Half Way

It's been six months since I began my leave of absence from my previous job. Today, I'm taking stock of how close I am to reaching the goals that I set out for myself during this time off.

1.) Further develop my charitable project.

As expected, this is what's taken up most of my time and borne the most results. I'm very happy with where the project is at right now - we have a great group of volunteers, our funding situation has improved, and our local partner is helping more people than ever before. Even though this now my full-time gig, I still really enjoy the work I'm doing.

Verdict: Success.

2.) Become a published author.

This was perhaps not the most realistic of goals to try to accomplish in a year, particularly while going after #1 at the same time. I might as well have added: 2.) Become an international rock superstar or 2.) Learn how to turn lead into gold. That's not to say that I haven't spent more time writing - I've been taking more time to write in my journal and (intend to) spend more time blogging. But a full-length novel or work of non-fiction? Not this year.

Verdict: Deadline extended.

3.) Turn the charitable project into a paying job.

Once I gave up on the idea of becoming a published author by May 2009, I started to consider other ways in which I might pay the bills. Sure, there were plenty of options out there - I could join the circus or participate in medical testing, just for starters. However, I decided to take the lazy route and consider what would need to happen if I wanted to draw a salary from my current full-time engagement. And the verdict? HaAhhhHaHaHaaa! That's a good one.

Seriously, it could happen, but not the way things are set up right now. Regardless of whether I'm getting paid, this project needs to become self-sustaining at some point, and the same changes that would make this possible could also provide a salary. So, it's possible - just not by May 2009, that's all.

Verdict: Deadline also extended.

4.) Improve my work-life balance.

Back before I took the time off, I read a news story about a guy in Japan who actually worked himself to death (the Japanese even have a word for this: karoshi). The guy was working something like 90 to 100 hours a week. I remember thinking to myself, "Hmm... that's not that much time at work." I knew instantly that I needed to improve my work-life balance.

This was actually harder than I thought it would be. In my rush to prove to myself that everything was just fine and I could still earn a living while on my leave, I took on a whole whack of work with the Army. For a while, I was pretty much back where I started - except with less money. After a few weeks of this, I managed to convince myself that I could actually not earn a salary for a while, and that money could come out of bank accounts as well as go into them.

Since then, everything's been tickety-boo. I was the kind of guy who would renew his license plate three months too late. I would've been late for my own birthday, assuming that I'd actually remembered to write it on my To Do list. Even six months later, I'm still getting caught up. But at least the pile is shrinking instead of growing.

So, the work week's back around 40 to 50 hours per week, and I actually have time for fun again. Oh, and my health has improved to the point where I no longer consider aerosol cheese to be one of the five basic food groups.

Verdict: Success.

5.) Beat Fantasy General.

Not yet. Those damned Ogre Centaurs keep routing my Samurais, and I can never seem to bring up my siege engines in time. But I'll get it one day, I promise you that.

Verdict: To be continued...

I suppose it's time to deal with the obvious question: What will I do six months from now, when the leave of absence comes to an end? The answer is: I don't know. Or rather, I do know, but I don't know whether I'll make the same decision six months from now, when it's for real.

Although I quite enjoyed my previous job, I find that I like this one more when all things are considered. What's more, I haven't really taken the leap of faith yet. It's one thing to take a leave of absence, but it's quite another to quit your job in the pursuit of your dream.

Sometimes, the gods demand a sacrifice. I have a feeling that, before they'll let me have what I'm looking for, I'll need to haul my nice, fat, secure job onto the altar.

And you know what? I'm okay with that. I may not be able to spend money like I used to or be able to answer succinctly when asked, "What do you do?", but I don't care. Of all the stuff I could be doing, this is what I want to do the most.

Balcony Time

I'm on my balcony now. I practically live out here these days, except for any time between the hours of 2:00 and 5:30 pm, when the sun wreaks its evil havoc against my pasty whiteitude. There's just enough foot and vehicle traffic to keep me from gorging my need for novelty consumption on failblog.org and icanhascheezburger.com, but not so much that I would actually be prevented from doing whatever it is I'm trying to do whilst on the balcony. Right now, I'm trading a few e-mails with assorted organizations regarding the school project.

