The next 30 days

I signed up for the 30 Day "Screw Work, Let's Play Challenge" last month -- run by John Williams and Selina Barker.  It started promptly at the beginning of April, when I was still in France, snowboarding and breaking bones.  I missed the first couple of days as a result, but I'd already committed myself upfront to my chellenge: I was going to write the first chapter of my zombie novel.

At first, I was just going to "write my novel", but from what I have learned in life is that you have to know what you want to achieve in order to be able to recognise if you have achieved it.  The "acceptance criteria", as we call this sort of thing in my line of work, was too vague -- either you wrote an entire novel, or you wrote some of the novel, but both could be taken to mean you had achieved what you meant to do.  Even if you hadn't.  Much better to specify "write one chapter". So I did.

I went to Wordpress, dusted off an old domain I had there, changed the template, and I set to work.

Exactly 30 days after the Challenge started, I "launched" my project.  I had successfully written the first chapter of my novel -- something I would not have managed to do without being committed to the challenge, and answerable to a community.  Every week we would say what we would do, and at the end of the week we would say if we had achieved it.  Without the community and the challenge, the chapter would have languished, unwritten.  Just like it has done for years.

Feedback so far has been slow.  I have posted every single page of the first chapter to the Wordpress blog, and anyone who has read any of it has complimented me on the tone, style and content, but I don't yet know anyone who has read it cover-to-cover or given me any constructive criticism.  I need some honest feedback, I need to know if someone reads it and thinks one scene or another is too similar to another zombie story, if the characters are hard to follow, if the setting is too ambiguous.

It's set in Atlantic City, because of the Bruce Springsteen song by the same name that says "everything dies, baby that's a fact, but maybe everything that dies someday comes back".  The only trouble setting it in AC is that I know nothing about the place, and despite reading factsheets and various tourist information, it's very difficult to find random bits of factual information to drop in.  My hope so far is that this won't matter too much.

So.  The challenge is over, I achieved what I said I would.  Now what?  The community gets shut down in a few days time, and people are promising each other they will stay in touch.  Do I now spend the next 30 days working on chapter 2, and trying to be answerable to someone?  Part of me is saying "Big deal, you wrote one chapter. In a month. So what?  People write entire stories in less time than that.  People are writing entire novels.  You're a hack, and you'll be lucky to write more than a couple of chapters before you get bored."

Even if I do write the whole novel, and let's say for argument's sake it will be 10 chapters long, at the current rate of progress that would take 10 months.  What then?  I have a "novel" I've written, that nobody will ever publish.  I get the satisfaction of writing, and of achieving what I want to, but will it ever break me out of my rusty cage?

I have also spoken here, once or twice or more, about the dog sledding adventure I intend to undertake.  I put it off last year as I wanted more time to raise the required sponsorship and get in shape for the trip.  I planned to sign up in March this year, but it wasn't until April that I realised there was a trip available.  I continue to put it off as I need £500 for a deposit before I can get started, and I just don't have that spare.

The 30 Day Challenge community have inadvertently started me thinking about this.  Maybe I am thinking about it all the wrong way.  Maybe I don't need to sign up for a designated charity fundraising trip -- maybe instead I select the option where I pay the full amount, and then instead I turn the whole thing into a challenge.  Not just the training, or the fundraising, or the trip itself -- but I seek out corporate sponsors, I seek out some kind of publishing deal for my journal of the adventure, I seek out personal training...  It might sound ridiculous, but I am inclined to believe this could be possible.  Not in 30 days of course, but I could start.

Did I say in my last entry I should be committed towards adventure more as a spectator than a participant?  Perhaps.  I was recently told by my therapist (who, for financial reasons, I now am going to stop seeing) that I had troubles "connecting", to people and perhaps to life, and it wa shis opinion that the attraction of adventure sports for me was, granted, partly the endorphins but also partly because it allowed me to feel "connected".

There is no grand conclusion here.  Maybe I will get chapter 2 written next month, maybe someone will give me a book deal out of nowhere for it.  Maybe I will commit myself to make the dog sled trip a bigger adventure.  Maybe I will stay sat on the couch, drinking beer, and watching my waistline expand.

Things fall into place

Image source: http://tinyurl.com/2353vye

Things today have felt a bit like they are falling into place.

