Day 1
Reconnecting with the goals? Maybe. Let's see.
1. I will stick to my weekday food and drink ethic as set out previously plus consider the portion size of every meal, cutting back where necessary. Why? Long term I want to be in good health, and short to long term I want to weigh at best less, but certainly not more than I do now.
The portion size is pretty well under control. It may have jumped up a little since I first changed this rule, but I found my meals were getting so small I was feeling a little too hungry later in the evening. I currently have no issue with my meal portions. Last week was a fairly good example of sticking to the workday food ethic. I average about a snack a week now. I'd be lying if I said I had any intention of changing that. I don't want to. If it was an every day thing, it'd be a problem, but it's not. It's a treat to boost my energy. A reward for a good morning's work. The drink ethic has slipped. I started that one because the machines at work show calorie counts of the drinks. Coffee is rather high, although I think that's mostly the milk powder in it. The idea was to stick to two of those a day, and have two teas also, which had a much lower count. At the moment I am finding myself having an extra coffee in the morning, but some days missing a drink in the afternoon, though that's normally tea. I do still have the peppermint teabags but I can't drink the stuff too much or it gets very dull. The extra caffeine intake is actually useful though. For a while I was suffering most days with drivers delirium. I didn't have any genuine near misses but I certainly rumbled over lane boundaries a few times. I am at least more alert with a little more caffeine inside. It may seem like cheating, but I'm going to relax this. The whole rule will be a little more general, focussed on moderation.
To the why: Good long term health and no short or long term weight gain. This I still believe in and I do believe this overall goal, whilst badly written, has contributed to nine months without weight gain.
How do I want to take this one forward?
1. I will eat in moderation at all routine meals. The majority of my meals will be essentially healthy. When I snack or overindulge, I will specifically redress the balance later. I will also drink caffeine based drinks in moderation. At the end of a week, if I feel my intake has been too high, the goal has not been met, and I will state this.
Day 2
What a fucking horrible day. I wake up after a good nights sleep to find some arsehole has broken my entire drives side wing mirror off my car. This cost me £170 and a day on the train people. This of course leads my mind to the possibility that it might be personal, not least because there was some evidence that the other mirror was also hit, but not broken, and it was just my car, nobody elses. It's a helpless feeling. Somebody can do this, no chance of any consequences, too small for insurance but too big to be trivial. Certainly too big to have to do more than once, but what if I wake up to the same sight tomorrow morning? What the fuck can I do? Am I going to have to get into the "must move today" mindset for the cunting second time in two months?
Weighted against certain other problems (not people losing their houses - that's their stupid fault) this perhaps seems trivial, but when half a months rent disappears overnight it's not. I'm not violent by nature but I genuinely feel if I met the guy that did this I would feel compelled to kick the shit out of him. Of course then i'd be a criminal. That said, i'd probably also be called a criminal if I marched him to the cashpoint and forced him to enter his pin to withdraw my losses. Another no win situation.
Best case scenario is nothing more happens and after a short time I forget it happened. Even then, it could still happen any time. Could it even be the bad neighbour back for revenge? I think it highly unlikely, but it's not impossible.
2. I will stick to wasting less weekday time playing fake poker. Why? Because time is precious and as much value as I place in entertainment, too much of one type of entertainment should be avoided.
So anyway what the fuck was goal 2? Poker. This is a stupid goal. If I don't waste time playing fake poker I still waste time doing something else. I set myself this goal purely because I was playing this game far too much, like 5-6 games in a night, which is essentially an entire evening. I don't do this anymore, nor do I feel particularly compelled to play more than once, but if I want to play a second game, particularly after the first went by quickly, why not? For the second day running (actually not running, I didn't do this yesterday), it's about moderation.
What to change? It needs to be about time spent entertaining myself. It needs to not just include playing poker, but any game, and probably time spent watching certain types of TV, though perhaps not all TV, such as news, would be relevant. I said this goal was not to disvalue entertainment, but moderate overindulgence in one type. In other words, don't have day long poker, Lost, Heroes, Repton marathons. I don't. By the way if you know what Repton is you still might not know it's available for the PC now. Look up Superior Interactive and try to ignore what the cool kids need in game play now.
2. I will not spent extended periods of time focussed on one form of entertainment. If one form of entertainment has consumed an evening or weekend then I have failed. I will vary it, and ensure that I don't neglect the mind expanding.
Too douschy? Nar.
