I find myself feeling anxious most of the time now. With my current contract ending in just 28 days and no certain income beyond that I am starting to feel very out of control. I want to attack this situation intellectually; with lists and phone calls, networking and favors. I want to map out tasks for each day. I want to exert control on a situation over which I have no control.
In the past I have tried to do just that: exert control over things beyond my control. It hasn’t worked very well. Not that making lists or planning tasks is a bad idea or ineffectual. On the contrary, those are useful and constructive activities. What I wasn’t doing in the past was including my emotional center in the process. I was trying to take care of my emotions by thinking. Trust me, this doesn’t work.
Today I am focused more on my emotions than my intellect. I am listening to my fears and concerns, and trying to soothe myself when they swell. No one can take care of my emotional state except for me. If I stay intellectual and task oriented, I will ignore a huge part of my current set of needs. And ignoring those needs will hamper everything I try to do and eventually cause me to stumble and fall.
The male-centered society I live in tells me I shouldn’t have strong emotions or allow my actions to be driven by feelings. I should be macho and gain through pain. Real men don’t cry. I find that this is all a load of horse shit. Real me do cry, real men do have emotions, and they can make decisions that take care of their emotional self.
What I am striving for here is a balance between my intellect and my emotions. I know how to make lists and break things down into tasks. I can calculate what it will take to move, and I can play the hiring game to get a new job. But all of those activities are wasted if I don’t listen to my emotional self. If I shun the feelings I am having then what I end up with won’t be satisfying.
Three times in the past 6 years I have gone through this process. Three times I have focused on the physical goals. I have excelled at the process and ignored the content. And three times I haven’t been able to find happiness or satisfaction in the new situation. I know know that by ignoring my emotional content I crippled my changes of success. I programmed these situations to fail.
So today I am anxious about the future. I am worried about what will happen July 1st. I don’t know what the situation will be, but I do know that I am not going to settle for anything less than a situation that meets my emotional and intellectual needs. I have learned that, intellectually speaking, most employment situations are identical. The process of getting a new job is intellectually the same each time. And the process of moving is the same intellectually as well. Focussing just on the intellectual side of this change hasn’t gotten me what I wanted. Continuing to focus on just the intellectual side of change expecting to get a better result would be insanity.
This time I am focused on the emotional side of change. I am not ignoring the intellectual side at all, but it is not my primary focus. By now I have enough experience to know what to do almost without thinking. I have done the intellectual exercises enough times that they have become almost routine. This frees me up to focus on the emotional aspect of change. I can allow myself to feel my way through this transition. I can learn what my emotions are about this kind of life event, and I can grow to meet those emotional needs in a positive way.
Change is hard. Change is painful and confusing. Change can be the worst experience you’ve ever lived through. Change when you are out of balance with yourself is awful and only sets you up for more change.
Change is good. Change is growth and learning. Change can be the best growth experience you’ve ever given yourself. Change when you are in balance emotionally and intellectually with yourself is true growth and true progress along your life path.
I am not looking forward to the tough emotional days ahead. Nor am I thrilled about the intellectually challenging negotiations I’m faced with in the next few weeks. But I am resolved to keep myself emotional and intellectually centered. For it is only with that balance that I’ll get what I truly want and need.
My first experience with a computer was in the winter of 1978, using a thermal paper terminal, an acoustic coupler (at 300 BAUD!), and time share on a local mainframe computer.
Previously I had wanted to be an architect, even to the point of studying mechanical drawing in high school. However the fates had other plans for me as my best friend’s father brought home this odd suitcase-sized terminal one evening. After he finished his work he showed my friend and I how to play text based game called ‘Star Trek.’ We played almost all night. Cam was interested in playing the game. I wanted to know how it worked.
In subsequent sessions I learned how to list the source code and later modify it, and thus my programming career was underway. I was fortunate in that my high school had a time sharing arrangement with a local manufacturer and I was able to take a course of basic programming, followed by a COBOL course at the local community college.
In the 25 years or so that have followed I’ve worked on many different computers, using several languages, for purposes large and small. I’ve developed scripts for my own personal use, and distributed applications that are used by thousands in their jobs daily. And through it all I’ve never lost that initial spark, that most important question, what makes this work?
Michele and I are going to see Eddie Izzard in October at the Shubert Theatre in Chicago. We have been avid fans of his comedy since Michele “discovered” him on HBO a few years ago. His razor sharp wit, combined with great delivery and mime, makes him the best comedian touring today. No one else is doing Sean Connery as Noah in a speed boat, shooting across the water for photos in the Bible. No one else could.
If he is coming to your town do yourself a favor and get tickets to go see him.
I have been focused on my job situation for the past few weeks. My current contract ends on June 30th and there is some question as to whether I’ll get another contract here or not.
In the past when I’ve been faced with this kind of situation I’ve gone off my tracks a bit and reacted out of fear. This time I am doing a much better job of taking care of myself emotionally, and that is allowing me to be far more open to other possibilities.
I know that there is likely a traditional way to approach the end of a contract with no certainty of a new one, and no other job prospects in the immediate area. I don’t care for tradition, however. I find that most traditions are fear-based and therefore are punishing to me rather than helpful. Instead of following my fears I’ve been listening to my heart and following it instead.
