axe to the grind

So my days are very full lately. Not much down time. Keeping my shoulder to the wheel, my nose to the grindstone, my feet to the fire, and any other "busy" metaphor you might care to insert here.

Filling up my days mostly with work and school. The job is very demanding and stressful and often keeps me for long hours, including some night and weekend time. A lot of classic "management" work... writing reports, executing contracts, attending meetings, creating budgets, reviewing proposals, contributing edits, tracking expenses, etc. It may sound like drudgery and sometimes it is, but actually for the most part isn't so bad. Hell, sometimes I even enjoy it. I'm also lucky to work at a really great place (World Resources Institute) filled with great people working on really interesting and important things. And in this economy, I suppose I'm lucky to be working at all.

School is less demanding in and of itself, but when layered on top of a demanding job it seems a lot more intense. Including my current class, I'm 3 classes away from finishing an MPA with a concentration in environmental science and public policy at George Mason University. My current class, Program Evaluation, is focused on learning the methods used to evaluate the effectiveness of government and non-profit programs and policies. I find it very interesting as it deals with the space where the "rubber meets the road," so to speak, in terms of looking at how resources (i.e., people and money) are applied in the effort to tackle large problems.

Between work and school I sometimes have a little time left over for my family (yes, I feel like I'm neglecting them, even if my efforts at career growth are ultimately for them), and for home maintenance, and for music. I do look forward to being done with school later this year, which should free up a lot more time for all of these. Oh, and a little time for myself as well, to do simple things like pleasure reading, or watching movies, or playing video games, or hiking with my dog, or traveling. It's amazing how little of such things I get to do these days! Or if I do, it's with a profound sense of guilt, or with a nagging fear of falling behind.

I sometimes ask myself -- for example, when I'm commuting on the Metro, or walking to class, or taking a lunch break, or dozing off at night -- why I'm keeping myself so busy, why I'm keeping my axe to the grind and pushing myself at such a frenetic pace. I mean, I have to work to put food on the table, of course, but nobody's pointing a gun to my head and insisting that I take on such a demanding job at such a high-octane think tank as WRI. Nobody's mandated that I get an advanced degree. In fact, I was doing pretty well at my previous job, taking on at least moderately interesting subject matter and working a much lighter schedule for a reasonable paycheck and reasonable job security. Why did I leave that behind?

I suppose it comes down to an innate desire to "do more be more," to make a difference in this world and contribute to something larger than myself. I want to "ride the tyger" and reach higher heights. I want to be part of the solution and leave my indelible mark on this world. And besides, I remember being bored at my last job, and that boredom being more agonizing than the 12-14 hour days I sometimes put in now.

This sounds dangerously like workaholism. While I do like my job and am more or less enjoying school, I think I need to step back and get my life back in balance soon. There's nothing wrong with striving for more, but when it comes at the expense of what Stephen Covey would call "Quadrant II" time or "Sharpening the Saw" time, then it's probably counterproductive. There's only so much one can do before reaching burnout.

Neil Young says it's better to burn out than it is to rust (or, in some versions, to fade away). I think he's right. But in the long run it's even better to avoid either extreme if possible.

three steps higher

(song 3 on the album Otherwise Bleak eXistence)




Been out feeding the great machine
making it strong so it’ll take us all away
Been out pressing buttons and crossing wires
Sparking the changes that’ll take us three steps higher

And when I push then it’s time for you to pull
and if we throw it out into the void
when we bring it in we’ll have some more
And more is better no matter what they say

Do you feel the burning sensation?
Is your heart on fire and do you want to touch the stars?
Are you cold and lonely and frightened?
Is it you that’s barely hanging on?