3. I will take my camera with me whenever I go, or feel i'm likely to go, somewhere i've never been before but only on a night out if there are more than two people involved. Why? So I have some kind of record of where I've been and the people I've known, liked and loved.
I think I already retired this about a week ago. I have already talked about how the above benefits need to be balanced with not missing acutally just being with people due to being the guy with the camera. I am reasonably happy with the kind of occasions I now choose to take my camera. It doesn't need to be a goal.
4. I will stay in touch with my friends weekly and start trying to initiate some weeknight activities. Why? Because spending any extended period of time alone is a terrible idea, and the more you initiate, the less likely that is to happen.
This one does need to be here and it needs to be better. The reasoning is good, as is the recent jolt I was given for not being more communicative (though in this case there is a mitigating factor of a necessarily unbalanced friendship - don't ask).
I'm actually not terrible at this. It's very rarely I don't see some of my friends weekly, it's just that a lot of the time it's the same ones, and the others get neglected. I can't honestly say I feel compelled to talk to all of them - those that i've not been in the vicinity of for 6-7 years now, which is probably more because I have nothing much to talk about right now than it is about them. As much as I do enjoy hearing what people are doing, it tends to be better than what i'm doing, and can annoy me. This sounds pretty pathetic, because it is, and the outcome of taking this attitude is either I offend them for my hangups or they forget me, unaware of, but still due to my hangups. I almost want to make the goal TALK TO PEOPLE. It would serve the point i'm trying to make to myself well, and it's very actionable. Unfortunately these ones, the ones that require a conscious effort and comfort breaking foray are the ones I've watched myself only pay lip service to over the last 10 months, and I don't think shortening it is going to help matters.
I'm definitely losing the bit about weeknight activities. That's too solutioney, and it tries to attack the problem somewhere downstream of the problem itself. Lets say, the problem is a river dam, so we never actually get anywhere near where we want to be. Hows about:
4. I will talk to people. People I know will not feel I am ignoring them. People I don't know will not forever be people I don't know. If they do, or they are, I have failed. Why all this? Because spending any extended period of time alone is a terrible idea, and the more you initiate, the less likely that is to happen.
Day 3
It's taken me almost the entire week to write this in stages, not through lack of time, more through laziness. It is nice to not have to think about all the goals in one sitting though. Might think about that a bit more.
5. I will spend a minimum of two hours every week actively working on my music, and my recording abilities. The exact nature of this is less important, but I will describe how I put the time in here to show it's happening. Why? Because some of the best times I've had in the last few years were band/music related, and lack of natural talent doesn't mean I have no ability. What I have, I want to keep using, at very least so as not to lose it.
This most recent iteration of my most creative goal never really gained traction. I started the year wanting to write something each month. I eventually realised that my creative juices, which I always found a weird expression, don't flow that quickly. I found myself wanting to keep working on something existing rather than be forced into something new. To my credit I have three creations which I absolutely love, but against my original goal I appear to have failed. I changed the goal some time ago to what you see above, a very vague goal of spending x amount of time per week. In this I didn't specify what did and didn't count as working on, rather than just playing music. There is no question, now that I really think about it, that I don't spend 2 hours a week with a guitar in my lap, but is that enough? I think so. I continue to strive to improve and I do this through practice. Does it need to be a goal? It's a little sad, but in reality probably not. It's a hobby, i've eventually accepted, and now I feel more this way about it, I find I enjoy it more. I have been known to get angry when I can't play as well as I know i've played in the past, but I don't think I will any more. I already have recordings that I will be able to go back to later in life and say "i wrote that", "i played the rhythm on that" or even "i mixed that". Does this mean I won't ever record again? Not a chance, but it will be recreation, not personal development.
I need to stop being so diverse about potential direction. There is nothing wrong with wanting to do and experience everything, and in that there are millions of far better examples of such behavior than me, a nearly 28 year old guy that has entered precisely three countries in his life. That said, by having the mindset that any of these goal items (save those on weight loss and exercise) could be a future career path seems nuts, but I think it is what i've been doing for the longest time.
This quote has been rattling around in my mind since I finally saw High Fidelity earlier this year: "I guess it made more sense to commit to nothing, keep my options open. And that's suicide. By tiny, tiny increments.". I actually only remebered "options open, that's suicide", the rest fading in my memory, but it absolutely resonates with what I said in the previous paragraph. I cannot continue to say "I don't know what I want to do", and I cannot keep holding myself back from choosing a path out of fear of choosing wrongly, and because it'll mean I won't ever get the opportunity to do something else again.
