Highs and Lows

The last week has been one of varying states of being for me. I spent last Saturday at the Taste of Edinburgh festival enjoying the beautiful sunshine, and eating some fantastic food. Then rounded off the day with a couple of friends drinking some really nice wine that we’d bought earlier in the day. My weekend was relaxing, and at a pace where I found myself smiling again without any prompting.

Then the work week began.

Six months ago I was a day or two from quitting my job. I’d gone on a few very good interviews and was the front runner for a decent job, on more money, with more responsibility. I had one final interview to go through, which wouldn’t have been a problem, and then the job was pretty much mine. Word that I was about to leave filtered back to our HR department and I was asked to go in for a chat because they were worried I was going to go. The main point that came from the meeting wasn’t that I deserved more money, (I do, and I made sure that was noted), but that the way my current job works is stealing the life from me. Each and every day was more and more depressing, and became increasingly difficult to make myself get out of bed and walk to work.

The meeting brought around a few others, with more senior staff members, and I was told if I wanted to leave they wouldn’t stand in my way, but they wanted me to stay and would try to work something out. A week or so passed and there was discussions where a new, more challenging and responsible role was developed. A few things were required to be put into position first but in a month or so things would change for the better. A couple of month passed and there was a lot of talk but little action. The role that was discussed changed, before coming back to closer to the original idea, and I thought things were finally going to happen. Then a few more months went by. I asked time and again what the situation was, and found out how slowly things were actually progressing.

Here we are six months later and I’m still doing the same shit I was doing last year. The renewed enthusiasm I had for the IT world has slowly been chipped away by every week of inaction and I awoke on Monday with a feeling I’ve not had in a while, dejection. It wasn’t until I had such a relaxing and enjoyable weekend that I realised how badly this lack of progress in my working life has been affecting me. It wasn’t until I looked back on the last few months that I realised I’d been walking around, head down, without any joy in my steps. I’d reverted back to the state I was in six months ago that I was sure had been beaten.

I believe the new position is going to happen, although not as quickly as I’d like. I trust the people making these decisions because they are good people, and they know keeping me around, and enthusiastic is a good thing for the company. I expect that the change will happen in the next month or two. I also expect that in the long run it’s going to be too little too late. My spirit is pretty badly damaged.

I may be wrong of course but the last six months of sitting and waiting on other people helped shape a few thoughts I’ve been having. It helped me realise that I’m at a point in my life where I want to control how my day is spent, and what the best use of my time is. Our time on this rock is finite, and to spend six months of it sitting and waiting, while dealing with one insignificant IT request after another is just wrong. My time is the most valuable thing I have and it is being unforgivably wasted by work, and more unforgivably wasted by me.

With these thoughts running through my head I finally decided to pick up a copy of The 4-hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss. I’d heard some great things about it and thought I’d give it a read and see if there was anything I could make use of. It turns out there was… the whole thing! Reading it yesterday it was as if someone had finally switched a light on in my brain. The things I was reading made so much sense, and I lost track of the number of times I told myself that I should have already thought of that point. That first quick read through has already sparked my enthusiasm for changing my situation. I always work hard at what I’m doing but it’s now time to work smarter and put myself in a position where I control my time. I really wish I’d bought this book six months ago it really would have made things much different.

I’m still not looking forward to going into work in the morning, but now I have a renewed scense of optimism that I can make changes in my working life that dramatically improve it’s quality. The path to a better life starts now and step by step, inch by inch, I’m going to follow it until I’m where I want to be. There’s light at the end of the tunnel, you just have to want to go stand in it.