I mentioned in a previous post about Marianne Cantwell's Escape Your Corporate Cage career course that I had enrolled on, after things failed to take off for me with the similar Screw Work, Let's Play programme.  This Tuesday will be the second teleclass of the program, and I have been working on my accompanying worksheets.

The first set had me start with imagining my dream life -- not so hard to do, it involved things like writing and living near the sea and working from home.  I came a little unstuck around having to come up with a kind of project the first week -- I just drew a blank.  Like with Screw Work, Let's Play and the book's "Play Wednesdays", it should be something that's fun to do and you enjoy and would ideally form a part of your ideal life.  It's pretty sad when you can't think of anything.

To try and make some progress, and because it comes highly recommended by Ms Cantwell and John Williams, I took the Wealth Dynamics test.  I voiced some reservations at first.  In some ways it isn't too dissimilar to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator -- that I took last year when I was out of work, and has no scientific validity its profiling.  While I wasn't assured of any kind of scientific validity to it, I was told that it would help with supporting me on the course if I did know what my WD profile is.

I wasn't exactly surprised when -- $100 later -- of the 8 personality profiles, I turned up the "creator".  I'd read that most people guess their profiles wrong before they take the test, but I would have been very surprised had mine turned up anything other than that.  Recently at work we were giving interviewees psychometric tests, to rate their scores in various aspects, such as creativity and organisation.  I scored off the chart for creativity.

Considering I score so highly for creativity, I was a little disheartened that my muse was absent when I wanted to think of something to do.  I could think of my plans and free range career options, just not some little thing I could do for a taste of it.

Fortunately, today that has all changed.  I have worked through my worksheets for week 2, and was required to outline 3 or 4 ideas for my free range career.  My ideas were as follows:

1. Writing childrens books, in particular books about a naughty zebra who won't do things like have a bath or get ready for bed.  Why a zebra?  I just like them, and while I like things like Bongos and Zedonks more, they are a little obscure for childrens books.

2. An adventure sport company that benefits local communities.  It's an idea I have written on here about before, and it's a fairly simple concept.

3. Feature writer.  Essentially, I write about what I am passionate about.  In this case, I plan to talk to passionate and inspiring people and write about them.

I was then required to eventually narrow down my ideas to just one I am going to pursue for now.  It was hard. It was extremely bloody hard.  I wasn't worried so much about choosing the wrong thing, but I didn't want to not pursue something I was excited about.  In the end, I have decided that my third option gives me all of the elements I want most for my free range lifestyle, and can work other parts into it.

Starting immediately I am going to make contact with people I want to interview for my features.  Since I promised this year I would contact Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage, they can be the start -- and my meeting now will be less "Can we have tea?" but more "I'd like to talk to you about your work".

I am excited and enthused to be starting on this -- the Zebra books can wait a little while.  I'm so excited I am ignoring that I have to go to work tomorrow, because this is really what my life is about...

We're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine

During lunch recently, I was asked by a customer if my company was non-profit.  I had to stop myself from laughing when I told him "Not through choice".  What I dislike about working in sales is how I am encouraged to feel responsible for if the company is making money or not, like how when as a team we are told that sales needs to bring in about £100k before the end of the year if the company is going to avoid making a loss.  The direct implication being: work harder.  It's your fault if the company doesn't make a profit.

A few months back, when I went to the open mike poetry in Shoreditch park, I read a piece about "Gross Domestic Happiness", and the idea of it being a business model -- so, like the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, success was measured by happiness rather than by profit.  It was a very clumsy analogy, and not a very good poem either -- but I still entertain sometimes the idea of a company whose sole aim is to make people happy, the customers and the employees.

A colleague of mine recently left the sales team, and it was quite sad.  She wasn't happy working in sales, which was fair enough -- it's not for everyone, and probably not ultimately for me, either.  Her mistake, though, was to let on.  As soon as she mentioned that she needed a reference for some unpaid voluntary position she was applying for, things turned sour.  Suddenly she was having to have meetings and being told her performance wasn't up to scratch and that the company valued loyalty. In the end, she chose to quit shortly after a meeting where she was presented with evidence from google that had found her posting on an online message board about her plans for working abroad next year.  The whole thing didn't make anybody very happy.

