagination to think of anything else.

There are some people who know what they want to do for a long time before they actually achieve it. A guy I went to high school with wanted to be a pilot for as long as I had known him. After we graduated he went to the academy to become a pilot. As far as I know that's what he's doing now. Sometimes I wish I had that kind of laser-like focus when it came to a career. I often wonder what kind of jobs other people do if they're not in the computer industry. In my mind there are like a dozen possible career choices, which is obviously limiting the true scope of the job world.

So what is it about certain people who decide they're not going to sit in a cube or the thought of doing so wouldn't even occur to them that makes them do the things they do? Is it easier for those people who have a family business to go into? I'm sure in many cases there are those who don't want anything to do with their father's scrap metal business or become a lawyer like their mother. Still having a predefined choice might be nice. Is your current career something your children could follow you into when they get old enough? Would you want them to? I wonder if the jobs we do today will be antiquated by the time our children are entering the workforce. What happens to the family business when there is no longer a need for that business?

On the Freedom of Limitations

Someone once told me that everything in life has a cost attached to it. Obviously this isn't always a monetary thing, but it seems that everything today costs you a little something. If all things have a price then are we ever really free? And more importantly, is freedom really free because it seems there is a high cost to live.

Several months ago I became free. Well at least that's how it felt at the time. I was no longer held in place by anyone, except myself. In its own way it was very liberating to know that I was in charge of my own life again. I suppose I always was free, but I had put limits on myself because of other people. The other people in our lives can be good though, which is probably why we gravitate towards them. The positives outweigh the negatives. Still there was a realization that I no longer was limited by someone else or their needs and there was a sense of freedom that came with that. I'm not saying other people hold us back, although it's possible sometimes that they do. No it's more that we compromise in order to make two or more separate lives become one. Compromise can be a good thing because it opens us up to solutions that we may have not thought of otherwise. Like anything though there is a chance that you compromise yourself for someone else. I've known a lot of people who love being in a relationship and this isn't to say that by being in one you aren't free, but really your life is directly tied to someone else. When you don't have that attachment you potentially have more options to choose from. Well maybe not more, but different options anyway. The end of a relationship is often filled with pain, mostly emotional, but it's not limited to that. One of the first things a person does when a relationship ends (after they're done wallowing about how it ended in the first place) is start to do all the things that they couldn't do with the other person. It could be as small as changing what they eat or even when they eat. It could be as big as changing where they live. In some cases you don't want the freedom that comes from being alone. There is a comfort in having someone else around. So much so that any limitations are just accepted as the cost of doing business. Regardless of your relationship status, that is only a single aspect of freedom. Unless you happen to be Burgess Meredith in a Twilight Zone episode, you're always going to have to deal with people. They will ultimately dictate your choices in some way so in a way you'll never be free of them.

For most people one of the things that really limits any sense of freedom is money. It's the driving force for our society. Without money as a wage for work there is this fear that society would cease to function. If you think about it, if you weren't being paid for your job, would you still do it? Our current system is really just an elaborate barter system. For eight hours worth of work, the company will provide you with enough money to sustain your lifestyle (hopefully). There have been stories written about Utopian societies where people simply do their work for the betterment of the society. The idea is that it's in everyone's best interest to contribute so there is no need for monetary incentive. It's a nice idea, but it may never be realized. A lot of those stories never go into detail on how the society sustains itself. If you weren't required to work, but chose to, then what would you choose to do? Would there be any garbage men or office workers huddled into cubes? More likely there would be a lot of professional video game testers and television show watchers.

As I've mentioned before a lot of people today are locked into their current job because of salary requirements. They simply can't leave because doing so would mean they'd have to give up their lifestyle. That or something would be taken away. Even the type of job we can potentially get may be limited by a number of things. Education, experience, or location can all stop a person from getting a job they may want. When we're growing up we're told by our parents that we can be anything we want. Maybe that's just parental bias talking. Maybe it's true that at some point we could be anything we wanted and we're only limited by our own ambition. Somewhere along the way though we slowly start to have limitations put in place. These could be something we create or that are placed on us. Regardless of how they come about, once they're in place, it's really hard to break out. Ask someone who's attempted to change careers later in life how hard it was to make the transition. It's not impossible, but it's almost worse than entering the job market for the first time. By that time your experience could actually be something that holds you back, compared to helping you the way it did in the past.

