The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. This truth can be said of anything that happens or of that which you do.
On the other hand, if doing the same thing repeatedly nets you success, then by all means, carry on…unless, what you do is at a cost to someone else.
Of course, what you do that appears successful on the surface may not really be so if someone enables that “success”.
Its one thing to have a silent partner but even a silent partner receives a portion of the spoils of success.
Consider if you are truly successful or are you simply being enabled at someone else’s expense. Consider if you are acting in an insane manner by doing something again and again with the expectation of different results.
Know when to say when and find your own route in life.
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As I sit here this evening I am counting the days until I go on vacation. It’s a little different vacation than most people take. My vacation is to go back home for Thanksgiving rather than to travel to some exotic place in the world. While I could do that, it’s still a priority to spend some time with family before that opportunity no longer exists.
As you may know by now, I have been living overseas in the middle east. I have been working towards the goal of being debt free of credit cards and I am now able to pay the last credit card off. I haven’t just yet as it’s a zero interest card and I want to have a few dollars in an emergency fund. The idea of using the credit card for “emergencies” be they genuine emergencies or just strong wants, is counter-productive. It is too easy to bust out a credit card in effort to spend what I don’t truly have….well it used to be easy. It’s not anymore. When you invest your time and hard work into meeting a goal such as debt freedom, it’s not so easy to just slide right back into the old ways because of what it took to climb out of that hole of debt.
Often, we become numb to what it really means to earn a paycheck only to turn right around and give it to a creditor because we purchased something we didn’t need. Maybe we did have a need but because of the monthly cash drain we just never seem to be able to save enough for the true emergencies and the cycle continues. It’s painful and it’s so easy to get trapped. I know, I have been there.
Enter the new dawn of freedom. The house and car are my only two financial obligations and the car is almost paid off. This leaves me at the the next point.
Goals. What now? Not having goals can be hazardous to your financial health. Every day we are bombarded with advertisements telling us that we need the latest trinket or shiny toy or that we “deserve” a better objectified widget and it can be obtained with just a few easy payments if we don’t have enough cash on hand. What’s worse is when we have no goals and enough cash to make the purchase and no goal or plan that causes us to stop and think about how spending our hard earned money leaves us wandering about aimlessly.
The importance of having goals is that they can help us stay on track and give us a purpose.
I have discovered that most of the time, having a purpose often ties back into what your passion is.
It’s been suggested that if you can find out where a person’s money is going, you will often find that is also where thier passion lies.
I have had a few hobbies that I funneled my “extra” money into and that was where my passion was also.
Sometimes we hang on to hobby or participate in an activity that we were once passionate about but the excitment surrounding the activity has left us. It’s normal and it happens.
For the sake of not hanging onto a fading passion, it’s important to recognize if/when it has faded. If it has, it’s not a bad thing, it’s just a part of life.
Hanging onto the past in this way can be costly when we try to relive the “Glory Days” of something we once were really into and now it’s a matter of trying to respark that old feeling we once had by spending enormous amounts of cash in what can be an ultimate waste of resources.
