Frittering Our Lives Away

Today I saw an amusing picture someone shared on a social media website of a zebra clinging to the top of a giraffe's neck, peering over its head into the far distance. The caption asked, "Can you see Friday yet... ?" It seems that all around us, there are messages about wishing we were at some other time or some other place than where we are right now. Like candy, these mental bon-bons are harmless enough as occasional sentiments. But, also like candy, it is easy to over-indulge, leading to consequences one might not expect or prefer.


Used Courtesy of MyCommentSpace.com
Where does this desire not to be "here", "now", come from? How is it that we can live week to week, month to month, year to year, always yearning for some other day or situation to arrive? A good bit of this tendency no doubt comes from our environment. We grow up hearing our parents, relatives, and friends bemoaning their circumstances. We get sent to school where we come to feel that homework is a chore and that looking forward to Friday and the weekend is a normal emotional state. To resist these attitudes is to risk alienation from a vital circle of society. The path of least resistance is to go along with it, adopt the outlook, and mimic acceptable catch-phrases, such as, "Thank God it's Friday!" Well before the weekend is over, it hits us - Monday is coming! Soon, whatever joy we may have been experiencing gets overshadowed by the dread we've learned to affect from those we love. By the time we join the working world, it is almost a competition, at the coffee break, to be the first one to exclaim, "I hate Mondays!"

But not all of the blame can be laid at the feet of our acquaintances and institutions. Some of us take the ball and run considerably farther. We learn that we can distinguish ourselves by the thought and creativity we pour into our expressions of elation or vehemence over the periods of time approaching in the near future. There's a cost to doing this, however, and that cost adds up. Expressing ourselves in these ways tends to define us, in the minds of those we spend time with as "John, the guy who loves Fridays" or "Maria, the girl who hates Mondays". And, having trained others to see us in those ways, we tend to then reinforce that image as part of our own search for meaning and belonging. We can be counted on to say or create or share ever-cleverer expressions of ourselves as people who somehow get by in life based on the promise of a better day to come - like the caption on the photo of the zebra.  In time, we believe this definition ourselves.

You have undoubtedly asked yourself some form of the age-old question, "If I could go back in time to a specific point in my life, which one would I choose to make it all turn out differently?" The mind loves contemplating hypotheticals like this. And yet, the joke is on whoever asks that question because doing so virtually guarantees you will ask it again in the future and come up with: the current period in your life. Why is that? Because to contemplate it at all is a form of escape that steals your focus away from the present moment. It robs you of the presence of mind required to soberly assess whether your current situation and activity are steering you toward the kind of life you would rather live. And just now we have gotten to the heart of the matter. Escape. Somehow, many of us have bought the message that we're just supposed to press forward in a life filled with circumstances and situations we never would have chosen if we had known better the first time around. Contemplating all of the disruption and energy it would take to press the "Reset" button, face the stark, naked unknown, and escape the gravity of expectations from all the loved ones we've trained to accept us in our default form just seems so... daunting. So we take our minds off of the subject. We distract ourselves with gadgets, amuse ourselves with content, numb ourselves with substances, and press on. No wonder Thoreau made the observation (still true today), "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."  Living such a life is unpleasant, so we find ways to not notice that it's happening - chiefly in the form of occupying our thoughts about the past or the future.

I have come to believe that the attitude one has toward life is the most precious mental commodity he or she possesses. More valuable - by far - than a sharp wit or a quick memory. Intellect and recall will always serve to the best of their ability. But the thing that they serve - the one who calls the shots - is your attitude. The good news is, unlike your other mental faculties, attitude can be changed. And yet, how rare it is to meet someone who actively works to improve his or her attitude toward life in adulthood! I heard someone once define "personality" as "the set of social strategies for survival you came up with in Middle School." Are you the Joker in your group? The leader? The cynic, the quiet one, the critic, the facilitator? When was the last time you examined the fundamental building blocks of how you respond to life and asked the question, "Does this way of expressing myself really serve me anymore?" If the answer is, "Longer than a year", I suggest it's time to get your journal out, jot the question down, and let it work its magic. You'd be amazed at what you come up with when you take yourself seriously enough to call yourself on your own assumptions and allow what is really important to come up to the surface.

A surprising and delightful benefit of learning to focus in on the present moment is that life seems to slow down considerably. A lot of the mental chatter you needed to sustain in order to distract yourself from your former sense of drudgery just melts away. The daily commute is no longer an unpleasant necessity for getting from point A to point B. Instead, it becomes a fascinating adventure that's new each day. You stop avoiding "certain people" and take on the outlook that you're going to deal with them as if you were meeting them for the very first time. You give that restaurant another try, even though they messed up your order once upon a time. And so on. Perhaps some of this sounds far-fetched or even naive. People who have invested their lives in cleverly pointing out snarky angles and flaws in every situation might make fun of you. Friends who've known you for years might wonder what the hell has gotten into you. I guess there are trade-offs for every path one may take. But for me, the price has been worth it.