I've been writing on and off about the proposed new opportunity for me in the company.  A chance to be creative and to get away from telemarketing.  I felt flattered that the boss would take into consideration what I was good at and what I would enjoy.  When interviewing new candidates for the sales team recently, we even made oblique references to it -- pay the company with loyalty and stick things through and they will pay you back.

Except this week I've learned that's not the case at all.  We had a team meeting yesterday to discuss our targets for next year and the changes that the hiring of new staff will bring, as well as the sales manager's impending maternity leave.  I was told that the new job we had been discussing for weeks or months is going to be put on hold for now.  It seems that all the talk before was really just talk.  The year ahead is going to be a complicated one, with roles in the team changing and our responsibilities increasing to take on more managerial and mentoring roles.  But still with the main focus on telemarketing.

Don't get me wrong, I shouldn't really complain.  The job has afforded me a lot of luxuries in recent months, and the next year will bring a small payrise, along with higher targets which bring with them higher earnint potential.  Just the same, when what I wanted was to be appreciated for what I am good at, it feels like a kick in the teeth.

After the class and program with Screw Work Let's Play didn't work out recently, I have jumped at the chance for something similar -- an intensive, 21 day program designed for creative people who are tired of jobs, offices and only living for the weekends.  Maybe that's all of us, but I don't want to spend another year just complaining about it -- I don't expect a miracle, but I am hoping to take away from it something to get me doing what I love, and getting paid for it.  Check it out yourself: Escape Your Corporate Cage.

I guess that's where we find me this week.  Let down, beaten up, overworked and disheartened, but perhaps in just the right place to start something to break me out of my rusty cage.

The nights draw in

In the end, The Screw Work, Let's Play eSchool and/or Programme that I wrote about last time didn't happen for me. We could probably see that was how it would be at the end of the post -- I wasn't suitable for the eSchool, and couldn't afford the bigger Programme.

I can't deny I'm disappointed, but the guys involved were -- and are -- so incredibly nice and helpful. It wasn't their fault I don't have a clear enough idea of what I want to do to join in the SWLP eSchool, and I felt they were genuinely sorry they couldn't help to make the programme more attainable for me. I wonder if I'm even the target market -- perhaps it is aimed more at older, successful people who have had enough of the corporate life and want to be their own boss. Rather than myself, while not exactly counting as a "young person" any more, but far from successful in any of my chosen careers to date. And still searching.

Speaking of searching, my recent meeting with the boss was surprisingly productive, and I think I may have previously underestimated her. It's silly, because obviously she has been running and growing a business for the last however-many years, even if the company does sometimes seem to be balancing on a knife edge.

Completely aside from anything to do with the business itself, I get the impression that she has actually listened to my thoughts and feelings in previous meetings, as well as things I have said unofficially -- and combined this with her own perceptions of me, and my preferred methods of work. The outcome is that I appear to be offered a job that has been almost tailored to me -- sure, it's not my dream job, but nothing is going to be until I work out what that is. Just the same, if I have to stay in the company, then it's not a bad start to be in a job with more of a focus on social media, that takes me out of telemarketing, and gives me the time to be creative.

I was asked if it was a job I would apply for if I saw it advertised elsewhere. That's a difficult question, because I have seen recently quite how negative things can turn if an employer finds out you are looking elsewhere -- and the jobs I do apply for elsewhere never lead to anything. As I say, it's a start -- but it's getting to that start right now that seems a struggle, since first we have to recruit more members for the sales team, then have them all settled and trained and performing, before I can leave.

Outside of work and wondering what the hell I'm doing generally... there's not a whole heap to report. I've been meaning to get back into the rock climbing -- I even found out when the next course was starting, how much it was, and convinced a colleague to join in. Then plans collapsed when we ended up with more work and no chance to take part.

I remembered recently that I said before I turn 30 I would write letters to Alexei Sayle, Carol Ann Duffy, and Simon Armitage and ask them if I can have tea with them. Since the big 3-0 is rapdily approaching in the new year, there's no time to waste -- but the letters haven't yet been written. Or started.

The clock's went back to GMT in England this morning, so winter is on its way and the nights aren't so much drawing in, as they are drawn. It's that time of year where it gets dark, wet, and cold -- we should probably invest in one of those light boxes to keep the 'natural' light levels up.

