personal narriative | The Action Story

The way the world is designed, heck, the way life itself is designed, it is impossible to go through a full lifetime without some major life changes and adjustments. Regardless of what lifestyle choices we make, we all undergo periodic transformations. Every one of us transforms from being an infant, to a child, to an adolescent, and to an adult. Afterwards, most of us will transform to becoming parents ourselves.

Life in the 21st Century requires more personal transformations than ever! Today nearly all of us go to college. A life transformation occurs both at the start and the completion of our college education. Additionally, the world is changing at an ever faster pace. Gone are the days when one would be able to learn a couple of key skills to use over the course of a 40 year career with the same company. Recent writing has even suggested that the most effective people reinvent themselves every 3-5 years. Coincidentally, the current average time that a person stays at a job is 4.6 years.

It is hard for me to pinpoint the exact moment in which I realized that I needed to undergo a significant re-invention. We often have this notion that ideas just pop into people’s heads out of nowhere. We have all seen shows where a light bulb suddenly pops upon the screen, indicating that someone has come to a sudden realization. This is not actually the case. In reality, ideas are often developed over time, with contributions from multiple people.

For me, it took two separate disappointing experiences in traditionally-structured jobs, a whole bunch of reading, extensive self-reflection, and discussions with plenty of individuals, including some who had undergone a similar transformation themselves.

Chicago_Skyline

Life after college started off really good for me, all things considered. In Chicago, I had a steady job with a large corporation, where I met a lot of people who were also in their 20s, and had plenty of chances to enjoy big city life.

casino_winnigns

It was the life I had imagined for myself at the time, but inevitably, things had to change.

The hardest thing I learned about life working for a large corporation is that a person can put in several good years, and have their work output feel quite well received by those around them, and still have decisions made on their behalf that are not necessarily in their best interest. Essentially, what I learned, which sounds elementary to me now, is that corporations do not care about people, and that in large structured environments, people are often far removed from people making decisions. It is common for someone to have decisions being made regarding their career path by people who do not know them much beyond what would be included in a two page resume.

During this time, I did explore a bit about non-traditional work environments, reading books such as The Art of Non-Conformity. But, I guess I was not ready for it, and so I returned to another traditional structured work environment.

I have not discussed this much in this blog. As a matter of fact, I kind of feel like a phony even admitting that while I have been writing this travel blog, documenting the trips I was taking, I spent a good number of days sitting at a desk in an office like this. Most people would not consider that the lifestyle of a “travel writer”.

I am starting to believe that every life transformation has both externally driven and internally driven components. What I mean by this is that, the same way rehab programs only work for people who first “admit they have a problem”, someone can only re-invent themselves, when they come to some form of realization that it needs to happen. However, I do not see situations where someone decides to make major life changes in response to nothing.

Usually, something happens to make one come to the realization that what they are currently doing is not working. Sometimes, it’s just bad luck, like bad market conditions for a particular industry.

Other times, it is something more positive, like being introduced to something new, a new idea, a new way of thinking, or a new opportunity.

For me, it unfortunately took a combination of experiences. At work, I once again felt that feeling of alienation, as once again decisions were made without my best interests in mind. It actually lead to a work environment that I found not only non-fulfilling, but also unpleasant.

Through the afore mentioned self-reflection, reading and discussions I had over the course of 2015, I came to several key realizations that go beyond the standard “I need a new job”. I realized that….

I had originally decided to apply for the types of work I had applied for because I had not really considered the alternatives.
It is not just the few bold people that work in environments other than office jobs with 9-5-ish hours.
With automation, globalization, and other forces, we are going to have to be more creative, self-directed, and individually motivated in order to maintain our current standard of living.
In order to get what I want out of life I am going to make some major adjustments myself.

For the last few weeks, I have been transitioning to a new employment situation, as a “consultant”. This environment is described to me as being halfway between being in a “traditional” structured office environment and being a freelancer. It requires me to work differently, think differently, and act differently. As is the case for many that are self-employed, there are some financial risks, but in exchange, there is increased flexibility and autonomy. With all these changes, who knows what adventures await!

I am actually quite excited about making these adjustments.

In my new world, there are no more cubicles, and I do not have a permanent office. This means that both meeting people and finding work will require significantly more individual initiative. Without having the same people around me every day, I am going to have to determine for myself which people I should be associating with, both in a personal and professional sense.

In my new world, there is significantly less structure. Nobody is there to tell me what time I should be doing what. In order to ensure productivity, I will have to create this structure myself, determining each day, week, and month what I need to get done and when I will be doing it.

And, most importantly, my new world requires me to fully embrace thinking of life as a “slalom”. Just as those that compete in slalom skiing must think several turns ahead of time, I must be prepared to think several moves ahead of time to ensure that I am setting myself up for a successful, and more importantly, enjoyable life both short and long term.

This requires a new me, and hopefully a better me. It requires me to be more confident, both in what I believe in, as well as what decisions I make and what I believe myself capable of. It requires me to take initiative without being paralyzed by the fear of failure that causes so many people to not pursue their ideas and passions. But, most importantly, I believe it requires me to not lose sight of who I am and what makes me a unique individual. Of late, I have been active in encouraging others as they pursue their individual pursuits. What I am hoping for, both for myself, and for everybody around me, is that we do not transform ourselves into a completely different person, but that we are able to become what I refer to as the best version of yourself.

