Ladies, a status report:
I skied on Saurday with "Buck"--his real name is Buchanen. Nice guy; no idea if he's married. In my ski club. A newspaper editor and, in his words, a liberal with a BIG L. No interest in him but good to talk with about politics.
Saturday night "David" told me how interested he is in seeing me. He's in my ski club, and I've known he's been interested in me for the last couple of years. We had a wine tasting last night, and everyone drank about a bottle apiece, so I guess he worked up the courage to talk with me. Not sure if I'm interested. Very outdoorsy. Has a job. Not the most stimulating intellect. Never married.
Sunday, I called "Bob", the real estate developer and restaurantuer. He was excited to hear from me, but was in the middle of some big tax issues and couldn't meet me for dinner (he lives in Jackson, where I am skiing). He's always in the middle of a tax thing--I wonder if it's a code word for something else....
I smiled at a couple of guys in the Wildcat lodge, and they smiled back. Not sure if they were smiling at me or at me hair, which looked like it had been used as an ironing board in a mental asylum.
That's it for this weekend. I promise to work on my grand strategy soon as, at the moment, I'm just re-energizing the same uninteresting opportunities.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Dagmar - The Editor
I've been thinking about Dagmar's comments about how she likes to "edit" her house. She did one of the exercises in Wishcraft, which was to view her house as a stranger would and imagine who lived there. She said she gets a lot of satisfaction in rearranging and refining her home.
Dagmar, I thought this showed an interest in editing, and we talked a little bit about how you prefer editing to writing original content at work. This seems to fit with your interest in having a salon or a winery--a place where you can bring creative people together and offer them a space to interact and show off their work.
But in thinking back about this exchange, what strikes me now is that in "editing" your house you aren't editing another's work, but rather your own. You and Tom created a really beautiful home from a place that was a bit derelict when you first moved in. It was a shared effort, but I know from having visited you many times at your previous apartment that you have always had the ability to "stage" your home.
I'm not suggesting you should think about becoming an interior designer (although maybe you should). I am suggesting that your temperament is such that you thrive on having a creative project--whether it's a novel, a painting, a home or a garden--that allows you to slowly develop an idea over time. You need something that allows you to change your mind and dig up last year's decision and replant it--maybe the red tulips should move to the other corner and the nasturtium should move from the back yard to a hanging basket at the front door.
That would suggest that what you're doing now--creating proposals for multiple projects at the same time and sending them out the door to never see them again--does not feed into what you truly enjoy.
Dagmar, I thought this showed an interest in editing, and we talked a little bit about how you prefer editing to writing original content at work. This seems to fit with your interest in having a salon or a winery--a place where you can bring creative people together and offer them a space to interact and show off their work.
But in thinking back about this exchange, what strikes me now is that in "editing" your house you aren't editing another's work, but rather your own. You and Tom created a really beautiful home from a place that was a bit derelict when you first moved in. It was a shared effort, but I know from having visited you many times at your previous apartment that you have always had the ability to "stage" your home.
I'm not suggesting you should think about becoming an interior designer (although maybe you should). I am suggesting that your temperament is such that you thrive on having a creative project--whether it's a novel, a painting, a home or a garden--that allows you to slowly develop an idea over time. You need something that allows you to change your mind and dig up last year's decision and replant it--maybe the red tulips should move to the other corner and the nasturtium should move from the back yard to a hanging basket at the front door.
That would suggest that what you're doing now--creating proposals for multiple projects at the same time and sending them out the door to never see them again--does not feed into what you truly enjoy.
We are what we repeatedly do
I like my job. Today.
Two years ago I would have said I disliked my work. I was frustrated by not having the support I needed from colleagues and by not working with people who interested me intellectually. Today my work is much the same as it was two years ago, but now I'm working with different people and within a very different culture. I'm much happier--so much so that rather than dreaming about quitting my job and living on the ashram, I'm now wondering how I can position myself to become the CEO.
I know my project for this year is to meet someone for a long-term relationship, however I'm still very much interested in changing things just enough at work so that I can become a designer and not a manager.
That brings me to the title of this post: "We are what we repeatedly do." It's a quote from Aristotle I stumbled upon today,and it neatly sums up my strategy for this year at work. If I want to be a designer, I need to design. That means approaching every problem as a design problem. I'm taking time to create well-designed budgets, schedules, and task lists; I'm trying (struggling) to take on any portion of the job that isn't designed. I'm discovering that I'm really interested in 2-D and graphic design. And that's because I have had more opportunities to do it and am therefore becoming better at it.
It's going to be an interesting challenge. It's one reason I want to do my "50 by 50"--fifty new habits that make my life easier and give me more time to become a better designer and to find a new relationship.
Two years ago I would have said I disliked my work. I was frustrated by not having the support I needed from colleagues and by not working with people who interested me intellectually. Today my work is much the same as it was two years ago, but now I'm working with different people and within a very different culture. I'm much happier--so much so that rather than dreaming about quitting my job and living on the ashram, I'm now wondering how I can position myself to become the CEO.
I know my project for this year is to meet someone for a long-term relationship, however I'm still very much interested in changing things just enough at work so that I can become a designer and not a manager.
That brings me to the title of this post: "We are what we repeatedly do." It's a quote from Aristotle I stumbled upon today,and it neatly sums up my strategy for this year at work. If I want to be a designer, I need to design. That means approaching every problem as a design problem. I'm taking time to create well-designed budgets, schedules, and task lists; I'm trying (struggling) to take on any portion of the job that isn't designed. I'm discovering that I'm really interested in 2-D and graphic design. And that's because I have had more opportunities to do it and am therefore becoming better at it.
It's going to be an interesting challenge. It's one reason I want to do my "50 by 50"--fifty new habits that make my life easier and give me more time to become a better designer and to find a new relationship.
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