Lots of people online are talking once more about NaNoWriMo -- I've never joined in before. And won't be this time, even though there's that rumoured zombie novel I'm never actually writing. I skipped last month's "Kid, I Wrote Back" open mike poetry -- partly due to only the day before returned from warmer climes, but partly because I'd felt the session we had in the park in the summer had gone horribly for me. That's no excuse, since I'd performed at an open mike since then in London at The Poetry Cafe, and been received warmly and appreciatively for my humour, talk of space and wonders of the solar system, as well as my actual poetry. Just the same, I have nothing written for the next session and no real ideas.

I keep thinking I want to write something about Jupiter's volcanic moon Io, because I think it's fascinating...but that's quite a big call for someone of very limited talent.

Left a good job in the city, working for the man every night and day

Something is wrong with me.
Every day, people go to work.
Plumbers, police officers, and postal workers.
Dustmen, doctors, and dot net developers.
Museum curators, masseurs, and Michael Jackson impersonators.

and me.

I feel sure that of all the people I see each day, everyone else is quietly going about their days, doing their jobs, and not thinking at least once a day " I need to get out of the place, but I have no idea what I could do any more".
What is wrong with me that I am not happy just having a job?  And not just any old job, but one that rewards me handsomely if I meet targets each month and each quarter. A job so simple that all I have to do is sell stuff, and if I want to earn more, I just have to work harder.


I should be thrilled that nobody's life hangs in the balance with what I do.  I should be grateful that I have a job almost guaranteed for as long as I can live up to my key performance indicators.  I should be kissing someone's feet in thanks for never having to worry about my safety beyond if the water in the cooler is looking a little green.

But we all know the drill by now: I'm not.

Thankfully, last week I read about the "Paid to Play eSchool", from John Williams and Marianne Cantwell, and it sounded like just what I needed.  I'm a reader and Twitter follower of both Williams and Cantwell (as regular readers will have noticed in recent posts), and was convinced from just reading about the eSchool that the cost would be a good investment for me.  It might not get me out of this job right now, but in time it would pay off when I was getting paid to do what I love.  I signed up, I was excited and I was nervous.

I wouldn't say I was now happy to go to work, but I could stand it better knowing that it could pay for something like this -- something that would help me work out how to use my talents and passions to make my way in the world, rather than just working for the man every night and day.

The trouble came a few days later, when I started to doubt my own suitability for the sessions. I read and re-read the synopsis, and started to wonder if it wasn't perhaps more pitched at people who knew what they wanted to do, but needed some help to do it, rather than fuck ups like me who are still kicking ideas about in their head like half-deflated footballs.  While I know that surely whatever I do must involve writing, I get a bit lost beyond that.  Sure, I could go in to the eSchool and say "I want to run an adventure sports company where the profits all go into helping the local communities where the activities are run".  But when I think about it, what about that would I actually enjoy?  What do I know about running any kind of a business, anyway, and is that the part I would actually enjoy -- or would it just be the adventure sports?  That's hardly a way forward.

I fired off an email, mentioning my thoughts and concerns -- and I hoped they'd say "Don't be silly!  That's normal -- everyone will be in the same boat as you!".  But instead, they agreed with me -- it wasn't right for me.  Now I feel like I can't even do this right.  I'm immensely grateful the organisers don't just take the money and run, they care about actually helping people (this is their own "paid to play" careers, I guess), and so it's important to get me in at the level that's appropriate.  Unfortunately, the appropriate level for me is going to be a lot more money than I have spare -- it's a work in progress, I'm waiting to hear back if there is anything I can do to make up the shortfall in cost between one programme and the other.

In the meantime, the boss has asked me for a meeting this week to discuss the job that we previously started talking about, and which I believe they moved the goalposts on and probably will do again.  What's supposed to get me out of sales and into social media and copywriting of email newsletters could just turn out to be a carrot on a stick, luring me ever forwards to keep me there.

I walk past people every day getting off the train and going to work on a building site neighbouring my flat, and I wonder if they ever think about their jobs -- or if they just get on with it, and accept it as normal.

Motivation follows action

Image source

Today was out not-so-monthly meeting at work.  They're meant to be monthly, but for some reason we'll have two or so in a row and then none for months.  If you ask me, once a month is too frequent for this kind of thing -- but nobody is asking me.  The only upside of these meetings is the company activity we get afterwards.