Gonna feed my mighty machine
make it strong so it’ll take us all away
Gonna conquer gravity
Everyone’ll be connected and everyone’s gonna be free

(In my daydreams as a child
I built the perfect fortress
In the laboratories of my youth
I found eternal life
In the solitude of my bed
I wished that I was special
In the atmosphere of my world
the air had grown so stale
In the corridors of my head
I unlocked all the doorways
In my memories of the dead
I swore I would survive)

Do you long for electric motivation?
Can you close your eyes and imagine what I see?
It’s a small price to pay for the sensation
Now the alien inside, it speaks for me

fortune cookie

I had Chinese for dinner tonight, and here is my fortune:

"You will be singled out for promotion."

This is good news. Unfortunately it didn't specify when, or to what position, but nonetheless it gives me hope. Of course, that seems to be what fortune cookies are designed for... after all, I've never seen a fortune that says something like "You are about to lose your job" or "Your spouse is cheating on you" or "Your exhaustion is a sign of a malignant tumor." The worst fortune cookie story I ever heard was from my brother, who once went to a Chinese restaurant during a somewhat lonely and depressing period in his life; upon finishing his dinner, and hoping for at least some tiny scrap of hope in his cookie, he cracked it open only to find -- nothing. What a way to toy with someone's fragile emotional state!

Anyway, if a fortune cookie is to be believed, then I will apparently be singled out for promotion. (As will my wife, actually... she got exactly the same fortune as me tonight, which I believe is a first for us.) I suppose a promotion would be welcome... I've been working really hard lately on some relatively big projects; many of them are coming to fruition and I'd love to see some payoff from it all. But thinking about it some more, I'm not sure how much of a payoff a promotion would be.

There seems to be an almost automatic assumption in our society (and the USA specifically) that when it comes to one's career, bigger is always better and advancement is always good. I certainly tend toward a blind allegiance to this concept, often finding myself striving for the next higher level without stopping to think whether I'd actually be better off there. More money and power tend to be precious commodities in the mind of upwardly-mobile man. Yet these things also have a cost, do they not? Mo' money mo' problems, as they say. And greater power leads to greater responsibility, higher pressure, and longer hours.

While I do like my work (I basically help manage a program of about 40 people working on climate and energy issues in the nonprofit sector), one thing I notice as my seniority and commensurate workload increases is a significant loss of free time. Time to just be, just enjoy, just relax, just take in life and get away and have some fun with it all. I get very little of this in any given week, and conversely am often under significant pressure; as a result I am frequently anxious, stressed, exhausted, and drained from day to day. This is already not a sustainable lifestyle, yet my workload and stress level pales in comparison to that of those who are more senior than me. So do I really want to push myself onward and upward into the equivalent of their shoes?

It is possible that the answer is "yes." It may be that over time my current job will become easier as I master its various components. Maybe the benefits of promotion would offset the personal costs. And maybe staying at the current level will prove inadequate for my needs and aspirations. But I shouldn't assume any of this to be the case. Rather, I should proceed carefully and deliberately, so that if I am in fact "singled out for promotion" I can make an informed decision on whether to accept the offer, or respectfully decline if necessary. The real goal should not be promotion for promotion's sake; rather it should be to make a contribution while keeping one's sanity and dignity intact.

sweet deception

(song 2 on the album Otherwise Bleak eXistence)




What would you say is the meaning of this life
if I posed the question
And would you believe that what you say is the truth
or would it be a fancy guess
You know I’d really like to believe that you
could take me to sweet heaven
But when I gaze on out into the blue
I stand alone and on fire

The empty spaces are empty because we cannot fill them
The empty heart is the emptiness of the universe spinning
If you look into a mirror you’ll see a reflection
Try to touch it and you will see just what I’m saying

So what if we went for a walk on the other side
of the skin that surrounds us
What if we chose to float around and dive
through space and time
Do you think the truth would touch our minds
and send our spirits higher
Or would we find it’s all a package of lies
tied up in sweet deception

The empty spaces are empty because we cannot fill them
The empty heart is the emptiness of the universe spinning
If you look into a mirror you’ll see a reflection
Try to touch it and you will see just what I’m saying