Tag: work

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February BLAHS

By far the most agonizing part of my year is the one long month in three parts, January, February and March.

January begins with a tease of extreme temperatures, from near absolute zero to tropics. It thaws and freezes in daily cycles. February decides to be eye ball freezing cold mixed with some nice bouts of freezing rain and truck loads of snow, so that when March arrives we have four feet of slush.

February is particularly hard on my nerves with overcrowded, never on time or no show buses, that frequently get stuck in the snow, and our city is turned into a parking lot at rush hours. My 5km commute can become 3-4 hours of agony. It wasn’t always this bad, but the city’s poor transportation management is to blame for a large portion of it now.

I get tired of lugging not only myself, but half my wardrobe with me everywhere I go, layering is not a fashion statement, but a necessity. Dressing for extreme cold and deep snow puts a whole new perspective on ‘just popping over to the corner store’. You must prepare before you go out, and this can take up to a half hour. And bringing home even a jug of milk and a loaf of bread can seem like hauling a load of bricks, the weight of such is proportional to the distance you must travel. It increases by at least 10 pounds for every block you walk.

Salt leaves its trademark white undulating lines on boots and coats. Gravel and sand soon make a pathway in your house.

The only reason why I go out at this time of year is to go to some place warm, as my apartment is often very cold. I have an indoor winter coat that I sometimes have to wear. This is the plight of many fellow apartment and condo dwellers in our city. We build buildings and infrastructure with a California spirit and neglect the reality of our harsh winters. Our ridiculous laws are also rather optimistic; must be 72 F during the day (seldom attained) and 68 F at night, which translates to 60 F in reality because it never reached 72 F during the day (why do they turn it down at night?!). No need to turn on the heat until October 12th and off it goes by April. The only thing that is warm on many a Thanksgiving is the turkey. Perhaps this is a clever ploy to keep us going to work. Otherwise we would realize we are nuts to go out and stay home.

The upside is, we are heading towards spring, instead of away from it. The days are quite noticeably longer. Every once in a while the sun comes out and you can feel its increasing strength. And lo and behold! I saw some very brave or crazy song birds have returned.

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Do Your Best Work

I once knew a lady artist who often did cards and the like for fellow employees in our office.  Her work was pretty, but not outstanding, and she used cheap cardboard.  Still, we enjoyed any gift of art we received from her, for any occasion, birthdays, anniversaries, retirement.

One day I went to her home to help her with a computer issue I was familiar with.  She lived in a large condominium that was jammed packed with her art materials.  The dining room table was overflowing with completed art work, mostly cards, in her traditional style, except for one glaring difference.

These cards were beautiful!  They were professionally done, on high quality paper with expensive materials.  They were really good.  They were awesome!

My head could not get around the discrepancy between what I saw at work and what I witnessed here.  In answer to my unspoken bewilderment she said “These are for my paying customers”.

My young naive self was shocked.  As an artist it never occurred to me to do less than my best for any reason.

Does it make sense on any level to do substandard work when it is for free?  I felt kind of insulted that the cards I got were crap.  They didn’t seem so special any more.

It is a lesson that has stuck with me many years.  I am not going to give out crap because it is free.  I am not saving my best for only those who will pay for it.  I create for JOY.  And if someone else gets joy from it, glory!  Yes, I do sell my work, it costs money to create my books, photography and art.  But freebies to my friends and family are of the same quality and effort.

I feel the same way about work.  Whether you volunteer or are paid, give your best effort (although it is sometimes true that volunteers give more than paid workers).

I guess I am just naive.

Do your best work at all times.  Not just for money.

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Just Sit

I usually get up at 4 a.m. so I can do my creative projects and some physical exercise before going to work.  But every once in a while, I just sit.

That’s right.  Just sit.

Hands wrapped around a big mug of tea, the cat in my lap, I will stay put until it is time to get ready for work.  That is 3 hours of sit.  I am amazed at how fast that goes by!

And how necessary it is.

How wonderful to disengage.  Sometimes it is inspiring.  Sometimes I get new ideas.  Most of the time I just rest.  Three hours of not expecting anything, planning anything, trying to figure stuff out, worrying, ruminating, processing information.  Rushing.

Nice also to have 3 hours where I am silent.  Seldom do I speak a word, not even to cat.  Likewise, it is good not to listen either.  The next 8 to 10 hours at work are filled with non-stop chatter, where I must communicate clearly and listen intently.

In the early morning hours, not much activity in the world outside my doors.  Birds may be singing to the sunrise, or rain pattering on my window.  Sometimes the howl of wind.  No cars, voices, vehicles, sirens, telephones, people and the like – yet.

Most weekends and holidays in summer I spend hours of sit outside.  Next door is a splendid park, complete with thundering waterfall.  In these surroundings if I sit still long enough, nature gets curious about or bored with me and reveals herself.  Creatures appear and check me out or resume their daily business.  Nature is calm and soothing yet brimming with life and activity.  A still-busyness. Work is noisy, demanding and always, always busy.  No still there.

So now as I just sit and let the world carry on without me, my cat stretches full length down to my ankles and yawns.  The clock is telling me the hour has come.  Already ten minutes past the hour.  Think I’ll just sit a bit more . . .

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Wastelands Part Two

The biggest conspiracy in the world has to do with self control, and the worst offender is the New Age Movement.