A few months back we went bowling at one of London's more original locations -- All Star Lanes.  I suck at bowling, and get even worse if I drink alcohol while bowling, so I think I came in last place out of the whole company.  All 12 of us, or however-many there were.  And to make matters worse at the time, nobody understood my references to The Big Lebowski -- even though the place was filled with posters for Lebowskifest.  Just the same it was fun.

Today's meeting was the usual.  But the activity afterwards was what I had been looking forward to all week: indoor climbing.  It was chosen randomly by the boss, who didn't think anyone had any experience -- but I completed a beginner's course earlier this year, and one of my colleagues used to run a kid's summer camp.

The climbing itself was good, if a little short -- and because it was pitched at total beginners, I could have done with it being a little more challenging.  I also wanted to be refreshed on tying the ropes, since that's the part I can't remember and the most important part I need for if I am to take my test to climb without supervision.  The good news is that belaying someone who is climbing is an automatic thing, like riding a bike, so that after a minute to find yourself again, you can just do it, without needing to think.

Any way you look at it, an afternoon climbing is better than an afternoon in the office, on the phone, trying to make sales.  I'm sure a lot of people get a buzz out of sales and would never want to do something like rock climbing, but that's just not me.  Today I am tired and aching, but happy -- I was left with the tired/happy feeling I used to get in Utah after a few hours snowboarding in the afternoon.

A friend told me recently that motivation follows action -- you have to force yourself to do something at first, before you will feel motivated to keep doing it.  Needing more exercise and to get out more and meet people is what I need to do, but can lack the motivation at times -- now I need to act first, take the time out to go climbing and do the things to improve myself.

I still think the idea of using adventure sports to help improve lives and communities is something that has merit -- it would tick the boxes for me, of helping people and being active -- and I guess the beginning of everything is that I have to be doing these sports first of all.  John Williams suggests Wednesdays as a day to "Play", to give yourself a taste of what you would like to be doing instead of work -- this seems like as good an idea as any.

Innernetz, I need your help!

It's Thursday, and by all rights I should today return to the much-neglected and Gala Darling-inspired Things I Love Thursday posts.  Except it's hard for me today to list the things I love -- or at least make it interesting.

The last couple of days in London, it's seemed like it has barely got light -- the rain has been torrential, and almost constant.  We can't complain too much though -- it's a subtle reminder of how bad things are in other parts of the world, like Africa and Asia -- Pakistan in particular.

The cloud and the rain is also a useful metaphor for how I've felt this week, and increasingly over the last couple of weeks.  I've been saying it almost from the day I started in this job, but I really have to get out of here -- it has been particularly painful this week.  Naturally, there's been no more talk of the marketing position I was offered a few weeks back -- so there's no way of knowing if or when that will happen, or if it will even be a job worth taking.  Right now I am just feeling stranded in a job I hate, with no way of knowing what to do to get out or to change it.

So, innernetz, I am asking for your help.  I am sincerely hoping there are more people reading this than I think, otherwise it's to an audience of one.  If you're pushed for time, just scroll down to the parts in bold for the action items -- then come back for the rest later.  You know you'll want to.

I was struck yesterday by something someone said on Twitter.  Inspired Entrepreneur Nick Williams had a short, simple message that said "Your creative and spiritual gifts are a perfect match for someone else’s needs and wants".  While I have some doubts about any "spiritual" gifts I have to offer (due to my skepticism about the existence of any kind of "spirit"), I do truly believe that my creative gifts -- my skills -- would be a perfect match for someone.  I'm a talented guy.  I write well, I'm creative and imaginative, I am easy to get along with and undemanding.  I am also very passionate when something engages my interest.

And this is why I need your help, Innernetz.  Being good just isn't good enough today, especially not when there are far more people than there are jobs.  Ultimately, I want to come to the point where I can turn my unique ideas into something that will earn me a living -- but before I can get to that point, I need to keep working -- and I need to be working in a job that I don't feel is crushing me.

Traditional job hunting is getting me nowhere.  Applying for jobs advertised on the internet places me as one among hundreds of applicants, and I am lucky to get so much as a polite refusal.  Recruitment consultants are unwilling to return my phone calls.  One trusted recruiter, whom I have dealt with over several years, describes my experience to date as "choppy" -- which she feels combines with a lack of recent experience in a creative or media role to give me this current situation: languishing in sales.