The hardest thing to do for some is to let go of something when we realize that the party is over. When this happens, it can leave you feeling a little lost and maybe a bit empty. The people who have learned to identify when and end of an era has come are the first to “recover” and move on. They are the ones who seem to move effortlessly from one activity to another and they remain happy and purposeful. They appear to have no remorse when it comes to leaving something they were once passoinate about. This can be seen as a maturing process I suppose. In an example of a child who plays with their favorite toy. It’s something they love to do. They will spend hours toying with the toy. Eventually under normal circumstances, they will lose interest and find another toy to play with. Sometimes, they will find a better toy that is related to the first one but it’s improved. This is one of thise things that sometimes becomes a lifelong path and the choice of toy becomes the choice of career. Take a look at some of the toys that imitate things that adults have graduated to. Kids toys can be trades related like the toys made for kids to pretend to be builders or carpenters, others are geared for kids to pretend to be chefs and cooks with easy bake ovens and that sort of thing. Some toys are more office related but you don’t see as much of that. For example, you won’t see “My First Accounting” playset with a “Cooking the Books – Graduate Level” add on. Not only is Cooking the Books Illegal, It’s just not out there for kids to learn in that way. When we were kids, we wanted to grow up and “be adults” but we wanted to be like the adults we actually saw working at someting. We were easily willing to set aside the things were were once passionate about so we could move on to the next level. Now that we have grown up, we understand the simplicity of youth and sometimes we hold onto our “Playthings” far beyond what is considered healthy. Take an adult who collects toys. Some might see this as an unhealthy inability to let go of something that usually is outgrown as a child. The adult childrens toy “collector” has morphed into something that was never intended. It’s an example of someone who has not been able to let go of a childhood passion. I have seen more than a few of these collections of toys that started as a childhood passion, morph into an adult owned collection that was costly to purchase and sold for pennies on the dollar because someone didn’t realize that the party was over until it was a costly mistake.
What’s the advice in this long story?
Don’t let your inability to let go of a faded passion be the cause for your personal demise, both personally and financially.
Learn to recognise when it’s time to move on to something new.
Have healthy goals.
Cheers
-C
Success – Having the ability to make choices and not find yourself in a position where you have no options. Being able to create or find options when it appears that you have none would be noted a having a high level of success.
People in jail have few options and often end up there because the choices they exercised had negative effects on society as defined by law. This would be an example of someone who became unsuccessful based on bad decisions.
Feeling stuck in a dead end job with no options can leave a person feeling trapped and therefore, unsuccessful. This can lead to some grave decisions in truly desperate times.
The same can be said for most anything that has lifelong or what feels like lifelong effects.
I didn’t start this post with this in mind but a leader who continues to blame the previous leader (presidents come to mind) for their inability to make their own choices that would be good for the organization they lead are by definition, unsuccessful. I think this is where we a nation become divided. That division is based on the definition of good choices vs bad.
Any fool can say that our president is just having trouble leading because of the last one, but the reality is that our country is in the worst shape that it has been in since I can remember. The bad choices made by the current leadership aren’t helping us and to blame the last guy for not really leaving the oval office neat, tidy and rife with easy choices is a cop out.
The bottom line is that by definition, our president is unsuccessful in the fact that he has not been able to find and make good choices for our nation and he continues to blame the last president for those inabilities. To cast a vote for someone who is defined in this manner is to align themselves with failure or if the failures of the president aren’t why a person would vote for him, it must be partisanship.
How can anyone nominate a potential leader based on political party when the party’s foundational core of supporters would nominate a proven failure?
It may appear like I am suggesting which way to vote. I’m not. I am not sure the other guy is any better but I think that this nation voted on hope and change and we landed here. Would it be wise to consider change again in an effort to try new solutions and try to find success or would the continued path of failure be worth hanging onto for the sake of political partisanship? You decide…it’s your vote.
It’s been a while since my last post. The temps here are cooling down but it feels like summer back home. The hours I keep on the job have really taken a toll on me and in all truth, I’m ready to come home and regroup for another adventure. Mostly because I just don’t get to go out and discover much. I work nights, 12 hours at a time. When I’m off I try to get as much as I can because staying up into the daylight makes it hard to get to sleep if I have been out in the light. I am starting to feel like a vampire. The daylight has become the enemy of sleep.
The lack of daylight back home was one of my concerns before I left and I had been looking forward to being in a place were I would be able to enjoy some good light. In that sense, this trip has been lacking and it’s not what I signed up for. In the beginning it was ok but since I returned from my vacation, work has been a slow steady downhill slide.
There have been major changes at my job but the good thing is that I have meet my goals and I can hang on for a while longer.
This trip has open my eyes to see the world in ways that was not possible without coming here. We tend to have a narrow view of the world and how it really is from our own little corner of earth and only after a person has explored a little do they start to understand.
I have only just started to understand and that is why I am not truly ready to go home for good.
I live on the economy with the locals and I have learned a few things.
