It's amazing what a short walk can do for your mood

I left the office for my lunch break in one place (stressed, ruminative, negative), and returned, having taken a half-hour or so walk, in basically the opposite state (relaxed, hopeful, grounded).

Put another way, my mind-state, when I first left the office, was like a tight knot of string. During my walk, the knot loosened bit by bit, until eventually, almost without my realizing it, there was no longer a knot at all -- only string, ready and able to take whatever form came next.

What I Love to Do

Right now, at this moment, I'm struggling with the byproducts of stress. What that means for me is my mind is flooded with thoughts; after all, I'm a thinker -- it's one of the things I do well. It's natural for me, then, for my stress to manifest that way.

It's a problem, however, because when my mind is flooded with thoughts, all sorts of "bummer" side effects tend to follow. I have a harder-than-normal time staying focused on a task or conversation, which makes day-to-day interactions and duties feel extremely burdensome. As a result of that, I tend to withdraw, which, while intuitive to me, is highly counterproductive; for when I withdraw, I am left alone with -- you guessed it -- my roiling thoughts.

Even writing this is a chore. (Reading it might feel like a chore right now, too!)

At any rate, I'd been really amped up about some work stuff, and in the aftermath of said stuff, I found myself thinking about my goals and vision for my life; I also found myself thinking about my purpose. It was a very post-modern discussion with myself, which was both exhausting and counterproductive (my love-hate relationship with post-modern critical analysis is a different topic -- read: Pandora's Box -- altogether).

What I came here to write, then, was something simple, namely, to address the question: what do I LOVE to do?

-I love it when I find the tipping point in a conversation or train of thought, or when I bear witness to, or participate in, a breakthrough. It doesn't matter if they're big or small moments, incidentally -- I love 'em either way. This "what do I LOVE to do?" question was one such "ah-ha!" moment, for example.

-I love it when I identify a solid working metaphor that helps illuminate a problem, idea, theory, or process for myself or another person. For example, I've used baseball as a metaphor -- a vehicle, really -- for lots of problems, processes, etc. in my life. And it doesn't need to be a formal metaphor, incidentally -- it can really just be any instance of successfully and appropriately applying one set of rules and circumstances and ideas to another for the sake of illumination and furthered understanding.

-I love to manage money when I'm operating with a clear or semi-clear vision of what my goals and/or endgame are. I love it. I also love thinking about managing money, and, really, money in general. I love visualizing cash flow models; I love visualizing and dreaming up models for generating increased cash flow, and visualizing the factors and variables that detract from cash flow.

-I love achieving deeper understanding of things I find interesting.

-I love speaking to groups and crowds of people about ideas.

-I love facilitating conversations among people about pretty much anything.

-I love digging into new and unconventional ways of doing things -- I love moving past, through, and around conventional wisdom.

-I love the New York Mets. I love baseball. I love consuming information about the New York Mets and baseball.

-I love to sit and read.

-I love to listen to really good speeches, or conversations, or podcasts (hello, Radiolab!). Similarly, I love to watch really well-written, acted, and produced movies, TV shows, and theatrical productions.

-I love to listen to really good and interesting music. (Totally subjective, of course, but we're talking about me here.)

-Other things.

I think there's real value in articulating these sorts of things to oneself. To my way of thinking, they make up some of the most important "stuff" of personhood. And besides -- going through this list has been a huge boost. My mind is clear, my mood is lifted, and I'm "unstuck." Sweet.

CRISIS

Today, I'm going to write about CRISIS.

I don't think it's a stretch to say most of us have experienced crises of some sort. They occur when the proverbial straw breaks the camel's back, or when an unexpected, major event occurs. Either way, when a crisis happens, it changes things -- maybe everything, or close to it -- and it cannot be ignored.

I don't have a ton of insight to share on managing crises; after all, they're each their own unique little bundle of joy (haha). Crises also tend to induce varying degrees of "survival mode" in people, and that, pretty much, is what it is. Crises can be pretty unpleasant, and all those involved do the best they can with them. 