So, how's that not-working going? Well, someone asked me the other day whether I was getting the itch to return to work. The answer: Not so much. I think I expected that there would be a bit more of an adjustment period, but the truth is that I really enjoy what I'm doing right now. I still end up working about the equivalent of a full work week, but it's done at my pace, when I want to work. If I get up tomorrow at 6:00 am and want to start sending out e-mails, I can do that. If I want to sleep in until 11:00 am and watch Godfather II, I can do that instead.

I've been a procrastinator for so long, it's hard for me to realize that I'm not really procrastinating any more - nothing really needs to be done. Ultimately, it's all optional. For a procrastinator, that's a scary thought. That's like skydiving without a parachute. It's like that old joke: Why's the sky blue? Because if it was green, we'd never know when to stop mowing. Well, how does a procrastinator know when to start working if nothing's ever due? Won't he just keep playing Guitar Hero forever?

Surprisingly, no. I think I've managed to short-circuit the procrastinating. That doesn't mean that I don't play the aforementioned Guitar Hero or check out the latest on Stanely Bing's website, I just do so with the knowledge that whatever I'm doing, I'm doing it because, of all the things in the world I could be doing, that's the one thing I want to do. If so, great. If not, then I go and do whatever it is that I'd rather be doing.

Right now, that happens to be working on my balcony. It's odd to think that I'd want to work at 10:00 pm at night on a Sunday, but when you enjoy what you do...

Pros and Cons of Life in the Slow Lane

Pro

Sleeping and Dreaming: Now that I don't have to go to bed at a set bed time, I can actually get the amount of sleep that my body needs, rather than the amount prescribed by an alarm clock. Also, I've started to have extremely vivid dreams that I actually remember when I awake. That's something that hasn't happened since - well, since I don't know when.

Con

Nagging Feeling of Laziness: I can't help but feel that I'm nowhere near as productive as I was before, and that this is somehow a Very Bad Thing. I think this feeling will go away with time. At least, I hope it will. Moving from Overburdened and Stressed to Guilty and Lazy isn't exactly a step in the right direction.

Pro

Work is What I Make It: One of my major goals for this down time is to be able to start writing again. Technically speaking, that means that writing this blog post is a productive activity. Sweet.

Con

Money? What Money? : The second Wednesday of the month just came and went, and there was no direct deposit to my bank account. For someone who's still accustomed to throwing money at his problems, that hurts.

Pro

Pennies Saved... : With more time to think carefully about my purchases, I'm finding new ways to save money without feeling as though I'm making sacrifices. Case in point: I'm planning to sell Mercules (a 1999 Mercedes-Benz ML430) and purchase either a Volvo Amazon or Volvo P1800E. If I can find a suitable Volvo Amazon, I'd save the equivalent of $4000 a year in depreciation, gas and insurance - or more than a month's take-home pay at my previous job.

Con

Video Games: I rented Guitar Hero III for the Wii earlier this week, and played it so much that I actually managed to strain my left eye. It's now back at the rental shop, where it can't hurt me any more.

Pro

Cats: We have two. They are hilarious. Whiskey is trying hunt insects on the other side of our windows, while Socks is curled up - and snoring - on the top of a tower that he hasn't actually fit on since he was about 6 months old.

Con

... I think that's about it for cons.

Pro

The whole reason I'm here: Being able to choose, day to day, what it is I want to work on; having complete freedom to pursue my interests, accountable only to those whom support my charitable work. This is my chance to find the golden mean - to be productive at something I love and still have time for family, friends and fun. It's a gamble, but worth giving up a paycheque for a while.

Update

The holidays have now begun in earnest. I took Friday off work, then flew back home to Calgary on Saturday. I've since purchased the remainder of my presents, thereby completing my Christmas shopping. Otherwise, the past few days have been a blur of family, baking and multiple mini-Christmii. It's been fun. I have a niece and a nephew, and it's been fun to be "Uncle Wy" again.

