It’s been a brisk week. My boss has been on vacation so I have been filling in for her and, since some other team members were also on reduced scheduled, I’ve caught a lot of incident traffic coming across my desk. It has made the time pass quickly, but it has also been kind of chaotic and stressful. I’ve got one task that is haunting me because a.) I don’t know how to do it and b.) it’s overdue. I am hoping that I will get an opportunity today and tomorrow to get spend some serious time looking at the issue. I get the feeling that once it clicks I’ll be able to complete it quickly, but that could that could just be a self-inflicted illusion. So, in a near collision state with a self-inflicted illusion, let me return to the working world.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
A Self-Inflicted Illusion
Monday, October 14, 2013
Good News on a Monday
So I see I managed to drop a couple of pictures out here during the last week, but that was about it. It was a busy period of time, that is for sure. I entered Monday after the weekend with the feeling that I had enjoyed the weekend, but I certainly had not achieved anything. That is not entire true, but that is the feeling. So, let me catch you up on what has been going on.
Let’s start with the biggest news first. I do not have to relocate to South Dakota. After examinations, x-rays, and consultations with a hip surgeon it was decided that my step-father did not need hip surgery after all. The root cause of his intermittent pain and “hitch” in his hip was tendon based, so they are going to go down the path of cortisone shots (for the pain) and physical therapy (for the hip).
That was good news for both of us. He doesn’t have to go through the hip surgery and I don’t have to go back to SD for an extended period of time - at least not now. Of course, with aging parents, that is subject to change at any given moment, but the longer the inevitable day is delayed (the longer they stay functionally independent), the better prepared I will be, both psychologically and financially, for that day. All in all though, that was good news on that front.
I had a nice weekend and saw a pair of movies. Let’s just say they were very different movies. I saw Tom Hanks in “Captain Phillips” and I saw Danny Trejo in “Machette Kills”. Inside of their genres they were both very enjoyable. I am sure I did other recreational related things during the weekend, but I feel as if the days passed to quickly and I never got the chance to relax as deeply as I would have liked. Not that it was a bad weekend - just not the weekend I particularly needed or wanted. I have to accept that some of that is directly related to the choices I make, so there is no blame to be assigned.
I did upgrade to the iPhone 5C and, finally, in the face of the inevitable tide of history, abandon my beloved Blackberry. I was a huge fan of the Blackberry devices and platform, but the writing is clearly on the wall. The King is Dead. Long live the King. The iPhone 5C is pretty nice and there were a lot of misadventures wrapped into actually getting it, mostly involving store clerks for whom the smallest complexity was show stopper.
But, eventually, I found a store where the sales person knew what they were doing and I was able to get into the phone. I’ve done a partial set-up, put my key contacts in place, but I still have a lot of information that I need to move off the Blackberry on onto the iPhone. I’ve had bad luck with the automated processes that the cell phone vendors use, so it is something I prefer to do myself. That will be my evening entertainment for the next couple of days I think.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Today My Meditation Skills Will Get A Work Out
I think I need some stress free time. As usual it seems that the world is spinning around me though I am in a relatively stable place. I guess it is invoking a sense of vertigo which is probably combined with a sense of helplessness from being unable to influence that spin. The end result is a tight stomach and a very active monkey mind. Today is no exception. The monkey mind started on waking and walked right into the shower with me, then sort of hung around and poked at me through breakfast.
I always wonder why I let it get inside of me and bother me like that? These are things that I have minimal influence over. About all I can do is extend a helping hand and even then that can only have an influence if someone reaches out and accepts the hand. Otherwise, I am left spinning with my hands extended, wanting to help but unable. From there, I continue to spin until my stress levels get very high.
I find myself almost continually writing about my stress here. I guess at some point this became my stress journal. That is not necessarily a bad thing because usually, like now, writing about my stress allows me to process it and move through it more smoothly without bottling it up and feeling the pressure build inside of me. Still, between the work and non-work stress I’m banging off the walls pretty hard.
Here as the office the main stressor is generally the fact that we remain overbooked for work. The classic dilemma of too much work and not enough hands. Add on top of that the lack of process discipline from the top down and it sometimes feels to me like it’s a recipe for disaster of one form or another. We seem to be unable to influence the decisions that are made that influence our daily lives. That is not just a perception, but rather what happens when you find yourself in a top down micro-managed world. I keep expecting those above us to wake up at some point and realize how much damage they’re doing to the company, but I don’t see it. I think they are managing to hide the self-inflicted damage inside the outer turmoil in our working environment.
