Comments on: eerie moment of clarity

By: www.toparomatherapysecrets.info » eerie moment of clarity

www.toparomatherapysecrets.info » eerie moment of clarity — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 23:01:08 +0000

[…] Rich wrote a fantastic post today on “eerie moment of clarity”Here’s ONLY a quick extractAnd Candice certainly saw this already: one thing about massage therapy is that it does let you live a leisurely lifestyle. There’s no promotions, no 60-hour weeks. And that’s been right in front of me this whole time. … […]

By: gcrumb

gcrumb — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 08:58:03 +0000

On reflection, I realise that I went the wrong way with the ‘your own Pacific island’ metaphor. I still don’t mean it literally. But I do very much mean that the environment is much more important than the work itself. You can – with time – mold the work to suit you, but you can only choose your environment.

By: gcrumb

gcrumb — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 03:36:15 +0000

I don’t mean this literally, of course, but you probably do need to find your own Pacific island. A place where you can immerse yourself in the things you like, where everything conspires to fulfill you in some way. Obvious, but:

There’s really no such thing as Happiness as a state of being. But it is possible to choose one’s tribulations in such a way that even the worst of it is at least worth it, if not desirable. I don’t like dealing with the injustices and inequities I see here all the time, but I’m glad of the chance to actually be in a position to do something about some of them, most of the time.

I’m not going to trot out any truisms like ‘The more you practice, the luckier you get,’ but I will say that making your life comfortable to wear can be a funny process: Half waiting, half rock-hopping, half hair-pulling. If that makes any sense.

I guess it comes down to managing the risks, and figuring out how not to regret mistakes. (That’s not a zen thing – it means don’t let anything cost too much.) As a friend of mine recently said: even a blind alley has an exit.

By: Rich

Rich — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 20:10:26 +0000

I did spend seven years in my undergrad, but three? four? of those were part-time, while working full-time as a sysadmin. So I wasn't as far outside the normal schedule as you'd think -- the hard part was scheduling work around (daytime) classes. But yeah, I'm surprised too. And I think I basically hit 30, married, and a "I'm not getting anywhere" here moment at work all at once and managed to miss it for all the accompanying noise. (I'd enjoy the business end of a startup too -- I just think that I can learn what I'd need on the fly, or through self-study (and I plan on using this a lot). And I'm sure it depends on the nature of the MBA program one's in, too. This one: Not so hot. Not learning much and not excited about the outcome? Uh oh!)

By: Jessica Allan

Jessica Allan — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 18:59:14 +0000

I’m surprised this didn’t occur to you earlier, largely because you spent seven years getting your baccaleureate as I recall.

It’s a common crisis for people who spent the key years between 16 and 24 “going for the gold”, but as you’d already lived outside of the normal schedule, I’d think that you’d already given a pass on traditional notions of “success”.

Lynne Baer’s partner Hyoun Park is currently in an MBA program and he refers to it jokingly as “becoming a corporate tool” but he also has definite goals to do with it — he wants to become the business end of a startup — and he also wants a high-powered career as he and Lynne intend to have kids.

But you and Candice have chosen to be childfree and therefore theoretically have complete flexibility with what you do and how you do it, and obviously do not need your income to support two kids with school fees, French horn lessons and soccer camps and ballet tutors. You need your income for your and Candice’s needs — shelter, food, clothing — and for your wants. So you really have to define what your wants are on both a career and a personal basis, and figure out the balance.