1. American television has some great programming.
2. American television’s great programming is ruined by American television advertising.
3. American television is utterly destroying itself with reality TV.
4. Local television filters the crap programming out that ruins American television.
5. Advertisements on TV are almost non-existant on local TV.
6. We really are getting ripped off at the gas pumps. (Big surprise, I know).
7. I can get a full car detail cleaning for about five dollars.
8. The fast lane on the freeway does not have self serving, slow driving jerks/idiots that America has. They use all the other lanes.
9. Flash to pass really works here on the road.
10. Chinese restaurants still play that same cheesy elevator music in most places.
11. The local money is the best money to travel with in the world.
12. There are places where tax is non-existent…and still civilized.
13. There are places where corporations don’t run the country through the government.
14. A dry heat is preferred to humid conditions.
15. America still has the best fast food.
Working at a job you don’t like and you want to quit? Being unable to quit because of bills is the usual reason for not quitting when you are at a job you don’t like. Why else would anyone stay at a job they hate? Sadly this is often because somewhere along the way, the person that feels trapped in the job they hate is because they were saddled with bills that required them them to make payments until the debt is repaid. So often, the payments are set up so that the debt will take what feels like an eternity and at the same time, the bill can cost more than the original loan. This is a scenario where as a worker, you are “owned” by your creditor(s) and this empowers your employer over you and the job becomes something you cannot simply walk away from if you hate. All for the “ease” of the access into credit trap. With no bills, you can save money rather than giving it plus interest to a creditor. If you save enough, you become freed of being “owned” by the banks and your employer.
Been watching a TV series lately and it’s more like a soap opera for guys. Guns, motorcycles, good looking women and MC club drama…get the point? I picked it up last year before I left for the desert and I found it on an internet service with a monthly fee now that I am here. I watched the episodes of the 2011 season and have been picking up the previous seasons. I have watched the end of the available series and I found myself wanting to see the entire story line and at first I thought about going back and re-watching the whole thing all over again. This was in an effort to relive the time I spent at home with my lady watching it there. This was where the revelation came to me. I have been hanging onto the past for some time lately and desperately wanting to relive the past because I know how it plays out. It’s been this way for me for a long time and I think it’s why I have had such a difficulty moving along when it’s time to do so. It’s so easy to try to cause the past to repeat itself for the purpose of knowing what will happen. The truth is that it really isn’t easy to cause it repeat itself but it’s easy to hang onto it. This is not how to live life to it’s fullest. In fact it’s the exact opposite.
When I first came to this job, my office was in a place that was noisy and poorly lit. The lights were fluorescent with no diffuser. We were forced to move to a new location with even worse lights akin to the old street lights I used to play under at night as a child. I requested the lights be replaced with something less harsh so I could see my screens better. This was met with the typical response of an agency that cares nothing for the people who serve it. If it doesn’t affect them directly they were too foolish to see how it affects them indirectly. Typical.
I have since been moved along with the rest of the crew I work with and the lighting where I am is far better than before but it still kinda sucks. It’s like working under grow lights in a warehouse rather than real office. Ahh…to be back in a real office setting with decent lights, normal hours and access to lunch that doesn’t taste like crap. I guess that’s in a past life for now. Trying to alter my current working conditions is like shoveling sand against the tides of the ocean. I can only adapt or get out. The pay keeps me adapting for now but there will be a day where I finally have reached my goal and at that time I can re-evaluate my situation and decide if I want to continue. The working conditions have improved slightly but the work has become more or less routine and rather humdrum. We moved after I came back from a vacation and since then, I find myself walking past the old orange lit desk I sat in and it reminds me that things move along and going back is anything but progress.
I keep thinking about going back to my home when this is over and I can’t help thinking about what I will do for work when I return. There’s always for work for people with my skills but the pay just seem to be less and less each year. Only just now do I realize that much like the cost of technology keeps going down. The paycheck of the worker also goes down…unless, just like the functionality of the technology increasing to keep the price up, the skill set of the technology worker must increase to maintain the current income rate or the location of the work must have requirements that are outside of the realm of pure skills. For example, hard to get to places, uncomfortable places or special alternate backgrounds.
