3 posts tagged “self-debate”

It's been a real full on week! I think I've seen more people more times in the last week than in the rest of the month (and possibly the month before that as well). I would have expected myself to be sick of people by now, but it's actually been quite enjoyable and just good to get my social antennae back into gear again. I have to admit, I was a bit short on Christmas/holiday spirit going into the period. The magic of the season just wasn't there for me. Maybe because recently I've just been so into trading and getting on top of my new line of work that I've neglected the other parts of my life. It was good then to step away from it for a while and just hang out with everyone, which is something that I really enjoy. Kudos to everyone for restoring the magic of the holidays.

Recently I've been thinking a lot about living in the present versus thinking of the past/future. A lot of my focus this year has been on forward looking activities, like career choices, financial planning, wealth creation, goal/mission setting and just thinking about the future in general. Personally, it's been quite a large hurdle to clear between uni life and work life. All of a sudden I've got all this money coming in, which opens up a myriad of possibilities for me; but on the other hand, suddenly all of life's great responsibilities don't seem all too far away. One of my fundamental goals has always been that I want to be financially free by the time I start a family. Not so much for the accumulation of all the fancy bells and whistles in life but just to be able to spend that quality time with the wife and kids without 'having' to miss out due to career/wealth building commitments. I think I only really realised this year that playing house with another person is EXPENSIVE. For a person to get married at my age, they'd have to get into debt for pretty much the rest of their lives to afford the modern essentials of a decent furnished house and a car or two. Not to mention just how costly a wedding is. Not to imply that it's not worth the money being paid of course, but I think a strong marriage and family is hard enough to maintain as it is, without the additional pressures that inevitably comes with needing to stave off that debt. So a little forward planning now, a lot of heartache saved later.

Having said that though, being the very extreme person that I am, I think I have gone a bit too far in looking ahead and doing things for the future that I've missed out on enjoying the moments in the present that I have. After all, all we can be really sure of having is the now moment - once gone it is gone forever. Even though planning for the future is healthy and definitely has its place in life, living now is really important as well. It's quite easy to get into the trap of always having my head thinking and thinking about what I'm going to do for the rest of the day, next week/month/year/decade, always looking forward but never really enjoying the present. Looking back at the last few months I can see that I've really tired myself out thinking about things all the time. I suppose it all comes down to living out a healthy balance between the two. Live too much for the present and you end up with an unprepared future, but live too much in the future and you miss out on living.

I'm feeling better after yesterday's little outburst. Went back after work, had a good dinner, had a good sleep and woke up early enough to have a shower before going into work. That in itself is a rare and outstanding achievement. Kudos to me for getting into the habit of sleeping early. Funny thing is, this morning the supervisor commented that I looked rather unhappy. Given all my achievements from the night before I was quite surprised, but when I thought about it I realised that I am quite unhappy where I am right now.

I've been feeling like this since last week actually, having talked to a friend about it I put the glum mood down to my general reluctance of working for a living. Come to think of it, I don't mind working as long as I feel that I'm achieving something, and as it is right now, I don't feel that I am. When I started working out of Perth, everything was still exciting and new and I had plenty of tasks and systems to learn, but now after nearly two months of working out here, I've reached the point where I can easily complete my tasks, and I'm getting so good at it that the last time before I went out on break I actually did the week's work in advance so the people covering for me wouldn't get caught out. Generally as well, the project seems to have reached the point where everything is just going smoothly along, a far cry from all the drama and incompetence that we (me and the project manager) were sent here to sort out when we first came. I can't stand the tranquility!

On the other hand though, having considered a number of other options (no, I am not going back to uni, unless my company's paying for it), I know I could easily get a job back in Perth but I am really reluctant to accept the decrease in income that comes with it. It's not just the loss of my site allowance but the dramatic increase in living expenses as well. I forsee my income going down by at least 50%... I suppose that's the price my company is paying me to put up with the lifestyle out here. Why can't I have both... or better still, have it all and do nothing. The way things are going now though, I suppose I am having it all and doing nothing. Maybe it's not all that it's cut out to be then. I'll be having a performance review (and hopefully pay review) in the next few days so I'll have a chat with my boss and see what options I have with the company.

On a less gloomy note, in my ample company sponsored free time I have exported a whole stack of financial planning forms from a book that I bought some time ago to Excel (as in, I typed each and every one of them out by hand), now I shall fill in all the details as to get myself organised financially. That's my achievement for the month. At the end of it all, I realised that organising and managing my finances isn't a goal in itself, more like a quiet thing that goes on behind the scenes that makes the rest of my life better. It's a far cry from the time when I was really interested in money management and wealth creation type subjects last year. Funny that, looking at how I've changed over the years, from being absolutely hopeless and disinterested with money management to being one of those avid learners and proponents to me just being all meh about it now. Time to find a new hobby.

Ever heard the saying it's going to be one of those days? I've come up with a new one, since I'm working 2 weeks at a time. I can't believe it's only 8.46 a.m., and I have 13 days left to work. God help me. I'm going out of my mind with boredom.

Okay, maybe it's not that bad. I've brought enough books and magazines up with me to read, and there's a couple of games on my computer to keep me occupied. As a kid I always wanted a job that will pay me to play computer games and read books all day long. I've got my wish. I guess it's just the good employee in me wanting to do some meaningful work and earn my keep. *pause*, takes 'good employee thad' to the other room, *smack* *bang* *wipes gun*, ok all sorted.

I suppose I should be used to life up here by now. Actually if I don't think too much about it, I can get by quite easily. Just wake up, pack meals, work, eat, work, eat, watch telly, sleep, rinse, repeat. Doesn't sound too hard to do for an above average income and only working two thirds of the year eh. It's the sheer mundane-ness-ity? that gets to me. You who work in metropolitan areas/are still in uni cannot understand. You wake up at a reasonable hour, work four hours and then are free to have lunch with friends in the vicinity of your workplace, come back for another four hours work and then go home to your family. Don't even get me started about uni students. As for me, all I can do is hope for a decent parcel of meaningful work to keep my mind off the time.

On the other hand, I quite like the quietness/long spaces of time that I have here. When I was living in Perth full time before, I always wanted to escape from the hustle and bustle of community/social life every couple of weeks. Here I have that, free for large chunks of time to reflect, plan and most importantly do nothing. A few weeks of this, and I'm already rediscovering an inner peace I'd forgotten years ago. Come to think of it, when I see it this way, I'm actually quite happy with the way things are going. Stress-free and commitment-free environment, I revel in this. Ahh...