We need to a different approach, and something needs to change.  We've heard about the guy who is advertising a promise of 10% of his first month's wages to someone who can get him a job.  We've heard of people walking the streets with a sandwich board requesting a job.  I even heard of one guy, who after being rejected from the same PR agency several times, resorted to erecting a billboard on their front lawn.  It had a childhood picture of himself, and the caption "When I grow up, I want to work for...".  Funny how I can't remember the agency's name any more.

I need a unique angle to demonstrate the skills I have that make me such an amazing employee.  The second prong of the attack is that I also need anyone who reads this to drop me a line with a suggestion of someone I can contract -- a friend, an ex-employer, even a current employer -- who would be able to help me with this job hunt.

I am reading a lot of career change/life coach information at the moment -- including John Williams' "Screw Work, Let's Play", Marianne Cantwell's "Free Range Humans", and Mark McGuinness' "Lateral Action".  The trouble is -- and maybe it's the job (what Mr McGuinness calls "the sensible job that pays the bills but corrodes your soul") -- but I come home every night feeling frustrated, resentful and depressed.  This doesn't fill me with energy and optimism for striking out on my own, if I even knew what I wanted to do or how I could do it.

To recap -- what do I need?  Firstly and obviously, the main thing is I need a new job.  In the absolute short term, I need a job where I can be useful and creative and use my talents.  It doesn't have to be what I am going to do with the rest of my life, but I can't get anywhere when I feel the way I currently do each day.

Secondly, I need your thoughts and your ideas and your help on what I can do to.  Traditional job hunting methods are dead -- I need something that's going to set me apart.

Thirdly, and this can tie in with the second, I need referrals and contacts.  People who will listen to what you say when you tell mention my name.

For the rest of it, I'm on my own.  It's going to be up to me to figure out how to eventually turn "work" into "play", to break free of my rusty cage, and to strike out on my own.  But before I can do any of that, someone get me out of this sales role.

Got the funk

I can't deny it, I am in a funk right now.  The trouble is, I don't know what to do to change it.

I take the right pills every day.  I also take multivitamins, cod liver oil and vitamin C supplements.  I make a conscious effort to take the stairs rather than use the lift nine times out of 10, and walk up escalators rather than ride to the top.

I can't say I don't have enough social interaction, either.  I am forced in my job to be calling people almost all day, every day, and went out to lunch with delegates twice in the same week.  I also went out and performed some of my poetry at the Poetry Cafe's "unplugged" night on Tuesday night, to a warm response.  One of the people there mentioned recognising me from Kid, I Wrote Back in Shoreditch and my recent performance at the festival in Shoreditch park.  Interestingly, after my performance in the park I have been considering giving up on writing and performing poetry since I am really just not that good.

So, then -- what's wrong?  Work continues to get me down, as ever.  Last week, apropos of nothing one day the MD asked me for 15 - 20 minutes.  We had a meeting, and she offered me the opportunity to take up a different role within the company -- to move out of sales and into marketing, because she thought I would be good at it and might enjoy it more.  I was pleased, I thought I would enjoy it more, and would be good at it -- putting the "social" into social media marketing, writing the email newsletters that go out to our community, and hopefully getting some specific time set aside to write the blog I set up for the company but never have the time or motivation to do anything with.

We said I'd take the week to think it over.  And the first thing I had to think about was, what was the salary going to be like in this position?  You would expect that this would be given with any kind of information about a role being offered, after all it would dramatically affect any decision you were to make.  But all this week the most I was able to establish was that it would be "very similar" to my current salary, which given it would be marketing instead of sales, didn't seem to make a whole heap of sense -- how similar could it be if there were no commissions from sales?

I got to have a meeting today, to discuss my thoughts.  And in this meeting today it seemed like in seven days the goalposts had been moved -- where last week I was told I would be starting this role in 2 - 3 months, if I took it, since they'd need to hire and train someone new for sales, today I was told it would be more like 4 - 6 months.  They want to bring in at least 3 new sales team members to ensure there is no dip in revenue.  I also found out that my salary will indeed be very similar in this new role, because I will be expected to be directly generating sales still!  Not through telemarketing, thankfully, but I will still be expected to work on commission and meet sales targets.

This time last week I was happy and excited about the possibility.  Today I feel a bit ripped off.  I have provisionally accepted the position for now, but can change my mind at any time, so will have to keep looking for something else.  And will have to magically find some motivation to look for jobs and apply for jobs and not get disheartened when nothing comes of it.