Once such problem for many people is that while the economy takes a dump and jobs continue to pay less and less, the banking industry must keep getting the money that was originally agreed to when the workers had more of it. Now the pressure to keep paying has begun to crush many people. This is the way of the downturn. The only way is to be free of the obligations of the debt. there are a few ways and each has its own repercussions. To not pay the bills off will certainly result in lesser job opportunities and the ones that are available will not pay as well as the ones requiring decent credit. I am close to my goal of debt freedom and close to returning to start a new life. Will I buy new stuff? Not unless it’s an investment and not a liability…meaning if it can’t be sold for at least what I paid for it after I use it or more than I paid for it if I don’t use it…it’s not an investment. I think I may sell some of my liabilities and use that cash for investments.
Many people I know are confused and think that things like cars are investments. I can tell you from experience, they are not. I hear some people say, “I’m gonna fix my car up and sell it for more money”. This thinking is all too common with people who think the wrong things are investments. I’ve been just as guilty of that thinking. This isn’t progress.
So….back to progress. It’s time to start thinking about investing in assets, dumping liabilities and realizing that while you can never go back, you can remember how you got where you are, be open to the changes that come as we simply live life.
The day was like most here. Hot, sunny sandy. I know, sandy? A day that is sandy? What does that mean? Living in a place where the sands of the desert are part of your surroundings and you can’t go anywhere without encountering it…I’d call that sandy. It’s so much a part of this part of the earth that even the animals are adapted to it. Did you know that a camel can close its nostrils to keep sand out or that they can travel a steady 25 miles an hour for long periods of time across the sandy desert floor and can reach speeds of 40 miles an hour in short bursts? I didn’t. Their feet are large and soft bottomed so they can move across the sand without injury. There are two species of camels, one hump and two hump. The common one hump camel here is the Arabian Dromedary. The other is the two hump or Bactrian camel.
So back to the day. I had just left work and had made the U turn on the freeway to go home. Don’t worry, standard operation. These people are a bit behind when it comes to freeway engineering. I’m now turned around and I see a herd of camels out along the freeway behind a fence. I thought I would get a picture for my collection so i made another U turn to go back and get closer. By the time I got back, about 20 or 30 of them had found a break in the fence and had wandered out near the freeway.
This is what I saw
Not what you’d expect to see on a “normal” day back home but here? You never know what you might encounter.
These animals are highly prized by the locals. They are viewed much the same way that the sacred cows of India are without the religious aspect. Common knowledge here is if you hit one while driving and you survive…get out of the country as fast as you can. You will not want to bear the cost of restitution. What’s that? It’s a camel you say? Can’t be that expensive? Think again. It’s said that the owners will try to recover from you, the value of the camel and if it’s a female…the value of the 10 generations of offspring it would have borne if you hadn’t killed it. You really don’t want to toy with your future by hitting one. This brings me to the next part of my story.
I don’t really know much about these animals but I know that camels intrigue me. I think it’s because they are indigenous to this area and where I live…well let’s just say that they aren’t common. On a side note I have found that the rhinoceros commonly found in Africa don’t frequent my flower beds at home but I think that’s a matter of the rhino repellent cube I have in there. You can get it here.
So I am watching these Camels and they clearly haven’t lived in a neighborhood and no experience with cars like most dogs that live in such places. They are wandering out into the freeway and if you can imagine hitting one, it’s gonna be messy at best. I decided to try to help these beasts to safety by herding them back to the other side of the fence from which they came. I was not really sure how I was going to do that because I figured if I drop down in to the sandy “road” by the fence they would just haul ass back up over the guard rail only to meet their maker. Fortunately, another helpful camel “herder” in an SUV stopped and I could see that the way they were situated, I just had to drop down to the sandy road and “push them along” whilst the other driver stayed up on the black top.