They take the concept of being in control of your life, that is, getting your dreams, and reverse the order of achieving this, so you feel like you are moving towards your dreams, when in fact you are as still and as comatose as a rock.  New Agers say the way to get what you want is to believe first (wish, hope, pray), then you will have what you want (money, time, talent), which enables you to do (pursue your dreams).  Nope.  Doesn’t happen that way!  It is DO and believe, but always DO first.  And after you’ve done a lot of doing you may have what you need (your dream come true and all its perks).  It gets easier to believe the more you do.  And of course you get closer to having the more you do.

God is not going to write that novel for you, no matter how much you believe.  Getting up at 4 a.m. and writing will get your novel.  All the blood, sweat and tears of writing, rewriting and getting it published and marketed is on YOU.  Ditto for that university degree, that new job, that vacation, losing weight, whatever you dream of.  The believing part comes in where you trust yourself to be disciplined to work and leaning on divine help when you are not.  That you will succeed.  That you can do this.  The good news is some supernatural assistance will come your way once you start to take wholehearted action.

Divine help comes in the form of giving you the strength of perseverance, day in and out.  To get you up at 4 a.m., to stop you craving sweets, to prevent you from overspending, to give you energy to clean the house.  All the things you cannot do because willpower is a fickle god.  It comes and goes and is so moody!  You need God to get you past and through your weaknesses.  He will also give you the right information you need, insights, wisdom and inspiration that you can’t get yourself, and get this – He will give you favor!

I used to be so caught up in the believe, have and do movement that I wasted decades of my life, when I could have been making stuff!  I could have been having enormous fun creating!  Because I am now an ex-New Ager I harp on taking action as much as I can, so that others don’t fall into these traps.

The only persons getting rich from the New Age are the people promoting it.  All get rich quick schemes prey on your presumed laziness (but you will find when you take action this belief in innate laziness is not true!), and your belief in lack (don’t have enough money, time, talent, whatever).  If anyone says you can get your dreams with little effort “Buy my plan today for the low price of $500”, run, don’t walk away!  The self publishing industry is rife with this sort of thing.  Forget this – just write!

There is only one way to get anything you deem worthwhile, make the effort.  Roll up your sleeves and get working.  Every single day.  And watch!  Whatever you are creating will evolve, and before you know it, you’ll have something others don’t have – your university degree, your novel, your masterpiece, your laundry done!  As a bonus, you will lose your frustrations, depression, anxiety and anger.  Just from DOING!

I started taking action for an end result and discovered I do because I love what I do!  It is the process I enjoy. The finished products are just proof of my action, a bonus for hard work. I am not a success in the worlds eyes. I’m not a best selling writer or artist, except to myself – I’m the only one who buys them!  But I have something others only dream of, and more. Things have changed within me since I now do instead of dream, things I could never have imagined.

So I encourage you to get up, put away your magic potions and chants, stow away the candles and magic wand, roll up your sleeves and DO your dreams.  Time is running out!

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NOT on the Buses

Nasty day.  Not snowing yet, but that rain is near ice.  The bus is late, difficult to gauge by how much, they come when they feel like it, sometimes two arriving together, and then nothing for days.  My feet start to get cold.  A bus passes, too full to pick us up.  This is the daily attempt to commute to work.  Repeat the scenario on the way home, the wait so long, I could catch the next bus back to work.

Nothing can accelerate work place burn out faster than a lousy commute.  Perhaps the commute started the burn out in the first place.

Forget the advice to spice things up by going a different route.  I take the shortest, and only route available.  If there was another way, it would be infinitely longer – why would I want to do that?  Get up earlier and come home later?  Na.  And in the winter it is dark a.m. and p.m., not much change of scenery there.  Finding another route is as bad advice as standing on a bus without holding onto anything to improve your balance (yes this piece of wisdom is on the internet).  Advice doled out by people who never take the bus.  Ever.

It’s not the scenery that dulls the mind.  It is the waiting. Looking hopefully down empty roads and seeing no vehicles, of any kind, in sight.  Just blowing snow.  Or sheets of rain.  Or a nice sunset on the good days.

Once on a bus, packed in like sardines, our bulk is smashed to one side as bus takes corners on two wheels, and folded up like an accordion on sudden stops and starts.  And it stops at every. single. stop.  We get every. single. red light.

Eight a.m.  The driver sings at the top of his lungs all the way to work, in two languages.  A lot of tremolo, but not gravel down a tin chute, thank goodness. But at 8 a.m.?

Move closer to work?  Are you kidding me?!  The repercussions of that should be evident.

But busing beats walking. Walk?  I had to during bus strikes.  In January.  It took an hour and a half one way.  And I had it easy.  Some people had to walk hours and still put in a full day.  I near froze, got buried in a snow bank by a snow plow and generally believed my life would soon end.  Bicycle?  Dangerous. But brave souls do it. Koodoos to them for sure.  Plus they save a huge amount of money and get in shape.  Winter must be a blast to bicycle in.  I used to in the summer, but bike thefts are common.  So nice at the end of the day to find your only ride home is gone or worse, mangled.  No room in current office for safe stow away of bike.  I know, I have an excuse for everything.

Of course everyone has their own horror stories of taking the bus.  I could curl your hair with some of mine.

I am, of course, ranting.

I figured it out.  I have gone down the same road almost 6000 times during the past twelve years.

If I get to retire when I want, it means maybe only a thousand more trips.

I won’t miss it.