This week has felt long, as there have been quite a few things going on that have eaten my attention and, I have also been quite sick with an annoying flu. But, there have been some "highlights" to the week also - as I delivered my first full training since coming back form a stroke and, I interviewed for a new position within the company I already work for.
As I already have the written feedback from the training session, that went incredibly well from the customer side, but for me, it was still awkward and very tiring. The interview went well too I believe, which is always nice. I was thinking about it today - every job I have interviewed for (besides the very first one) I have gotten. With about 30 years of work experience behind me, that is not a bad track record. Oh, and the reason I didn't get the job for the first interview was, I was a month too young and I forgot my phone number. Granted, I had only moved into the city a week or two earlier and at that time, kids didn't have mobile phones.
I was asked in the interview today as to what my definition of success is for my job and whether it was the same as three years ago. It is, with that being, when I see that people are having those "aha moments" in the sessions I have with them. I am an enabler by trait and function, so helping people improve their experience and skills has to factor into my own metrics for success. However, what has changed from three years ago, is that I also have to feel that I am in alignment with my own goals.
Over the years, based on my own focus on enabling others, I have put so much emphasis on other people, that I have almost forgotten other factors that I enjoy in life. This is not that I don't enjoy what I do, but I sometimes wonder if I am ignoring aspects of my life that can improve my own experience. My experience isn't bad, but it isn't necessarily optimized.
This year has been strange for my in many ways, as well as for my family, as we have had quite a lot of unexpected negative, interspersed with some positives, like my wife finding a job she enjoys and is great at and the work I have been doing here for five years looking like it might start returning something for us. Life is a collection of conflicting experiences, the bitter and the sweet, and usually they are experienced concurrently, making life somewhat a rollercoaster.
I try to take the advice that I apply to the markets too,
When in doubt, zoom out.
Looking at life from a day to day experience, it can be very volatile, with daily dramas grabbing our attention, much like the spikes in the price. But, when we zoom out a little and look both backwards at history and project into the future, the line is far more stable. But, I am not sure if it is going up or down for me, weighing all the things together - maybe it is flat.
This is the challenge though, as unlike a price that is tracking a single token, life is far more complex, even though we try and simplify it. For example, if looking at the growth in my Hive account, someone can say I am doing well. However, if evaluated against having a stoke and a few other issues, does it balance? Probably not.
Life doesn't actually balance, it isn't fair - other than in the universe there is energy converted and it always equals zero. When we "generate value" what we are actually doing is converting some kind of energy into another kind of energy in some way, even if it is mental energy that builds conceptual value only. My perception of accomplishment maybe tied to various results in my experience, but the value it adds might only be in my head, and the heads of others.
But, this conceptual energy is a type of energy that can be converted into a practical movement, by using and converting physical energies to create something. In some way,* this is kind of like creating something from nothing, which should be impossible due to physical laws - yet even though the thoughts we have are carried by electrical impulses, the thoughts themselves are at least to us, "spooky" - meaning that we don't actually know how they are created in detail. We do know that we get inspiration and impulse and we can see the outcomes, but there is a lot that is invisible to us when considering what generates a specific thought - for all intents and purposes, it just "appears" out of thin air.
But regardless of whether we know why or not, we do know that we are able to use our thoughts to create physically in our world, much like an artist can use a paintbrush and paints to build a representation of what they are seeing in their mind's eye. And, we also know that we are able to influence the thinking of others and affect how they use their thoughts to create with the resources they have available too.
While thinking about this might not be everyone's cup of tea, for me it helps me understand why I do what I do, in the way that I do it. Essentially, I am hoping to influence people's thoughts so that they can crate a better world for themselves and I think this in part is because I haven't always been able to do this for myself, at least in some aspects of my life, including my own physical condition.
Obviously, I spend too much time thinking about these things, yet there is a funny thing about it. Because I spend so much time thinking about stuff like this, I am very effective at helping people identify their paths and realize their potential, making me more valuable to their experience than I may be to my own. I find that strange but at the same time, it seems natural.
If I can bring more value to the world by helping others than helping myself, doesn't it make sense to do so? But, it is a fine line to tread, because not spending enough on oneself means limiting the ability to help others too, so the value added starts to retract and potentially, even end up causing harm instead.
See? It has been a long week....
But, writing out our thoughts, even if they don't make complete sense to us, can help us defrag our minds a bit, get a little bit of clarity and perhaps even, have some of those "aha" moments I was talking about earlier.
My realization from all of this is, now my head is clear enough to sleep, it is time for bed and I can get back to work in the morning.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