There is a saying that “old habits die hard”. This is possibly an overstatement, and it might not apply to everybody. But it is a powerful statement of inertia that applies to a large segment of the population. A major stress factor, such as the discovery of a new food allergy or the loss of a job, can change people’s habits rapidly and decisively. However, in the absence of some kind of major push, most people’s habits will change slowly or even not at all. It is for this reason that bad habits like watching too much TV, engaging in frequent unprotected sex with strangers, and even smoking can persist for decades.

I would not consider the habit I am referring to as a bad one. It is mostly just annoying to some people around me. It all started in the 8th grade when I became somewhat obsessed with football. A typically Sunday for me that fall I would not only watch a couple of NFL games, but I would also watch the pre-game show at 11 A.M., as well as NFL Primetime at 6 P.M. On any given Sunday, I’d watch as much as 8 hours of football!

This also caused me to put off too much of my schoolwork. Then one November weekend, I suddenly realized that I had a major Science project due and I was running out of time to complete it. That Friday evening, I came home from school knowing that I would have to scramble to finish this project on-time, and calculated that I would have almost no time for anything else that weekend. My parents were disappointed in me, and actually feared that my grades would suffer because of it.

That weekend’s weather was especially nice, with high temperatures reaching 70 on Sunday. Sometime on Sunday my father reminded me that this would probably be the last 70-degree day until April. As a weather tracker from a young age, this was a fact that I was already well aware of. But, it was something I had not been thinking about through all of this. At this time, my father was just trying to be a good parent, and inform me that procrastination had consequences. But the sudden reminder, that it would be at least three, and up to five months before weather like this would return prompted me to go outside that minute, even though I knew all I could afford was a 10-15 minute break from my work.

The previous winter was my first in Illinois, and it was quite harsh! Not only had I just moved from Long Island, New York, a place with milder winters, but that winter was harsh for Chicago area standards too! Temperatures were significantly colder than their long-term averages, particularly in January and February. I recalled seeing a snowpack persist for over five weeks, something I had never seen before, and school was closed a couple of days due to extreme temperatures (below -20). It was quite a shock for me, and something I did not enjoy. Feeling that fresh air, and knowing that these ten minutes would be all I get for such a long time made me regret my obsessive watching of football in a way I had never regretted anything before. It was that day that I realized that I cared significantly more about activities that I personally participate in than watching professional sports (or anything on TV). I did not completely give up on watching professional sports that day. But, since that day I’ve have had a clear understanding of where my priorities lie.

The winter that followed would be modestly mild for Chicago standards. But, it was still colder than the ones I remembered in New York, and there were still very few days warm enough to be enjoyable for outdoor activities. It was enough to cement in me the lessons I learned that November day. I would spend seventeen more years in the Midwest, in either Illinois, Indiana, or Wisconsin. Only one winter season would be more oppressively cold than that first one (and I was in Wisconsin- a colder place overall). Many of the winters would be milder, some significantly milder. Still, I would rehearse the same pattern every fall. Starting around Halloween weekend, any day where temperatures were projected to reach the 60s or 70s would basically sound an alarm off inside of me. I would start planning ahead of time how to take advantage of these particular days, and bill it “the last nice day of the year.” Sometimes, I would even have some “false starts” in this process, where I would be prompted to enjoy “the last nice day of the year” only to have another stretch (or even two or three) of warm weather occur before winter set in.

Now that I live in Denver, this practice is not necessary. Not only do sunny and mild days occur quite frequently in the middle of the winter, but winter is one of the most exciting times to be in Colorado- due to skiing. But, we are also not in an ordinary weather pattern. Today’s highs will top out somewhere between 60 and 65. But, after this, an abnormally prolonged period of cold weather is expected in Colorado. It might even be too cold to ski, as highs between 10 and 20, and lows below 0 are anticipated for Denver. It will be even colder in the mountains! So, that alarm in my head triggered me to take advantage of this day as if it were the last chance I would have this year to go on a bike ride, which I did.

Of course, one of the challenge in taking advantage of the last nice day of the year is that in November and December, the days are quite short. Today I also had an added time constraint, as I knew the winds around Denver would pick up around noon, making bicycling much more unpleasant. So, I stuck to a much simpler ride, down the Cherry Creek Trail to Cherry Creek State Park, a 25 mile round trip. Most of the ride is flat, or slightly uphill on the way out and slightly downhill on the way back. The first major terrain feature is a large hill near Kennedy Golf Course, which is followed by the climb up to the reservoir.

The Cherry Creek Trail is one of the best trails I have ever ridden! It follows the river, through all of the underpasses, and avoids nearly all traffic lights. This makes it a perfect way to get somewhere quickly on a bicycle. There is some terrain climbing up to Cherry Creek State Park, but overall, the ride here only involves three “climbs”, and each one is only a couple of hundred feet in elevation. Therefore, this would be a great ride for people who are only in moderately good shape, or not looking for a major challenge.

It will be too cold for bicycling in Denver to be enjoyable for at least another week and a half. But, in all likelihood, this was not my “last chance of the year” to ride. Therefore, I probably did not need to be too concerned about taking advantage of today’s weather. However, I am also not seeing any negative consequences in taking advantage of a day like this. I did not miss out on anything important, and everything I need to work on I can complete in the later part of this week when the weather turns awful. So, this old habit is going to “die hard”, and probably won’t change much until it leads to a poor result.

The Action Story

Learning about the world and about ourselves through travel and experiences

Tag Archives: personal narriative

More Than Just a New Job

The Last Chance Of The Year