When I was getting ready to graduate from college I had my mind set on going to the Pacific Northwest. I never liked the desert, but it was necessary to getting my education. So I started doing what I could to find opportunities to make my way out to some place I felt was more suited to me. At the time I thought having a newly completed education would be beneficial in my search. The problem was that I was here and I wanted to go there. Over there they had their own batch of new college graduates. There was a single opportunity to go to the area I wanted, but it would have meant a significant pay reduction compared to the local offers. Turns out the cost of being free of a location I didn't like was that I wouldn't be able to make as much money as I wanted. In the end I didn't take the offer because I had already become accustomed to a certain lifestyle, plus student loans weren't going to pay themselves on a lower salary. I still wonder though what would have happened if I had accepted the cost and gone. I would have been in a place that I liked and maybe with time the other pieces would have fallen into place. Sometimes that cost seems like too much. We rarely get second chances to try again though.

There will always be limitations to what we can do in our lives. Maybe part of our freedom comes from accepting certain ones while working to change others. I suppose in most cases a person is really only about three bad choices away from pitching everything in their life over the side anyway. In a sense we are never really free, but that's not a bad thing since being truly free means you've potentially gotten rid of everything that could ever hold you back, leaving you with nothing.

On The Preamble

Do you ever get the impression that this is all some giant preamble to something else? Like that this is just what you have to get through until the real event begins. I'm not talking specifically about an afterlife either, although that's really the whole basis of Heaven. Be good now, because if you are, things will be better later. It's not to say that what happens here is meaningless, but its only importance is that if we're not good then we won't be allowed in. Once we get into heaven though, everything that happened before doesn't matter. Whether any of that is true or not isn't what I'm referring to. Is it possible that right now isn't as important as what's next? In thinking that way are you neglecting the present in hopes that tomorrow is going to be better? Even Yoda said something about this "All his life he's looked away, to the future. Never his mind on where he was. On what he was doing."

The very nature of life is that it's temporary. As I've mentioned before, the present is such a small fraction of our reality and that most of our life is either behind us or in front of us. When you know that your situation is temporary how do you make sure that this moment here and now gets as much attention as those moments yet to come? You go through primary school so that you can eventually go to college. College is all about preparing your for getting a job. Your first job may be entry level so that you can be prepared for hopefully deeper, more meaningful work. Everything up until that point had been preparation for something else. I know you shouldn't allow yourself to think too far into the future, but at the same time if you know something isn't going to last then it's human nature to prepare for what's next, even if that's at the expense of what you're supposed to be doing now. During the week we tend to look at the clock, counting the hours until it's time to go home. When we're home we're counting the days until the weekend. Next thing you know, it's Monday again and the cycle begins again.

I recently started working again and have found that my time feels a lot more precious than before when I had nothing but time. I find myself questioning if I should be spending my time doing certain things because with a finite amount of time in the evening it sometimes feels like I'm wasting it on trivial things. While I like my current job, I was constantly thinking about what would be coming next. I entered into it knowing that it was only a stepping stone for something else. Now I have an even newer job that I will be starting shortly and I have to wonder if given enough time I'll look at it the same way. Everything leads to something else and nothing lasts forever, but I suppose you have to remind yourself to appreciate the moments in between now and then. If you don't then you'll be lost in some kind of limbo between waiting for the next thing while the present passes you by.

Martin said that he always felt very temporary about himself and I can appreciate that kind of feeling because for most of my life it's felt like I've been on the verge of doing something. That something was always put on hold by some indescribable hold-up. It's like my preparation for the next thing prevented me from taking care of this moment. And it's this moment that inevitably leads to the next. As obvious as that sounds, a lot of people seem to try and skip ahead in hopes that it will get them along the path sooner. It's like trying to cook something at twice the normal heat for half the normal time. It seems like it should work. Instead you usually get a charred mess and have to go back to the start. Or order pizza, but you know what I'm saying. So I guess it comes down to realizing that maybe everything you do now is in fact some preamble to something else down the line. The important thing to know is that it's everything along the way that makes the difference. The journey is as important as the destination.

On Life vs Career

A long time ago I made a choice that rather than be someone who lives to work, I would be someone who works to live. I've always put my life before my career, or lack of it, because I figured what's the point of being someone who dreads going to work? Sure we all need money because somewhere along the way that's how our society decided to keep people in check. Go to work, earn a wage, pay for things you don't always need but have just the same. We've been told it's how you get the American Dream. Still I wonder though if it's not another variation on indentured servitude. It's true we get paid, but how many people do you know are essentially forced to work for a specific wage because otherwise they can't support themselves? I know people who make six figure salaries, but they can't afford to have an apartment on their own. They simply don't have the cash every month. Now there are extenuating circumstances, but really if you think about it, life is all about extenuating circumstances. There is this fear that if you were to stop working then you'd lose everything. I'm not saying the fear is baseless because it's usually grounded in truth. Still having just come off of nearly three years of not working, I found that maybe there is more to life than just the next paycheck.