Today should be fairly calm. Fingers crossed, my grandmother will be flying into town this afternoon, but we'll likely have a low-key evening in preparation for what promises to be a busy day tomorrow. Following that, I'll be meeting up with some long-time friends over pints (or the several mini-pints that make up a wheel o' beer), and generally trying to sleep in as much as possible.

Ah, the sleeping. That's a bit hit-and-miss at the moment, being that I seem to be stuck on Eastern time. I was up at about 5:15 am yesterday, and 5:45 am this morning. Given that I've been going to bed at around 9:00 pm, that's not too bad - at least eight hours sleep - but what I probably need to do is catch a nap so that I can start going to bed at a more reasonable hour.

Beyond family and friends, the part of the holidays I like the best is being able to have a bit of time alone with my thoughts to reflect over all that's happened this past year. I typically keep a pretty busy schedule, so it's nice to have time that I can dedicate to this sort of thing, and this year I'm off for a 12 day stretch, which is the single largest break I've taken since I started to work full time. Long walks, journalling and reading books may not be very exciting, but at least I'm excited.

As far as the actual Christmas holiday is concerned, I'm thinking that next year I may declare a unilateral cease-fire on the whole "gifts" part of the holiday. Oh, I still intend to do nice things for people, but these nice things will be an reflection of the depths of my consideration rather than my wallet. Oh, except for nieces and nephews, of course - I'll still spoil them rotten.

I found shopping to be stressful this year. Moreover, most of the people I saw while shopping also seemed really stressed. I think the main reason for that is that most of the people I know are entering a phase in their lives when, if they want something badly enough, they'll just go out and get it for themselves. I know that I certainly have far more stuff than I actually need, or can find appropriate use for. I don't mean to sound ungrateful for the gifts I'll receive this holiday, but I really am equally impressed by the thought that goes into an inexpensive present as that which goes into an expensive one.

We'll see if this sentiment lasts until next year, but I hope that it does.

A Fairly Typical Rant About Work and Money

Today is the first day since October 9th that I haven't been working or, in the case of three of the days, working a day and a half. I'm helping put together a course for the Army, which means that there are more demands on my time than usual.

I still love the work, but there are definitely times when I wish I had a 36 hour day. Or, failing that, that I could start sleeping whenever I have an extra 5 minutes to spare. I mastered that particular art when I was away on leadership training, but it seems that one of the prerequisites is having only slept 4 hours during the previous week. I'm tired, but not that tired.

The condo is really coming along well. We're still missing a fair bit of our furniture, but I suspect it won't be long before we'll be able to book a house warming party. The kittens seem to have adjusted, though they were none too pleased when we took them for their annual check-up. In a surprise move, the vet made no mention of brain trauma - I guess they're just like this normally.

I intend to make today a proper, lazy day. That means that the only way I will be changing out of my fleece pajama pants is if we decide to play tennis. The only thing that I will be getting caught up on will be my XBox games, or possibly some Robert Heinlein dystopian fiction. I will be drinking coffee on the balcony up until 12:01 pm, at which point I will switch to Boddingtons. I will finally have a listen to the Cake CD that I've been unable to play in Mercules. And I will be in bed by 9:30 pm, so that I can get up bright and early and walk to work the next day.

Speaking of time off, I wonder when it'll be that we'll actually realize that, in our modern day and age, working 40 hours a week is just a little bit silly. I mean, think about it - were you to have an extra day off each week, and were all the shops and office to be open at that time, think of all the money you'd be able to save by being able to comparison shop, haggle, repair, or simple do yourself.

I'd be willing to bet that, in many cases, you'd end up ahead of where you were before, even with 20% less cash in your pocket. I certainly tend to throw money at problems to make them go away, even if it is done in a carefully researched, semi-frugal kind of way. And think of all the benefits - the part of your income that you're giving up is the part that's most heavily taxed, and the extra hours you're giving up are your least productive. There'll be 20% more work to be done, which means that there'll be more jobs to go around.

Of course, it'd never do. Everyone needs the latest laser-powered super iPod (now with sparkles!), and lives from paycheque to paycheque in order to pay for it all. But that's not the worst of it. The real problem is that we know that, by only working 80% of the time, we'd be committing career suicide.