That all being said, when a crisis occurs, the people who have to take action seem to dissociate a little bit, generally speaking, and interestingly enough. In other words, they detach a bit from the emotional impact of the event in order to preserve their decision-making abilities and get things done; and that's a good thing, in my opinion, because after all, in times of crisis, things have to get done.

(Image from Google Image search "git er done"...I couldn't help myself)

I experienced a bit of a family crisis over the weekend. (I'll refrain from sharing details, but thankfully, everyone involved is alive and relatively well.) When the crisis was at its peak, I found myself in an Action Mode state very similar to what I described above. And it was necessary and good, believe me.

What I took note of, though, and what I'd like to underscore here, was the stuff that happened after the crisis -- that is, once the situation had stabilized. 

Generally speaking, the immediate aftermath was, for me, almost equally as dicey as the crisis itself, but in a different sense. My dissociation had faded; but while there was still plenty of business to attend to, I no longer had the luxury of operating with that nice little buffer zone between myself and my emotions. Instead, I suddenly found myself having to manage my tumultuous, intense, and crisis-induced emotional responses along with my need to take care of business. 

Everyone experiences and expresses their emotions differently, especially in times of stress. I did notice, though, that it was tempting to indulge catastrophic thinking. After all, I was worried; my system was flooded with adrenaline; and my brain was teeming with unusual levels of neurotransmitters. In other words, everything in me was ready to FREAK OUT. Hell, everything in me WANTED to freak out. So whenever there was a new development, I felt myself escalating. Minor annoyances became Big Deals; passing, innocuous thoughts were Urgent Matters. 

It was exhausting, and it was unpleasant. After all, I was aware of what was happening with me, and I initially tried to do exactly what I recently warned against: forcefully change my thoughts and feelings. Oy. Mercifully, I soon realized that all I could really do was to breathe, let myself experience whatever came up, and be my own best friend. That helped -- a lot.

So. In the aftermath of a crisis, be extra compassionate and forgiving with yourself. Let yourself experience whatever it is you’re experiencing. Know that you're probably going to think and feel a lot of contradictory things, or things that surprise you, or things you wish you wouldn't. You might even feel yourself regressing, or being pulled into old, unwanted habits of communication and behavior. Whatever the case may be, have patience with yourself, give yourself “space” to exist, and know that “this, too, shall pass.” 

A few closing thoughts. If other people are involved with you in a crisis, know that they’re going through their own versions of the experience, and that they, too, are probably thinking, feeling, saying, and doing things that are unusual, unwelcome, or unfamiliar. Or maybe not. Either way, extend to them the same senses of compassion and forgiveness I described above.

When Work is Wearing You Down

I solicited suggestions for topics the other day on Facebook, and somebody recommended that I write a post about work, which I think is a great idea. The person who made the recommendation correctly observed that work, for better or worse, is a huge part of our lives (for most of us).

Aside from the many hours we spend on the job, we also need to account for the time we spend getting ready for the day, traveling to the office, traveling home from the office, and transitioning back into what remains of the rest of the day or evening. That time adds up quickly, especially when you consider that, for many people, that process repeats itself almost ceaselessly until retirement. So it can be said, then, that work costs us our time. Work also costs us money; we dedicate considerable financial resources to work. For example, we spend money on commuting, on our wardrobe, and on feeding ourselves during the work day.

The biggest potential cost of work, though, is on our mind, heart, and spirit.

Whether we like what we do for work or not, we've all had "one of those days." Sometimes, for some people, "one of those days" turns into "one of those" weeks, months, years, and even careers, unfortunately. And it doesn't even have to be so drastic and acute, you know? Dissatisfaction, boredom, and aimlessness in one's work can sneak up on a person, insidiously, until they find themselves thoroughly exhausted by life, and dreading "just another damn day at the office." Viewed in that light, the sardonic worker-bee refrain, "another day, another dollar: and not a penny more" is grim indeed.

I've been there, to be sure -- on the aforementioned journey of acute occupational dissatisfaction, that is. I was miserable with my work; and not so much because of the nature of the work in question, but rather because of the fact that I didn't at that time have an identifiable aim for my professional life. I perceived what I was doing to be nothing more than a means to some meaningless end, and utterly devoid, furthermore, of relevance and importance to my life's mission. It made no sense to me, given the arc of my life, and I dreaded waking up for work in the morning as a result. If that sounds dramatic, that's because it was dramatic.

