Thursday, September 22, 2005
Untraditionally employed
The new euphemism for those of us without jobs is that we are "untraditionally employed." Actually, I sort of have a job now. I've picked up some freelance marketing work, writing and designing brochures and whatnot, for a local business, and I'll be doing some part time work at Huntington Learning Center and hopefully picking up some private students as well. It should keep me pretty busy. But in the lull before it picks up, I'm more aware than ever of time ticking by. I write a few hundred words a day, go for a bike ride or use the weight machines in the basement, run errands for Grandma, feed the dogs and cats and fish, take out the trash, and always there is time. Time time time. I wonder, if I'd published my book, won the nobel prize for literature, and helped bring about world peace, would I still feel like it's all wasted? The nice thing about punching the clock was that there was never any time to think about time. But now I've got nothing but time, and I'm spending as much as I can on myself, taking care of all that needs taking care of, and always I feel there is too much of it. There's too much of it and it's going by too quickly. There is too much and there is not enough. Or I cannot use it efficiently enough. No matter how much I do, there are minutes that slip past, so much gets wasted. A minute in front of the TV makes me feel guilty. Why am I not writing? Why am I not working out? Why am I not applying to grad school? Why am I not working on those brochures? Nevermind that I wrote 500 words today, that I booked a Kaplan GRE course, that I have downloaded grad school apps, that as soon as I'm done with this post (another waste of time!) I'll do 15 miles on my bike. All of this and yet somehow I am standing still. Standing still in fast forward. I wish I could get to the root of this feeling that everything is wasted.
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2 comments:
Tough one! That's some deep-rooted shit you're facing right there. Though many would call us lazy and we both feel a lot of guilt and anxiety for not being in the ratrace, I am starting to realize that the route of freedom is far more difficult for exactly the reasons you list above. The time is now YOUR responsibility. You can't blame it on a job. It's up to you to do something with it and because we don't have the built in legitimacy response (to the question "what are you doing?") that a 9-to-5 gives you, that something has to somehow improve our lives. And that's fuccking stressful!
I'm working on it and I can tell you to just keep pushing. You are making something out of your life on your own terms. Though you are limited by limited options, it sounds to me like everything you are doing is working towards creating more options for your future. Again, it takes time.
Go back and look at your post where you break down how many hours free you get a day when you're working a fulltime job. Compare that with this one.
If you really have free time, I would recommend that you put some of that towards something that's just really fun for you. Maybe productive fun (like working on a certain potential PBeM campaign or playing in one, hint, hint) or maybe just straight out fun like a video game. But limit it to a specific time a day, like one hour. Just because you don't have a fulltime job and are living at home doesn't mean you have to spend every minute desperately trying to do something and fulfill your potential. You still need recreation!
Nice post, though.
I think your comment about time being our responsibility and that we have no excuses, like having a job, for our time is wasted, really nails it. The path we've chosen says that we're now living on our own terms, regardless of how that looks to the outside world, and so if we suddenly find ourselves unhappy, we've got noone and nothing to blame but ourselves. Yes, talk about stressful!
Right now I'm learning that a lot of what it comes down to is having the discipline to keep yourself on a schedule when there's nothing else holding you to one. Right now I'm experimenting with the following: setting the alarm every day during the week even though I don't have to get up at any particular time; doing at least 30 minutes of exercise right away; work at least one hour on freelance marketing stuff, then another hour on book stuff, then another hour on grad school stuff (applications, GRE homework, etc), then an hour on personal errand stuff, then repeat as necessary. Throw in two and a half hours for GRE class on Mondays and Thursdays, a few hours in the evenings tutoring at Huntington Learning Center, meals, showing, etc., and that takes up most of a day and it feels like I've accomplished a lot. Now the trick is seeing if I can stick to it while at the same time keeping the freedom and flexibility I enjoy of not actually having a schedule. It's a tough balance.
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