Looking back at all the jobs I've had there is a pretty common theme. I did them either because I liked them or because they were simply a means to get something I wanted. Maybe that's true for everyone. With one notable exception my resume is filled with these fleeting positions. A few months here. Maybe half a year there. When I first graduated college I thought it was probably natural to have a resume like that. I was a teacher's aide for almost two years an after that I worked at some semiconductor manufacturer for two months, even though I knew next to nothing about semiconductors, except that they were inside computers. Then I worked as an intern at credit card company for another two months. The only reason I left the semiconductor place was because the internship was offering more money. I didn't care about either place as far as work was concerned. Both were just a way to get something on my resume so it didn't look like my only work experience was video store clerk and teacher's aide. When I graduated I was one of the last people in my class to find a job. It wasn't because I couldn't be placed. It was because I didn't want to settle for just anything. I wanted something that I could stay interested in. Turns out those places weren't hiring and I did end up settling for a company that several of my classmates had gone to. The reason I chose that place was because it paid the most and was right across the street from my new apartment. In retrospect it might not have been the best decision because eight months later I was laid off along with about three hundred other people.

There I was back in the same position, looking for work in a field I wasn't all that excited about. For four months I tried to find work, along with a few thousand other IT people who also had been laid off when the Internet bubble burst. At one point in my search I found some small company that was seriously exploiting their workers. I worked there for about two days before I stopped going in. I didn't give notice. I just stopped going in. I know a lot of people in that situation who would have stuck it out because there were no other options. Eventually I found work that was in my field and paying what I needed. Turns out by the time I found it I was already tired of the city I was living in. After about four months at this new job I was told by a friend about a position open in another state. Technically the position was a bit of a backwards step for me, however, it would get me out of town and hopefully onto better things.

The job was great. I was making more money than I had ever made before and the people were fantastic. I didn't mind the fact that I had strayed off from what I had gone to college for, I was doing something I enjoyed. Problem is that nothing lasts forever. What was once enjoyable had become monotonous. Somehow I had gone from comfortable to complacent. Without me even realizing eight years had gone by and I had very little to show for it. My title had changed and I had gotten several raises over the years, but I could work there another eight years with little or no change. The whole reason I chose that place was because it was agreeable and a little bit easy. Rather than think about my career, I focused more on my life and because of that my career came to a screeching halt.

Partly because of my job and partly because I wasn't near certain people, I decided it had to be time to make a change. I figured by going back to school I had a great reason to leave my job and be near the people I cared about. It was my attempt at using my career to better my life. Unfortunately for me things didn't quite work out the way I had hoped. Like anyone who has moved because of someone else, I found that my choices were directly tied to someone else's choices, even if that person didn't ask for the responsibility. Combined with the fact that even though it was ten years later, I was looking for a job in another recession. As I mentioned I spent most of the last three years not working. Some of that was due to being a full time student. Still it was the longest I had ever gone without working since I was sixteen. Now that I'm working again I find my career back where it was ten years ago and I have to question if it was worth it or not. Should I have focused on my career a little more?

Part of the problem for me has always been I've never known what I want to do as far as a career is concerned. It was always this vague idea of doing something interesting and meaningful. Trying doing a job search for that and see what results you get back. All the way through high school I had no idea what I was going to do when I graduated. I knew that I would be going to college, but for what I had no idea. I had liked computers for as long as I had been using them and because I knew enough about them to be somewhat dangerous, I decided to pursue them into an actual career. It just happened to be what I was interested in at the time. Or at least the most interested in. I've never been one of those people who inherently know what they want to do with their lives. Sometimes it feels like all these other people were given this secret manual on life, but my copy was lost in the mail. So I've been left to grasp blindly for a career like someone searching for their glasses. You know it's close, but you just can't see it.

Sometimes you don't have a choice in the job you do. I've found out several times in my life you often have to do whatever is necessary to support yourself. It's what a responsible adult is expected to do. And I've been fairly fortunate that I haven't had to degrade myself in ways that some people are forced to. Still I wonder how many people out there just assume that being miserable at your job is to be expected. To me that seems like such a sad way to go through life. Americans are experiencing a higher rate of stress and obesity than ever before. I have to believe that a lot of that is tied to our jobs. If you're being mentally crushed at work then eventually your body will suffer. Even knowing that people continue on because we feel like we have no choice and maybe we don't. I just think about what Bernstein said "Well, it's no trick to make a lot of money... if what you want to do is make a lot of money."

So here I am, back where I started. The only thing that's changed is that I've gotten older. It feels a little bit like the Pink Floyd saying "Ten years have got behind you. No one told you when to run. You missed the starting gun." I had a good start in the rat race, but it turns out I didn't know what the destination was and have been going the wrong direction this whole time. Like most people, I'm wishing I had a do-over.