Now when I drove down there into the sand, it was a bit risky but I believe that certain actions go unpunished…helping God’s creatures are one of those things. So now I am down nearer the fence and the camels have wandered down there too because of the SUV up on the high road. They looked at me in my car before they started moving in the right direction and I think they too were intrigued…by looking at me. Here’s a guy in a white Toyota Camry. It’s about as plain of a sedan as you can get. I’m wearing my Outback hat ( I think they would have ignored me if it was flipped up on one side…it wasn’t) and I have my sunglasses around my neck and my regular specs on. The little car I’m in makes me look like a visually impaired circus bear wearing a cowboy hat in a go-cart and I am in a showdown with about 30,000 pounds of camel, or about 25-30 of them. Suddenly they turn and start walking away in the direction that I am hoping they would….towards the opening in the fence. Turns out this opening was the wrong one and the ended up having to go farther down the road. Much farther. At this point I’m thinking that I/we, Mr. SUV are getting the job done. A few of them look back at me in the Circus car and turn back and start running….in the right direction! Awesome!
One thing about camels is that they have a larger lower lip than the top one…just why I don’t know but when they get to running, it flaps under the weight and bounces in time with their step. At this point it’s starting to look like they just might be laughing at me with this flapping lip thing going on as they run away from me in my little car. I think they were really running to go tell their camel friends about the circus bear in the sedan with the goofy hat and glasses. Anyway we herded them for about 1 mile or so and they made their way back to safety.
Today is Thursday. It’s Ramadan here in Kuwait. I just got up a few hours ago. The internet connection is crappy as usual. The weather is nice and warm. Not to hot but but clearly summer. I am at the 6 month mark and I am ready to leave this place. It’s one thing to get away from home for a while but it’s another thing to move away for such a long time as to start feeling like you don’t really have a home. That feeling…..no “home”, it’s partially brought on here by being displaced from my real home but that feeling can be intensified by working for the very organization I followed to the job away from home. It just depends on how connected I feel at work that can define part of what might be called “job satisfaction”. It’s the same reason that soldiers have a certain esprit decor. A sense of not being the “only one” but belonging to a cause.
People are the same on the inside no matter how much they are paid. This experience I am going through goes to show that you can be paid well and still not be satisfied. While it may be true that you can purchase a certain amount of entertainment, the fact still remains, happiness isn’t for sale. True satisfaction doesn’t come directly from accumulating cash. I know this because while I am able to save my pennies, I really cannot do as much with them for either myself or others when I am so far away from my real home. I have had more joy from being able to help someone than I get by simply counting the pennies used to do the deed. Some people will jump up and say well you can feel good by helping me. It’s deeper than that. Don’t get me wrong though I get the request when it happens.
I have had to learn to separate the job into it’s own unconnected facet of my life and not look to it to be part of where my joy comes from, at least in the case of this job. There is a reason that certain jobs pay more than others. Some are because of the amount of study and skill required to perform the work. Others are based on a level of convenience or lack thereof and some are based on a combination of both skill and inconvenience. My current role is a little of the latter.
Having come to this realization, I should be able to complete my tour here and not drop everything and just walk away. I have considered it many times but I keep hanging on to my goal. That goal…freedom to enjoy the things in life that don’t come with a monthly bill and requirement to pay it off each week or month. It’s the idea of being able to find other enjoyment in doing something that I don’t have to make a living at but could if I wanted to. If I could change the field I work in to be less demanding and more able to be pursued at a pace I wanted instead of full speed all day every day, it might be a place where I could enjoy it again. Currently, my position isn’t like that. It’s go go go go all the time on the most boring of computer work and it borders on making me insane. It’s directed by people who do not truly understand IT systems. They approach it with no creativity and no room for making alterations to streamline and simplify how the overall system works. Instead it’s about following strict inflexible guidelines with a change management division that bends to nothing. It’s about expansion and money. It’s not as much about finding the awesome way to do something cool.