In her email newsletter today, Marianne Cantwell of Free Range Humans, explores how these days being employed -- rather than self-employed -- is the riskier option.  Her argument makes a lot of sense "With job security out the window for most people, employment is the equivalent to being self employed with only one client (your employer)".  I'd not thought of it like that before, but it makes a lot of sense.

What I disliked about being a freelance PR was the worry of not knowing when I would be working next, or how long I would be between positions.  I didn't enjoy the free time between roles or go anywhere like I planned to because I didn't know how long I had to last for.  Maybe I just wasn't a very good freelancer, one recruiter once told me that if I was any good I would have been offered a permanent role -- and I felt the same way, I longed for a secure, permanent position, somewhere I could stay and grow.  The world doesn't feel that way any more -- the threat of redundancy feels like it is going to be there, and you can expect to change careers, not just jobs, several times in your working lifetime.

With a little thanks due to Gala Darling, in a recent burst of inspiration my girl has started to put into practice her plans for world domination.  Determined not to spend the next 30 years working in an office for someone else, the girl is putting into action plans for her own business -- go to her blog and check it out, because not only is she someone special, but she has some excellent ideas and is really showing the rest of us how it's done when it comes to making plans to break free and go into business being yourself.  Embodying the ideas of Screw Work, Let's Play -- and now borrowing my copy of John Williams book -- the girl will soon be getting paid to play, or in her case be getting paid to be crafty.

It's far too simplistic to blame all my unhappiness right now on a job I can't stand most of the time.  But when you are there and feeling that way 9 hours a day, 7 days a week, I guess it has an effect.  Obviously, I have deeper seated issues I also need to address -- if I was a happier person, maybe I wouldn't let a job get me down.  But I'm just in a funk right now.

I'm gonna break my rusty cage... and run

 

My moods are lately cycling between depression/despair, and a kind of almost euphoric optimism.  It's fun for the whole family, I can tell you.  I saw an ad in the morning paper to take part in a clinical trial looking at depression -- "Great," I thought "This is one clinical trial where they won't exclude you for having a history of depression."

As a sidenote, if it wasn't for the fact that I'm a bit of a screw-up and didn't exactly ace the first interview, I am reasonably sure that I would have been turned away from joining the RAF because of a history of depression.

Anyway, I was rejected for the study after all -- because I had psychotherapy last year when I was out of work and depressed.  It was early and I was tired and I should have called it by its proper name of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, and it wasn't even what they were asking me about -- which was if I'd ever had Electro-Convulsive Therapy or the like.

But I was talking about moods.  The other morning, as I was walking to the station, I was thinking about the song Given To Fly, which ranks up there as one of my favourite songs ever.  I love the message of an ordinary person discovering unexpectedly an exraordinary ability, and as a child growing up I used to wish every birthday that I could fly.  Sometimes now when I am unable to sleep or just want a distracting daydream, I'll imagine being able to fly and sit up on quiet rooftops in the dark, unnoticed.  I was thinking about that song and how I want to be "given to fly" myself.  Not just literally, but metaphorically -- I want that brilliance, I want to feel that inspired.  I guess I have to be the change I want to see.  Wasn't that something Buddha said?  Either that or it was Henry Ford, and I get the impression those two gents were quite different people.

Where the video comes into all of this is that it's another message that I love and is becoming a mantra of mine -- I'm going to break my rusty cage, and run.  It says I am not going to be confined, I am not going to be caged, I am not going to be limited.  I am bigger than all of this.  I am going to break my rusty cage, and I am going to be free.

Also, for such an inspiring song the video is hilariously 90s.  I love that Absolute Radio have recently lauched their Absolute 90s station (and only wished it played more 90s alt rock), so it's very fitting -- but as I say, the whole thing is hilarious, with the crazy camera work and jumping all over with the guitars.  Thankfully Chris Cornell has got more quietly intense over the years.

Breaking out of my rusty cage at the moment means I have to do something.  Sure, my job sucks and I don't know what else to do -- but in the meantime, what I can do is write more, and if I want to one day do stuff with adventure sports then I need to put down the remote and actually get out there.  We'll see how I get on with it all.

