Structure

Something that is so elusive to me. It seems the more I am trying to build towards it the more it gets away from me. However, I’m not letting that stop me because if anything Jiu Jitsu has taught me that if nothing you have to keep on keeping on and then one day overnight you find you have made progress.

I don’t think I naturally am the most structured person and I revel in the spontaneity of human thought, random occurrences, and chance and probability. Well, that last one might just be an outcome and not necessarily anything related to structure.

For the latest portion of my professional career, I have fought against my natural instinct of being a non-linear thinker and tried to build more structure in my thought and conversations. I have seen progress towards that goal of getting more structure. The more I have tried to build it, the more I feel there is to learn. However, that is not necessarily a bad thing. It may mean that I am getting to the most nuanced portions of understanding and applying structure. Yes, some people are already there and I experience that. I very much appreciate learning from them.

I will keep learning and keep going forward. This blog post was an effort in creating a structure to some extent. I also know that I could have done so much better.

The days are getting easier

Either the days are getting easier or I’m just losing touch with my challenges in growth. I’ve been fully immersed in the project at work. I feel like I’m doing great but whenever I pause or get distracted by things around insecure thoughts about the future start to creep into my mind.

Every time there’s a project on this team the work feels great. Especially when you seem to be hitting goals and getting noticed for your work. The conditions there are that projects need to be coming, which is something completely out of my control. Secondly, I need to be hitting my goals, which includes overpreparing for everything because I, like many other people, have imposter syndrome, and no matter how much I put in, it never feels like enough. Finally, I need to be appreciated for the work, which means it depends on the other people on the team and their experience of things more than just my work on the project.

Whenever I’m not staring like a zombie chipping away at work, I stare into the abyss of what it is that I am actually doing at work. I think that feeling quickly goes away as I get my paycheck. This is clearly indicative of an underlying problem that I need to be doing more than just remain satisfied by a simple “job”. It isn’t even a question about what because I have explored that and I am fairly confident that I know what I want to do outside of work is something of my own. The ambiguity is around the “something”. As long as I keep this zeal of wanting to do something I think I am in a good spot because I’ll keep looking.

So, yes, the days are getting easier but not because it’s getting easier with any of the tasks within the days but because the vision of the future is getting clearer every day. I’m glad about it but I also know that there is a lot of work left to do with regard to delving into the details.

Keeping it up in the craziness

Didn’t know that tests that give you positive results could have such a positive impact on my mood. I took two tests as a part of a process. It was a logical reasoning and a personality test. If I was to summarize the test I would say I’m a labrador who loves to build things. My paws don’t support me but I’m curious, inquisitive and friendly while I endeavor to build something.

Today’s work seemed productive but I’m still an employee. I rely on an organization to pay me a salary. When will I figure out the method to the madness that is a business? I think I could do so many things besides just writing a blog. For example, reach out to prospective students and help them understand what career choices to take in life. I could help product teams understand their product market fit. I could generate content for a website that is trying to engage leaders to think more about employees. It seems the subject matter for any of these things is endless. Then why am I not doing more? I don’t know yet.

Tomorrow is another day of work. I’m not exhausted from it but I’m just not feeling extremely motivated and want to do something more tangible. Something the outcome of which is in front of me. Like working with a product company that is trying to understand how and why to launch, the go-to-market basically. Anyway, at least I’m typing out at a nearly daily rate and keeping this thing going. Hopefully tomorrow I can also get a brief class of jiu-jitsu in. It’ll be the first class in two weeks. Again on a Tuesday. It looks like this day works for me.

A disenchanted polemicist

If I was to write anything about my experience with the latest events it would probably be a mind fuck.

I’ve tried to get out of the funk because of the recent events but I think it was helpful because I was getting too comfortable.

I don’t exactly know how to evaluate my options. Sometimes it seems like there are so many options in front of me and other times it feels like I should just hit the eject button and escape it all.

I’m not particularly depressed but I tend to lose my motivation to keep going too quickly at times. Perhaps it would be easier if there was an element of performance in this whole thing. Unfortunately or fortunately there isn’t.

I have experienced many things in my life and while I don’t think I have seen true suffering the variance of experience has made me think about things. My experiences have taught me about culture and the different strands of events that impact people’s lives.

I don’t know if this does it for everyone but the more experience you have the more you start to question the relevance of things. Or things might go the opposite. You might revere society and its ways to such an extent that living a certain way becomes important. However, it has left me disinterested in people’s so-called “motivations”. I think they are just stories that they tell themselves to carry on. At the very core of it all, there’s the desperation to understand what it is that one is doing here. Are these the first inklings of a mid-life crisis?

In all this thinking about things, I have learned to wait for more data. I have learned to hold strong opinions loosely. I know that certainty about any subject can lead to misunderstanding and confusion about the subject overall. Hence what is required is more thinking. Thinking about things deeply perhaps at times brings us to the conclusion that those things don’t matter but you have to think about them. Of course, it is important what you choose you want to think about.

34 Days Later

Today was a rushed experience. Yesterday was pathetic from the meditation perspective. I was disturbed and the night that followed was a testament to that. Today however was not bad but felt rushed and not completely immersive. In other news, I have to prepare a response, and what at first felt to give me the jitters now seems like an opportunity that I’m somewhat excited about. The plans for the new year are somewhat in place. I would say they are “penciled-in”. To the fifty of you who are reading this, even the bots or semi-humans welcome to the ride that is authentically a curated experience. I hate to say but the fact that this can be read and will be read changes the way I write about it.