Large organizations like those that write the most popular operating systems in the world are flexible. It is part of why they are world class organizations. They give creative license to the employees and as a result, they create some of the most popular software in the world. It is this freedom that has been crushed in many organizations and it makes for incredibly dull work. It has become a drag to go to work for these stifling agencies and that dear readers is where I want to escape from. I used to be in the creative world but have found myself trudging to the lockstep drone of inflexibility. I will return to the creative side and it should make for better blogs in the near future.
I hope that if nothing else, the things found here will help you but if it doesn’t. I will still serve as a place for me to look back at and remember where I have been and also where I am going.
My you find your happy place in the job market and may you never find yourself working a job that appears to have no end and no place for enjoyment.
– C.R.
I found this video and as I listened, it became clear that what this man is saying makes sense.
It is true that talking to the police in ANY form is just asking for trouble.
This second half of the video is admission from a police officer who confirms the first part of this two part series.
After a recent visit home, I have found for me at least, that it has done wonders for my outlook here in the desert. I live in Kuwait and about as far as one can get from the U.S. The trip is about 18-19 hours of flying time and it’s almost 10,000 miles away. However, you don’t get the chance to realize just how far or close that distance really is until you have made at least one additional trip beyond your original flight to get here. That second flight serves to help you understand that you can easily travel back and forth if you so desire. Your only hindrance under normal conditions to leaving is just how willing you are to walk away from your job if you really need or want to. No one owns you here and even if you have an agreement with your employer, you can walk away if you just can’t handle it anymore. Not everyone can and an adventure such as this one isn’t for everyone. There’s no shame in not being cut out for the experience.
When you come to Kuwait and if you have never been here, it can be an overwhelming experience. The hours you keep and the requirements of settling into your new home can be a bit dehumanizing. While I wasn’t required to live in shared housing, some are and it can be an additional hit to the standard of living you may have been accustomed to. There’s blood tests, and blood typing and more blood tests along with x-rays to be sure you are not carrying some disease that could get you deported. You get checked out and if you fail, you are sent home. No pats one the head or hugs goodbye, just a ticket home and away you go. It’s been said you will be lucky to get your personal things that you may have left in your apartment if you are deemed to be a carrier of a notable and contagious illness. Even though I had nothing to worry about, the process is still a bit degrading especially when you know you are healthy.
Additionally, the language barrier while not intentional, does exist. English is the international language of business but not everyone understands or speaks it many still speak Arabic as one might have guessed. This is after all Arab country. This can also leave you feeling isolated and unable to blend in with society as easily you might have liked to. As you do travel and begin to mingle with society, you find yourself looking at colors, shapes and pictures to get you through the day sometimes. The road system is more British than the Roman grid and this makes getting lost at first pretty easy. If you are a visually oriented person, you may have a better chance of succeeding and finding your way around but there’s still that dehumanizing feeling of once being a successful and productive member of society that knows their way around. (You area productive member of society aren’t you? How would you have landed a job here if you weren’t?) and now you may feel lost as a puppy.
If this isn’t enough to disorient you, try adding the factor of working on a contract that supports the military if you dare. This is completely different to what you may have done in the corporate world. It’s not the same and the only way one can truly understand it is to experience it. One easy to identify challenging difference is working nights if you were a day worker. I will say no more on this subject but this is one additional factor to add to the desert experience and the new disorienting world that is the middle east.
On a brighter note, as I mentioned before, the trip back home after a challenging handful of months in the dark has proven to be a major turning point. When you go home, you remember that you are human and you do have a life back home and you do have friends that miss you and you can still function very well and to some degree, better than before. I found that I was more able to make decisions and communicate my intent with others both in business and in my personal life while at home. I think the desert experience has sharpened my ability to recognize the points where I needed to assert myself more and also where to temper my response with a softer approach. It’s not something that is taught as much as it is learned.
As mentioned earlier, I found that knowing I could leave here if I wanted to does make this feel less like desert exile and more like an adventure that I can stop at any time. Combine that feeling with the knowledge I have of the place after being recharged at home and I think to myself, “I got this!”
Rowland Ramble - 