Tuesday, January 31, 2012

The life I live while I'm busy making other plans


Forgetting everything else... Saturday on
the Ohlone trail beneath BART

The other day I had an interview that was every kind of soul-sucking. Windowless room, stone-faced panel of interviewers that couldn't be less impressed, type-written questions, no answers offered. It felt like some dark-corner remnant of days of workplace hierarchy that was still hanging on. 

In my mind, I was all sorts of moral outrage and personal entitlement. Bwa! didn't I go to b-school with the dream of creating my own business culture, which would most certainly be the opposite of this?! 


(Cue MBA sense of entitlement: Ms. MBA! She can create her own world! Watch out universe, a Masters in Entitlement!)



Outside my twisting mind, my body was totally responding to my interviewers like a Stanford prison experiment. My voice was shaking and my pits were a'sweatin and I was turning into a flubby incommunicative version of myself, who already struggles to effectively communicate in interviews.

Kanye blasted from the car the entire way home, which it does when I need an ego-boost.

"Don't let me get in my zone!"

I have not, and won't be, building my own business-- at least in this particular round of life ch-ch-ch-ch-changes. So at least for now, I'm left to search for the place that works for me.


A regular peon. (Self-aggrandizing MBAs ablaze!)

**

Instead of searching for the work culture that I want to have, I am going to try to create it for myself. 

The culture I want for myself, I will create for myself, in our perfectly little apartment. If I want creativity, I will create that environment now. If I want pursuits to be proud of and achievements worthy of devoting one’s life to, I will do it now. If I want work-life balance, I will create it now. If I want to dedicate myself to my craft, what better time to do it than now.

This will definitely mean diligence. Dedication. Persistance. Focus. Self-control. Time management. Consistency.

I've already had to make some rules for my unregulated, unemployed self. Weekdays are for work, evenings and weekends are for fun (and the unusual satisfaction I now get from soul-scrubbing apartment-cleaning). Job hunting is a couple hours a day, a run is in the afternoon before it gets dark, and writing is 2 times a week (and cafes are a wise change of scenery). 

And no matter what else is going on, Saturdays are for soul-SINGING.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great post, Al! -LGM

Alyson said...

Thanks so much LGM!