Then, in the off work stress the main thing that is in front of me is my pending relocation to South Dakota for an extended period to help care for my step-father following his hip surgery. He has a meeting today to get images taken and then a meeting tomorrow with the surgeon, from which point they are going to schedule the surgery. Oddly enough that is also a stress point. There is a possibility that the actual surgery itself is tomorrow - I don’t think so - but it is possible. This possibility exists because they scheduled the appointment and no one though to ask details about what was going to happen in each appointment.
I’ll survive all the stress of course. It mainly is what it is and since there is little that I can do to influence it, it’s definitely an exercise in zen detachment. I sometimes seem to come up short in that exercise, but I suppose that is the learning cycle. Today is going to be another exercise in detachment or attempted detachment. I am sure that I am going to have to put my meditation skills to good work today!
Monday, October 7, 2013
A Day On A Pendulum
Well, I am sliding into the last hour of a fairly typical working Monday and I thought I would pause for a few minutes and send a quick entry off. The day was the usual Chaos-On-A-Monday that we know so well, combined with the semi-usual Rod-Has-Slammed-Into-The-Wall-Monday. In short, an ordinary day.
I read a good quote this morning that I shared with my team members and I thought I would share it here as well.
“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is mere tenacity. The fears are paper tigers.” - Amelia Earhart
I thought that was an interesting quote and since I am locked in battle with a few of my own paper tigers. I’m really engaged in an internal wrestling match with the challenge of aging parents and the potential impacts on my life. I find myself swinging back in forth wildly, like a pendulum gone mad. One day I am in this position, the next day I am in another position and then on the third days - well - who knows where the heck I’ve landed.
Sometimes that pendulum is even swinging at a much faster pace, an hourly pace, a minute by minute pace. I am trying to decide what the right thing to do is, but I am also trying to figure out, I think, who defines what the right thing is. It’s never easy. There are a lot of inner complexities involved.
Then I simply remind myself - trust the universe, stay true to yourself, and everything will work out well. I wonder sometimes is I am too attached to my current job, too attached to my current life - even though, at times, I find both that job and that life to be less then what I would like to have. In all cases I know that it is about the decisions I make, but that doesn’t make those decisions any easier to make, nor does it make the answers to those questions any clearer.
So there I sit today, on the pendulum, swinging back and forth.
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Three Days and Ready
I've been making the psychological adjustment necessary for the journey and I've got myself in the right space for it as well. The main thing I find myself struggling with is reacting to scenarios that have yet to become real. That is always a recipe for stress. I am as flexible and prepared as I can be for the immediate known future is going to present. Life always unfolds unexpectedly.
Outside of that, it has been a pretty good weekend. I went out and saw the new movie, "Gravity". I highly recommend it. A great performance by Sandra Bullock and some stunning visuals. Definitely see it on a big screen and definitely see it in 3D. I am looking forward to some of the movies that are slated for fall release, LOL, though if I am in South Dakota it may be a while before I finally get to see them.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
The Old Game of Catch Up
Bill had an appointment today, but it was for an exam and MRI's. He'll go in and meet the next Thursday and they'll decide on a schedule date from there. So, I have essentially another week to get my ducks in a row and that will be fine because, truth be told, I don't have that many ducks. Getting ready is pretty simple. I will be traveling light when I go.
The last two days at work have been very brisk, but very brisk with small things - a lot of which I've knocked off, but a lot of which are still stacked up. I hope to make some good headway tomorrow and then, once again, I am going to have to carry some work into the weekend. It can be frustrating if I let it get to me.
This morning I was distracted, mostly thinking about Bill, and I realized midway into the morning that I was not authentically present, so I stopped, meditated for a while, and then pulled myself into the moment. From there I was able to make a very productive day out of it.
At home this evening I had a nice dinner, then cleaned the kitchen and washed all the counters down. I still need to mop the kitchen floor, but I think I will do that tomorrow or Friday. I followed it up with some texts with TR and then some phone calls with my family. Now, I've settled in and I am watching "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." on the DVR. It is Joss Whedon and of course I am completely in the tank for Joss. (Incidentally, it has one of the actresses I think is immensely talented and vastly underrated - Ming Na.) So that pretty much brings me up to the moment. I am going to decide whether or not I should go to be early tonight or perhaps do a little work related email after the show is over.
I am reading a pretty good book - "The Name of the Wind", which is the first book of "The Kingkiller Chronicles". Based on what I have read so far, I would definitely recommend it if you're a fan of fantasy. The author is Patrick Rothfuss.