In some ways not getting a new contract here would be very freeing. Michele and I could sell our house, pay off all that we owe and move to the west coast again. I would be free from the anger and upset that seems to permeate this place.
I guess I’ve finally come to the realization that having a job isn’t about the job any more. For me it’s about whether my employment situation is meeting my needs. And what is the cost of having those needs met in this fashion. My current situation is not perfect by any measure. The community we live in has few attractions for us, and the job itself can be very trying. It is tolerable, and unless an offer comes along that is far better, I doubt we’ll incur the cost of moving just to leave here.
For me the job is going to be the same anywhere. There will be politics, bureaucracy, in-fighting, crazy deadlines, stress, achievement, reward, and fun. And all communities are pretty much the same as well. Theaters, restaurants, lakes, traffic, expenses, stores, and people. What is different are intangibles. How does the place feel overall? Is it peaceful and calm or tense and angry? Is it liberal or conservative? Is there accepted diversity?
Instead of just moving again to stay employed, we want to explore some places that intrigue us, and move towards a place that we feel meets our intangible needs as much or more than our tangible ones.
My wife, Michele, discovered this copy of Senator Robert Byrd’s comments on the Senate floor on May 21, 2003.
You should go read it.
Then you should tell everyone you know to go read it.
For several days now I have been avoiding my emotions. My employment situation is tense at best, and lately it hasn’t even approached best. Last evening I had a very emotional breakdown that allowed me to express what was going on for me.
It felt good to open up about all the stuff I was feeling as a result of work. Some of the emotions I expressed were ones I was aware of having or holding back. I think once you get started in a denial mode you lose the ability to clearly see all that you are denying. On the surface my emotions were about the fears I have about what is going to happen next, while underneath they were really about affirmation and acceptance by the people here at work. And under it all, the truth was about affirmation and acceptance from myself for my actions.
Once I blocked how I was feeling about what may or may not happen next all the emotions about affirmation and acceptance from others piled up behind and created a log-jam. This completely masked the true emotions I was avoiding, the feelings of unworthiness and self loathing I was having because I was listening to, and taking personally, what others were saying rather than listening to myself. When I broke down and cried last night I was releasing the log-jam and getting past what others were saying, and worse, what I was imagining they were feeling towards me. I was able to clear all of that away and see the real truth underneath.
I could not have done this most difficult work without my incredible wife, Michele. She created a warm, safe place for me to fall. And in allowing me to fall she created a space where I could grow and learn. She set aside her feelings about what I was going through and allowed me to fully express what I was feeling, thinking, and imagining. Once I got past all the surface silliness, then she engaged me and helped me to explore the truth of the matter.
I cannot thank her enough for her courage and wisdom.
In this press release, Apple announces that they’ve sold over 2 million songs in the 16 days since the iTunes Music store went live. By my math that’s an average of 1.44 songs per second. Steve Jobs says that over half the songs downloaded from the service so far are part of an album purchase, dispelling the notion that people would buy just the songs they wanted and not entire albums.
Can you imagine what will happen with iTunes for Window debuts?
Contrary to recent indications, this space is not intentionally left blank. The code I was using to structure my new site layout breaks under some browsers, most especially Camino.
I have discovered the offending script and removed it from the main page, however, the other pages of my site are still corrupt. Hopefully by this evening I’ll have those pages cleaned up as well.
This is a list of the known viewing problems:
Windows IE 5.5 SP2
Yesterday I got my first pair of bifocals. For some time now I have been having difficulty reading text at less than arms length. The doctor agreed with me, saying the my right eye had gone from slight farsightedness to neutral, while my left eye (the dominate one) went from neutral to slightly nearsighted. Since I work with computers all day, and play with them in the evening I needed a combination lens to allow me to see the screen at arms length, and text at less than that distance.
Driving or walking is okay. When my focus is out ahead of me I barely notice the two new focal centers in my lenses. However, as soon as I move my head, especially to nod in agreement to something, all I can see are these two areas of different focus bobbing up and down in front of me. It is very distracting.
The worst part, so far, is finding a new head position for things. It seems like the line between short and far is always getting in the way. I guess we don’t realize how we move or don’t move our head in some activities. At least I didn’t until I had these two extra lenses stuck in front of everything.
I feel helpless and out of control as a result of all this change. I knew that this change was coming and I thought it would be a relief to be able to read up close comfortably again. However, getting used to all the side effects is something I was prepared for. I know that with a little patience and practice I’ll find methods that work for me. In the meantime I will have to console my self and be nice to me. I don’t need to start criticizing my decision on top of dealing with the impact of that decision.
So if you see a guy constantly moving his head up and down, and perhaps taking his glasses off a lot, relax, it isn’t a fit. It’s just me trying to adjust my picture.
I’m somebody now!
One of my favorite daily sites is Gizmodo. Yesterday I discovered a site with some wonderfully looking storage solutions, and wanting to share, I passed the site URL on to Gizmodo. This link is another few seconds off my 15 minutes of fame.