One Thought

I’ve been voluntarily unemployed for for a little over two months now.  The experience so far has been eye-opening.  I’ve already detailed my plan of action.  I’ve discussed my realization that I am now, for the first time, fully responsible for my own happiness.  It’s a scary realization, but ultimately an invigorating one.

Now comes the status update.  I’ve learned a lot about myself and this experience in the last two months.  Here are my takeaways so far:

• Even with no commitments, time is precious.  It’s tempting to assume when you have a job that, without the job, life will be a vast wash of time with more than enough to do everything you’ve ever wanted.  That’s simply not true.  I feel almost as time-constrained now as I did when I had a job.  I’m not doing a dozen things I would like to be doing. There’s just not enough time.  And I’m spending less time than I would like on the things I am doing.

  Progress is often slow.  I can get only so much done in a day, a week, and a month.  There’s nothing magical about working on my own that makes things happen more quickly.

• It’s easy to try to do too much.  I have two main activities right now: music and writing.  I explained why I chose these in my plan of action.  Doing both at the same time is already stretching me.  Particularly with music, there’s always more I could be doing.  I don’t have enough time to work on composition.  I don’t have enough time to work on technique.  Almost daily, I stop before I would like to–and that’s after 5 hours.  There are many skills I’d like to learn or grow better at–piano, math, drawing, cooking, sewing, public speaking, etc.–and I don’t have the time to pursue most of them.  Even one more serious activity would be too much for me right now.

• Variety is nice.  Yes, it’s good I haven’t spread myself too thin.  At the same time, though, I’m glad I’m doing more than one thing.  First, I have alternatives.  If I get sick of music, I can move on to writing.  I don’t have to bang away at something if it’s driving me crazy.  Second, I have multiple paths to success.  It’s nice to know my eggs are in more than one basket.  Third, I’m maximizing the benefit I get from from the passage of time.  See my article on mastering a new skill for more discussion of this.  Yes, it’s good to specialize, but only if you’re completely certain you know what you want to do–and I am not.

• Self-discipline is incredibly important.  This isn’t news to anyone who has ever worked in an unstructured environment.  I’m not accountable to anyone but myself.  I’m responsible for every hour of every day.  If I waste the time, it’s my own fault.  I live in a big household, and there are many distractions.  Excuses not to work are plentiful.  Some days I feel discouraged, tired, or unmotivated.  If I let these negative feelings control my actions, they can become self-reinforcing.  I’ve found that pushing through them is the best policy.  I’ve kept my schedule well so far.

• Feedback helps.  Even without feedback, it’s rewarding to learn and to create.  Feedback helps a lot, though.  Without feedback, I have only my own judgment to rely on.  It’s easy to convince myself that what I’m doing is better or worse than it actually is.  Feedback acts as a counterbalance to my perceptions.  It also provides direction: positive feedback encourages me to do more of something, and negative feedback encourages me to do less of it.  Of course, I take all feedback with a grain of salt.

  It’s also nice to know that what I’m doing is affecting people.  That’s a big reason why I’m doing it, after all.  I created this website to get feedback, and all feedback is appreciated (hint, hint!).

• It’s easy to become work-obsessed.  Well, for me, at least.  Work is often on my mind.  It doesn’t help that I don’t know what my ultimate direction will be.  The gears in my mind are constantly cranking away trying to solve this problem.  I love the challenge, but it can be exhausting.

  Having a schedule helps.  A schedule guarantees two things: that I will be working some amount every day, and that I will not be working some amount every day.  I created my schedule to ensure the latter just as much as the former.  However, I haven’t been spending my “off” time as well as I would like.  Levels of fun have been too low.  Chilling out has been infrequent and revelry rare.  I’ll work on it.

In summary: Things have gone well so far.  I’m keeping to my schedule.  I’ve learned a lot, and I’ve gotten a lot done.  I’ve progressed as much as a musician in the past two months as I did in the 3 years before that.  I’m excited to see what the future will bring.  I’ll work on having more fun.  Ideas (and feedback!) welcome.