So, what got me through? For that matter, what gets anyone through occupational despair? I guess I can't definitively answer for everyone, because, well, I'm not everyone. But I suspect that some folks are highly adept at compartmentalizing their lives; i.e., they're able to keep their dissatisfaction with work at work, and go on with the business of enjoying the rest of their lives. If that resonates with you, please know that I'm insanely jealous of, and happy for, you. :) For others, though, and for myself, certainly, a four-letter H-word is the key: hope. I'm not talking about pie-in-the-sky hope, mind you; I'm talking about real hope.

Have you ever wondered why and how such terrible things in our history as, for example, slavery and coal mining gave rise to such rich, amazing, and influential music? To my way of thinking, slaves and miners were horribly oppressed by the nature of their work, and they needed to be lifted up. Moreover, I think their needs for happiness and fulfillment simply refused to die: they fought their ways to the surface, and they emerged in brilliant melody and time signature. The music which these groups of people made, then, was the manifestation and reminder of the spirit -- of the life -- which continued to dwell within them, despite their troubles. And so it goes with all of us, my friends -- that spirit, and that urge to thrive, dwells within us all.

I'm reminded of a Grateful Dead song, called "Cumberland Blues," that nearly always brings me to tears when I hear it. Here some of the lyrics:

Lotta poor man make a five-dollar bill
Keeps him happy all the time
Some other fella's makin' nothin' at all
And you can hear him cry:
"Can I go, buddy? Can I go down?
Take your shift at the mine?"
Gotta get down to the Cumberland Mine (gotta get down to the Cumberland Mine)
That's where I mainly spend my time
Make good money, five dollars a day
Made any more I might move away
Lotta poor man got the Cumberland blues
He can't win for losin'
Lotta poor man got to walk the line
Just to pay his union dues
I don't know now, I just don't know
If I'm going back again
I don't know now, I just don't know
If I'm going back again

(Click here to listen to the song on YouTube)

The rest of the song's lyrics help flesh it out; but to me, it's a workingman's song of desperation, and it's heartbreaking. It's a testament to the bad old days, when coal mining was a much more prevalent occupation than it is now, and even more dangerous. A piece of me wants to give thanks that we've evolved beyond work conditions like coal mining, and like slavery -- but then I wonder...have we? In some ways, many workers are still in some situation or other that amounts to little more than indentured servitude. We work to pay the mortgage(s), or our car loan(s), or our student loan(s), or our credit card(s), etc.

Iron shackles and black lung disease have been replaced by consumer debt and anxiety disorders. To quote Arthur Miller: "Attention must be paid."

What's a worker to do? Most of the time, it isn't feasible, desirable, or advisable to just walk away from these obligations, because, among other reasons, they'll eventually catch back up with us. Sometimes, though, simply walking away is essential. I can't tell you what's best for you. What I can say, though, is that our task is to find real hope, and real satisfaction in our occupational lives. That's a big job in itself, to be sure, and will look vastly different for each person.

For me, I'm finding that the act of pursuing something I truly love -- writing and developing this blog, among other things -- provides me the fulfillment I currently lack in a 9-to-5 job. I hope and trust, even, that I will eventually find my way to paid work that is enriching and sufficiently lucrative. In the meantime, I thrive on the love of what I am doing with this and other writing projects; on the trust that I will continue to give myself the -- what? -- half-hour a day I need to work on these passions; and on the very real hope that it will lead me somewhere interesting.

I urge you to give yourself a little time each day to practice your interests. A word of advice: pay no mind to the outcome for now. Just let yourself do what you enjoy. You'll be surprised what it unlocks within yourself, and you'll be surprised where it leads you.

Thanks.

PS -- On the sidebar of this blog on the right-hand side is a list of websites I like. Check out James Altucher's work. He has written at length about jobs and careers, has a lot of great things to say, and has helped me tremendously.