I get on the elevator at work. A co-worker I've never seen before exclaims, "Thank God, it's Friday!" The door opens at my floor and I reply, "Oh yeah - Friday is one of my favorite days of the week!" I step out of the car then I turn and add, "Just like Monday." The look on his face as the door closes: Priceless.

Back On The Horse

Yes, yes, I've been neglecting my blog, but it's never too late to get back on the horse. I got so used to updating my status on social networking sites that I got away from posting "big picture" articles here. But I intend to create the kind of structure in my life that supports taking care of both.

Thanks for reading, and staying with me!

Not-As-Bad No Substitute for Good

After leaving my full-time job in September, my inital inclination was to immediately relocate to a faster growing city. This notion was influenced by two major hypotheses: 1) If I start a business, I want to do it in a market with plenty of demand for my products or services. 2) If I invest in real estate, I want to buy in areas where the rents will produce great cash flow even after paying for the mortgage, taxes, and repairs. Orlando has a lot going for it, but it's been hit pretty badly by our current recession. No. I reasoned that since I had nothing tying me to Orlando, I should select the best US metro area I could find, start from scratch there, and allow its rising tide to lift my boat as well.

A funny thing happened on the way to relocation-ville. As I researched cities according to their US Census Bureau growth statistics and monthly unemployment rates, I got a bit sidetracked from my primary criteria by the noise of the data. At first Atlanta looked attractive due to its high population growth from 2000 to 2008. When I discovered it had a higher unemployment rate than the national average, however, its luster faded. More recently, Austin, TX seemed promising due to its combination of high population growth and lower unemployment rate.

But digging deeper into Austin's data has revealed that while unemployment is lower there, it is still increasing on a monthly basis. "Slower slowing" is not the criterion I started with. I require growth. Data published on USA Today's website from Moody's economy.com shows that it may be well into 2011 before Austin or, indeed, any sizeable US city shows significant jobs growth. This correlates pretty well with our last recession: the market topped in 2000, it bottomed in 2003, and jobs began to return about 18 months later. In the current recession, the stock market topped at the end of 2007, hit bottom in March of 2009 and here we are, waiting for the jobs to show up again.

Let me mention why this is so important. Jobs are what fuel the kind of population increases that are attractive to real estate investors. As jobs grow and populations rise, people become willing to pay the kind of rental rates that can cover mortgage payments, taxes, and repair bills. Ultimately it is the prosperity of an environment like this that creates healthy growth in property values, since more and more people go for the dream of owning a home. On the other hand, when an area is simply losing jobs more slowly than others, you end up with less people in the area than there are rental units. Now your rental property is compared to others solely based on price and nobody wins in that environment.

My strategy remains the same. I will ultimately relocate to a major US metro area based on its growth in population and jobs. However, I'm not going to try to guess in advance which city that will be. I'm going to keep my finger on the pulse of the monthly data and allow candidate cities to emerge in their own sweet time. The second halves of recessions are like that: months and months of seeming inactivity, and then, POW, the heavens seem to open, corporate budgets are expanded, and jobs look like they're falling out of the sky.

A final note. I may yet relocate in the near term. But if I do, it will likely be because there was a better reason to hang out somewhere else during this current non-growth period of time than here in Orlando. I'll keep you posted.

Florida Bound

I have decided to accept the employment offer of a large computer game corporation. I will be starting at their office in Orlando, Florida on Monday.

I had a couple of other offers available in Silicon Valley, both of them start-up gaming companies without a released product or current revenue. Although I definitely see myself returning to Silicon Valley, now is not the time. I am certain the recession that has just begun in the US will last a good two to three years. My judgement is that this is neither the time to work for startups nor the time to move to a high cost-of-living region. One of my friends responded to this reasoning by exclaiming, "Who would have ever thought you would choose stability over opportunity?" This is a pretty good question. Let me say in response that I feel there is a time for every type of strategy. You won't find me choosing stability over opportunity in the future, when the NASDAQ and S&P500 indexes cross back above their 200-day moving average lines. But for now, it feels like the right thing to do.

A recruiter friend of mine who set up some of the interviews in California asked me, "If plans don't work in Silicon Valley, there are always other software companies to work for. But if your plans don't work in Orlando, who else can you work for down there?" Another good point. Cost-of-living trumps again. I'd rather sweat out a period between jobs in a city where you can share an apartment for $500 per month than in an area where that would run $750 per month. (again, given the current economic climate)

But the bottom line is, I'm not planning for contingencies if this job doesn't work out. I'm focusing on the idea that it will work out spectacularly. It will be the best job I've ever had and I'll be the best me in it I've ever been. There's a subtle difference in how to think about these things - it's OK to weigh the good against the bad while in the cloud of uncertainty, considering competing possibilities. Once you have crystalized your intelligence upon a course of action and made a commitment, however, I've learned it's best to focus your attention on the best outcome you intend to experience.

What you focus on expands. It grows to form the foreground of your experience.

So wish me luck!