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.