Ranting : Getting Things Done (Not)
So its late in the day and my head is totally spinning. I had given myself one project today. I was to finish my cv, phone the Agency and send the cv off to a company.
Why ? Because my whole life since i was 16 and left school ( i did get highers, i just needed to escape the Lower education system) i have been hopping from job to job with no effort. I immediately started working for an agency, which i have been with on and off with for the past 10 years. It taught me lots, like being able to jump into almost any environment and just pick up how things work. It boosted my confidence and gave me skills i forget are even skills as they are second nature. But its all been paper pushing, with the occasional actual processing of data. Its been phone calls, and organising…and..well all general office work through various departments & various types of companies.
While at Uni i ventured into retail with the usual barrage of retail outlets like Superdrug, Sainsburys, Haddows, Jumpin Jaks and Chicago Rock cafe. I got all these basically by chance. Great skills learnt here as well as someone who likes to do a job well and constantly thinking of improvements. Even tho it appears none of them care that everything is done badly, same applies for the office world. CHANGE, they don’t like change, they think it will take too much time and effort to put change into place in order to actually save more time, effort, money and peoples happiness. But i aspire for improvement. As a kid i wanted to be a Systems Analyst, through Uni i was constantly taught about improving systems! So, simple jobs, nice basic all rounded skills, but disheartening of the soul.
At no real point have i gone for a job that i actually wanted. Bar Office Manager, and Wifi Support. But these were still short lived, tho loved a bit more than the rest.
The question is, what the hell am i doing ? I tell everyone I’m a programmer and a developer. Because thats what i feel i am. Thats what i love in life, the passion that drives me. I want to create great things, to bring great things to people to make their lives greater. I will more than happily sit and stress over code into the early hours and love it. Life needs stress, there is such a good thing as good stress. Good stress to me is working through something tough for an greater outcome that is more measurable in how it makes you feel than anything else.
But am i doing my porject today to get me speedin gon my way ? No.
I’m still doing what i did since i left Uni. I’m trundling along doing jobs that barely require 30% of my brain, using the rest of my brain power to be aggravated by how crap the work is and how the job needs completely revamped with better systems.
And in my spare time i’m dreaming about making great sites, and spending like 5% actually doing it ? I’m totally mad.
To give myself some credit, ive have picked myself up considerably over the past two weeks and have got back into doing website work while beating off any thoughts that its not good enough in order to keep striving forward.
This would be all well and good if it wasnt for the fact that my lack of real commitment to job hunting/cv finalising etc has left me in a position where i work all week (knowing i finish for good this Friday and ive had two weeks sitting at my desk with all the time in the world do do something) and having to work weekends to bring in the cash. This has just left me drained. And back to jumping from highly motivated, to down right drained and just wanting to curl up with an audio book which just saps even more energy.
I want to keep moving forward. And what i really need to do is have a proper goal. Not just ‘ I want a computing job and settle down for a bit. I need to practice what all the self help business books i have preach. Visualising Goals. I keep running away from that and just try and find tasks to do instead.
Im just annoyed that i basically know what to do, and im not doing it. And its silly when by not doing things it keeps me unhappy. Reading Twitter all day is illuminating in many ways i have found, but i’m being silly when i spend time doing it instead of what really needs done. And trying to justify it to myself.
I have no-one else to prove myself to but me, and thats how i was brought up, and thats how my family still re-enforce it. ‘Do what you want to do, as long as you are happy’. The things I want to do are those things that will make me happy. But i’m not doing them. I’m not happy lazing around the house, sleeping pattern topsy turvey, wine bottles filling the bin, cigarettes filling the ashtrays, bills filling the in tray even if i am looking at lovely sights and creations of others….its other people work taunting me that im not doing anything. I may have got things sorted getting back into 9-5 work, but its still disheartening work, its still taking me no-where. Life will leave me behind. Employers will ask what ive been doing with my time. I graduated almost a year and a half ago.
Ok, i just needed to rant so my head is clearer. I have a skype meeting later with my lovely friend and graphic designer Ross Sharp (Blog). Such sessions are always filled with insight, motivation and passion on both sides. So looking forward to the work we will both get done tonight. It will hopefully send me to sleep with my head whirling with positivity once again, ready for the new dawn tomorrow where by i can start moving forward. With a day at work free to work on cv etc, and an evening free to do goal setting, i think it should be good. Life is always more enjoyable with a positive outlook, no matter what trials and tribulations there may be.
Rant over for now me thinks.
Love and Light All
Zen (Rowan)
Every moment you spend sitting at your computer coding, you’re moving forward.
Negativity periodically gets the better of me as I become increasingly frustrated by the fact that I’m still peering at my goals from the back of the room, but when I’m lost in the intricacies of doing what I love, I know it’s the only thing that makes sense and as long as I continue to do it, I’m doing the right thing.
I recognise my own feelings of frustration and occasional uncertainty in your words, but what comes through stronger than that is your own realisation and unshakable certainty of your life’s great passion.
We may not be there yet, and we both feel like we should be there already, but the only thing that can’t be shaken is that when we are doing it, it’s the most certain path of all we’ve ever followed.
Every tiny little function you learn to code, every piece of software you dabble with, becomes an asset, a resource, a weapon. Each late night figuring out how to implement one simple function makes you bigger, faster, stronger.
Slowly everything you do will become more advanced, more complex, more efficient, and yeah, we can’t be certain ahead of time, what comes after that, and we’ll continue to spend time worrying about it, but what you can be sure of, is that all you have to do is sit down and write a tiny piece of code, and you’re doing the right thing, what’s true to yourself, and you’re moving forward.
And when I look at you, I do see you moving forward.