On my way to work this morning I started thinking about the past. I remember days when there was almost no food to eat and I had to ration myself just to make sure there was food for the rest of the family. Days when I would be out of the house and I would smell the amazing smells of restaurants and I wished that I had the money to eat there. The thought of being able to order a pizza on a whim was a distant fantasy.
I am extremely grateful that those days are gone but I won't take my newfound financial security for granted. I will keep working harder and working smarter to get further and further ahead, so nobody in my family will have to be that bad off ever again.
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Monday, July 25, 2016
Career Questions
Changes at work have left me wondering what I want in a career. I often find myself desiring leadership positions but mostly for the purpose of building an enterprise. It's less about people and more about the organization. Not that I dislike people but it's not really about them. Apparently that is not the attitude of a good leader.
I also have a dream of running my own business. Again, it's about building an organization up and more importantly an organization that I own.
In either case I have no specifics - no specific leadership position such as CEO in mind, nor any specific business that I want to create.
It's hard to guide your career when you don't have an ultimate end in mind. Next steps are unclear, leaving me in a reactive position rather than proactive. It might help to ask why I want to build something, as much as what. But I don't have a good answer to that question. And, truth be told, if I had all of the money I could possibly need to live, I would not spend my time running a business, my own or otherwise.
What would I do? I would write, for one thing. But I often find it difficult to motivate myself to write when I have the free time to do so. Instead I find myself doing things like watch movies, play video games, or smoke cigars. Leisure time means a great deal to me - perhaps too much. It's hard to be a hedonist and have any kind of career.
I also find it difficult to engage in any activity that doesn't have a predictable outcome. At work I can show up and do my job, with the predictable outcome of a paycheck. I can't do that with writing. There's no guarantee that anyone will even read it, much less pay to do so. I lose sight of the fact that I would do it just because, because I feel like I should sell my writing when it's done.
Isn't that strange? Why is that happening?
I also have a dream of running my own business. Again, it's about building an organization up and more importantly an organization that I own.
In either case I have no specifics - no specific leadership position such as CEO in mind, nor any specific business that I want to create.
It's hard to guide your career when you don't have an ultimate end in mind. Next steps are unclear, leaving me in a reactive position rather than proactive. It might help to ask why I want to build something, as much as what. But I don't have a good answer to that question. And, truth be told, if I had all of the money I could possibly need to live, I would not spend my time running a business, my own or otherwise.
What would I do? I would write, for one thing. But I often find it difficult to motivate myself to write when I have the free time to do so. Instead I find myself doing things like watch movies, play video games, or smoke cigars. Leisure time means a great deal to me - perhaps too much. It's hard to be a hedonist and have any kind of career.
I also find it difficult to engage in any activity that doesn't have a predictable outcome. At work I can show up and do my job, with the predictable outcome of a paycheck. I can't do that with writing. There's no guarantee that anyone will even read it, much less pay to do so. I lose sight of the fact that I would do it just because, because I feel like I should sell my writing when it's done.
Isn't that strange? Why is that happening?
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