Music is a passion, an art form and a business, in different measures for different people. For me it's mostly a passion, but i'm going to stop trying to measure how much and just let it be what it is. If I get the opportunity to play with other people again, great. I might even be able to create the opportunity if I really tried, but it's not a priority for me any more.
6. I will continue to work towards my set work goals. Why? Because all career uncertainty aside, if I'm doing something, I'd rather be doing it well, plus it's the only way I will continue to advance in my current career.
This one actually does mean something and this came back to me on Friday afternoon. There is so much wrong with the company I work for, and all big companies. There is so much wrong with smaller companies too, I have no doubt, but I don't experience that personally. I sat and explained to my line manager that my weariness wasn't laziness, just the feeling that I shouldn't be forcing myself to do things I don't want to do or am very uncomfortable with when there's probably somebody else better suited.
A big topic of conversation in recent years has been the cult of the amateur. The notion that everybody can and so really should do everything. In work this translates to everyone being pushed into trying to develop skills that they don't perhaps want or need for the sake of it.
If person A is a natural at skill X and person B has been trained on it but didn't want to be, what was gained in doing the training? They both work for company Y and Y still want A to do X, because A is best at it. B knows roughly how to do X now but it's really not their thing. All X wants to do is play to their strengths, but unfortunately the way to achieve that right now is to acquire skill Z, and Y doesn't want to pay for. Z in my case is some familiarisation with SAP which Y is about to invest millions in, whist X is speaking in front of a room full of school children. I got over my core fear of public speaking (a fate worse that death, statistically, according to Seinfeld over 10 years ago) some time ago, but public speaking isn't something I want to do with any regularity. In this context it has nothing to do with what i'm paid for.
The last few paragraphs are a perfect example of how my mind drifts on work matters. I have so many gripes like this one that I manage to completely forget that i'm well off to be in a job that pays me well. It's been far too easy to think i'm invincible in the company I work for, and I think it's fair to say that compared to a lot of companies, I have higher odds of being able to work there until I retire at 75, but right now is no time to be complacent. If I have to endure a little pain doing things that I don't particularly want to to benefit from being in this job that when applied I am very good at, maybe I should be a little more accepting.
I'm having a very hard time coming up with a development plan at work. This is nothing new but previously I have been willing to, well, lie, agreeing to work towards things I wasn't sure they wanted. This year in being more honest I realised that even when pushed to think about it I'm finding it hard to come up with ideas. Do I aim for the next grade, accepting the management that likely comes with it? Do I aim to be better at my own grade, thus accepting that I won't earn more than I do now? That's hard to swallow, but it's closer to the choice I want to make. The happy medium is doing that in the short term and aim for the next grade more long term...
To achieve this I will have to work harder towards the goals set out. They're quite well thought out and if I meet them I will be doing better in my role. The goal here however shouldn't be limited to the work goals, but the work in general. It's important to me that i'm not wasting my time, and whilst I remain unsure as ever that i'm in the right place, whilst i'm there I simply must be applying myself. I refuse to coast. It will bore the hell out of me.
6. I will apply myself to my work. Why? Because all career uncertainty aside, if I'm doing something, I must be doing it well, plus it's the only way I will continue to advance in my current career.
What's next?
7. I will continue to rethink my career inside and outside my current role weekly. Why? Because in the last year or two I have enjoyed my work less, feel I should be doing something more meaningful to me and others, and don't want to find myself still doing exactly the same thing in five years time.
This has been a pain. Every week I have been asking myself to come up with proof that I have at least thought about my career. If you read some of my more recent weekly posts you'd see at one point I even turned my response to this into a diatribe about the state of the world. This was not the idea, but somehow it became more of a goal to ensure I was using my brain. This is useful too, but it's not the point. What was? Not quite what I wrote when I came up with it, that's for sure.
Have I enjoyed my work less? Sometimes, but not always. Lately i'm fairly happy at work. If anything i'm disappointed with how poorly I seem to be balancing my workload. Is it meaningless? No. This is one of the conclusions I came to when answering to this goal, for which I'm glad. I choose not to get specific, but there is a contribution to a greater good in my work. The company I work for has chosen to become more customer focussed over the last year, which has helped matters a lot, as I think I need to feel a connection to the customer to enjoy my work, and day to day i'm fairly disconnected from them.