Who knows where we'd end up if we showed anything less than cutthroat ambition this early in life? We'd probably be cleaning out the ashtrays in airport limos. Or living in France. I'm not sure which is worse.

On Happiness

I just read a really good article about the link between material wealth and happiness.

The crux of the argument is that it's changes to our life situation that we respond to with either happinesor sadness, rather than the life situation itself. Based on my foray into the psychology of rational choice and decision making, there are a number of situations where that's actually the case. For the math geeks, it's the "delta" that causes the reaction.

This makes a certain amount of sense sense, particularly from the material side of the equation. After all, it's not like we're a thousand times as happy as people who live in under-developed nations, despite having over a thousand times as much wealth. Nor are the wealthiest people in Canada 100 (or 1000) times as happy than their poorer counterparts.

However, I don't buy the argument that it's only the change that matters. We also rate our happiness based on our relative achievements (or assets), as compared to those around us. That is to say that someone with $100 to spend when everyone else has $5 is more apt to be happy than someone with $200 who's surrounded by people spending $500.

This may serve to highlight the dark underbelly of the Internet and globalization. Whereas once you could be the best storytellers (or singer, or musician) in your town and make a decent living, now that role is increasingly reserved for a few talented storytellers (or etc.) whose work can be exported around the globe with ease.

In short, all the "small ponds" that the relatively "big fish" used to enjoy inhabiting are now flooding together. For a business-based example, think about all the corner stores that Walmart's put under over the years.

In many ways, our emotions are like compass needles that tell us where we should be going. The compass points towards food when we're hungry and towards bed when we're sleepy. If the needle always pointed towards happy, then we'd pretty much be stuck in the same place, doing the same thing.

From an evolutionary standpoint, we'd probably not still be around. After having outfitted our caves with a few pelts and some mutton, we would've just stayed there forever. That's fine in the short term, but tends to be problematic when the cave floods and the snows arrive. Hence, we have that urge to move ever forwards in our quest towards a better life.

One of the most interesting facts about the human brain is that our mental fuctions are highly localized. That is to say that if you were to lose 10% of your brain, you would not become 10% dumber. Instead, you would lose whatever abilities that 10% was previously responsible for. So, you might lose the ability to control your aggressive emotions or make new memories or tie your shoes or put together simple shapes to make complex objections or any one of thousands of other potential consequences.

All that is to say that our brain is broken down into many semi-separate parts, which all have a specific job to do. This includes the sections related to happiness and sadness. So, in the pursuit of happiness, one should avoid putting all of your eggs in one basket.

Whereas we soon grow complacent with the hardwoodedness of our floors or the number of horses under our hoods that high-powered jobs made possible, we should perhaps ask ourselves if our extra hours wouldn't be better spent improving our relationships with friends and family, reading good books, helping those in need, pursuing unique hobbies that will fulfill our sense of creativity and achievement, and so forth.

In essense, I'm proposing a theory of multiple happinesses (that's so not a word) to stand alongside the theory of multiple intelligences. I'm not even sure what all of these different happinesses are, but I would wager that each have a different half-life, different triggers, and degrade if different ways. So, while the change ("delta") may affect material happiness, I'm willing to wager it doesn't affect social happiness in the same way.

If I had to wager a guess, I'd say that they fell into the following groups:

- Basic needs happiness: "Happy to be warm and full."
- Social happiness: "Happy to have family and friends."
- Romantic happiness: "Happy to be in love."
- Competitive happiness: "Happy to be number one."
- Creative happiness: "Happy to be creating something new."
- Material happiness: "Happy to have nice things."
- Altruistic happiness: "Happy to make a difference in others' lives."

I could see some arguments for certain mergers (ie. overlap between material and basic needs, social and romance), but overall I think this covers all the bases. Bottom line, your overall happiness depends upon addressing each different type of happiness, and cannot be addressed by focussing on a single form of fulfilment.

I'm interested in what people think about this. Please, post a comment if you're so inclined.