Do anything you wanna do

"Tired of doing day jobs
With no thanks for what I do
I'm sure I must be someone
Now I'm gonna find out who"
Eddie & The Hot Rods "Do Anything You Wanna Do" (1977)

I've been here before, you know.  Wanting change, but not really knowing how to effect it -- dissatisfied with where I am, but not making any progress.  Except now, I am beginning to feel like I have some tools to work with.

In my last post, I mentioned John Williams' book Screw Work, Let's Play, and listed all the things I'd do if I could whatever I liked for a whole year.   The only trouble is, there's so many ideas and it's not necessarily possible to do all of them if you only have one year -- so instead you get to imagine that you have infinite opportunities, or for the sake of brevity in this case, seven.

 

This is my list of what careers I would follow over my now-various years of play.  There isn't actually seven of them in my case, but it might expand later -- I figure it can only help to add more as I think of them.

Year One: Adventure

Pro-surfer, snowboarder, rock climber -- you name the adventure, I'm on it.  As a side-note, my interest in adventure sports is pretty funny -- at school, I sucked at PE, and was the despair of many teachers who found that I didn't measure up to my athlete older brother.  It turns out since then that I don't hate sports at all, I just have to discover them in my own time -- and if lessons at school had involved more adventure and less ball games, perhaps things would have been different...

Year Two: Super Hero.

Save the animals. Help the people. Save the world.  I'd rescue sea turtles of central America and the beautiful Bongo Antelope in the mountains of Kenya.  I'd do aid work in disaster zones, build schools in developing countries.  I'd spend a season as a fire-lookout in a national forest, helping spot forest fires before they start.  I probably wouldn't actually have any super-powers though.

Year Three: Artist.

Poet, writer, sculptor, painter.  My days would be spent learning, doing, and expressing.

Year Four: Traveller.

Seeing the world, taking pictures, taking notes, dreaming. Always moving on.

Year Five: Buddhist.

Spend a year in a monastery -- studying zen, eating rice.

I feel like I am making just the tiniest, little bit of progress here.  It might not seem like it to an outsider -- it could seem I have a lot of dreams but no practical ideas on making any of them into how to get paid to do what I love.  But the first step is I have to work out what I enjoy, and what I would want to do.

In my current sales role, despite doing well against my own targets -- for the moment, at least --  there's not a moment's doubt that this isn't what I want to be doing, especially not here, and especially when they start kicking us for not meeting the weekly sales targets.  The sooner I figure out where to be, the better.

Year of play

"My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it. I never did like to work, and I don't deny it. I'd rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh -- anything but work."
--Abraham Lincoln

I've been reading a book recently called Screw Work, Let's Play on "how to do what you love and get paid for it". I'm only a few chapters in so far, but I find it inspiring.

My Dad, like countless Fathers before him, had an attitude to work that I am trying to shake off -- with the help of Mr Williams' book.  My Dad has always told me that you're not meant to enjoy your job or the work you do -- if you enjoyed it, they wouldn't pay you to turn up.  I am slowly starting to realise this doesn't have to be the case -- in fact, the most 'successful' people are ones who do enjoy what they do. They are successful at what they do, and successful in the wider sense that I strive to be -- happy with myself, and with where I am.

That's where this blog is coming from.  Unlike previous incarnations, I want this blog's purpose to not just log my life, to not simply record the day-to-day in a hopefully well-written way, but to show the journey to brightness.

One of the first exercises in "Screw Work, Let's Play" has you imagine you can take a year off.  What would you do with it?  "But I can't take a year off," you cry, or you do if you are anything like me, "I have bills to pay and rent to pay and..." -- and that's where you're cut off.  Imagine it differently, then.  You can take a year off work, and the author will pay you your normal salary, so you're no worse off.  Now, get to imagining.  You write down all the things you would do, if you could do anything.

Because it's my journey and my blog, my year of play filled with grand and impossible things is as follows:

Travel the world.  Especially the ancient civilisations of South America.
Write and blog.
Interview passionate people.
Perform and write poetry.
Have adventures!  Hiking, rock climbing, camping, surfing, snowboarding...  Also learn to do all these things.
Save the sea turtles.
Be a fire look-out in a National Forest.
Help people in need.
Study Zen.
Take pictures.
Enjoy music.
Help animals.

In my next post, I'll move on to the next stop.  What would I do with my life if I knew I could not fail...