Five years time, would it be a bad thing if i'm still doing exactly the same thing? Perhaps, but that's just not going to happen. The organisation is changing, and the work will change with it. Maybe i'll be developing MI for SAP, or maybe the business will decide they don't want to allow that to go on outside of IS. Maybe I'll shift myself into IS. I'm not worried that i'll stagnate presently. This week should provide a turning point, which I'll write about next week. It is, dare I say it, an exciting time. Also turbulent, but the truth is turbulence is more exciting than plain sailing. Hmm. I decided not to say steady water as it would mix plane and boat metaphors, and ended up doing it anyway.
So, the revised version would be...
7. I will continue to rethink my career inside and outside my current role weekly. Why? Because I don't want to find myself realising I am on a career treadmill and nothing more. I must ensure what I do is meaningful to me, and ideally others. This doesn't inherently necessitate change, just frequent consideration.
Last one:
8. I will find the time to manage a 3 times a week exercise schedule. Why? Much like the eating, it's about long term health gains and short term physical gain. Lose a little weight. Tone up a bit.
I was doing quite well for a time. Along with the food and drink goal this one has helped me stay in the same shape this year. Unfortunately this particular cycle I cannot seem to break, and haven't been able to for the longest time. Once in my life I reached a physical peak, having lost the weight from my mid-teenage years when I hit 14 stone. Aged 19 I got back down to 11 stone. 8 years later with only what i'd call minimum effort I am only a stone heavier, and not overweight. I believe I maintain this by being reasonably willing to walk places, but I don't like the shape I have become. Women take on a pear shape and men take on an apple, right? Guess again. I am, I think, becoming a bit of a male pear, and I don't like it.
The problem is partly the effort of exercise, partly the time, partly the convinience and partly the paletability. My lungs don't respond well to intense exercise. It hurts, but that is certainly a fitness thing and could be overcome with regularity. Next excuse. Swimming aside, time isn't really an issue. All cycling takes less time than it feels like it takes. When someone convinced me I needed to cycle 90 minutes to get decent exercise I had real trouble going for so long just because I got so far from home and wondered how it had been under 45 minutes. Convinience is a small issue. Getting the bike out is a bit of a pain. Going to the swimming pool was a bit of a pain, and setting up the weight bench is a pain. None of these are reasons for failure. Paletability is what's killed this goal. It's unpaletable to go cycling on wet roads. It's unpaletable to go back to the same swimming pool and face the same people there each week - I don't know why I feel that way, but I do. The only exercise I didn't find unpaletable was the weights, and I just have no idea why I haven't managed to get back into a routine there.
I said I would manage a 3 times a week schedule of exercise. This really isn't much. A better goal would be not to go a day without some form of exercise, but I know in my heart I won't achieve that with my level of motivation on the act of exercising. I am going to maintain this goal exactly as it was, and hopefully get my performance back to the way it was in the Spring/early Summer period.
The 2008 Manifesto
1. I will eat in moderation at all routine meals. The majority of my meals will be essentially healthy. When I snack or overindulge, I will specifically redress the balance later. I will also drink caffeine based drinks in moderation. At the end of a week, if I feel my intake has been too high, the goal has not been met, and I will state this.
2. I will not spent extended periods of time focussed on one form of entertainment. If one form of entertainment has consumed an evening or weekend then I have failed. I will vary it, and ensure that I don't neglect the mind expanding.
3. I will talk to people. People I know will not feel I am ignoring them. People I don't know will not forever be people I don't know. If they do, or they are, I have failed. Why all this? Because spending any extended period of time alone is a terrible idea, and the more you initiate, the less likely that is to happen.
4. I will apply myself to my work. Why? Because all career uncertainty aside, if I'm doing something, I must be doing it well, plus it's the only way I will continue to advance in my current career.
5. I will continue to rethink my career inside and outside my current role weekly. Why? Because I don't want to find myself realising I am on a career treadmill and nothing more. I must ensure what I do is meaningful to me, and ideally others. This doesn't inherently necessitate change, just frequent consideration.
6. I will find the time to manage a 3 times a week exercise schedule. Why? Much like the eating, it's about long term health gains and short term physical gain. Lose a little weight. Tone up a bit.
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This must be the longest post I've ever written, and if you read it.. well, you didn't, but I did eventually. I know myself well enough to know i'll read it.
Will these revisions make any difference? Hard to say. I vowed i'd keep this up for the year and I still maintain that. I think I may have trouble forcing myself to continue into next year, but i'll cross that bridge when I come to it. One thing this has achieved is getting me blogging regularly, which was definitely something I wanted to do. If after week 52 I don't want to do this type of weekly post anymore, perhaps I may commit to posting on other topics. After all, the inside of my mind are only so interesting.
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