I feel "ALIVE" again

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here.

For the past 5 weeks, I have been working as a free lancer and have been working from home due to the virus.

Compared to my last job, the chances were prominent.

Most of the time, I have been very busy with client calls, internal calls or training sessions. I have learnt a lot from the past 5 weeks too. I am very fortunate to have someone who is willing to teach me and coach me. I feel I am going back to the old days as a consultant when I was and had to be at my top efficiency level all the time. This is all at the opposite end of my previous job.

One change I did not notice until very recently, however, is that I feel "ALIVE" again.

In my previous job, I could not drag myself out from the negative thoughts about what was happening to my career: a job I only needed to spend 2 hours a day on; a position where I almost had nothing to learn; a boss who did not appreciate my work, took pleasure in challenging me unnecessarily and was determined not to promote me or show any appreciation.

Please do note that above were my thoughts. They were probably not the truth. During the past few weeks, I have also started to realize some things that never occurred to me before. For example, while I did keep things running, I might have behaved a bit aggressively. I always believed that was necessary because I was required to get things done by pushing people above my grade. Now I realized that I did it to the extend that even my boss felt I was steeling his thunder. And also the thought started coming to me repeatedly that maybe getting things done was not the most important thing after all in my previous organization.

Anyway, one thing was certain. I was drowned in my negative thoughts and as a result I lost interest in almost everything else. I read 6-10 hours every week but really did not absorb much. I did not even enjoy watching movies or playing games, which had been my favorite hobbies. I could not even think of what I wanted to eat when I wanted to give myself a treat. Life seemed so boring and grey without hope. And when I lost the job offer one month before my start date, things just felt so much worse and I lost interest and patience in even more things.

However, to my surprise, I suddenly realized the other day that I had clocked quite a bit of gaming time in the past 3 weeks:
- Metro 2033 Redux - completed campaign
- Metro Last Light Redux - completed campaign
- The Outer Worlds - more than 10 hours of play time


These games were installed in my computer quite a while ago. But I did not start playing until 3 weeks ago. I could also recall that I did quite a bit reading on the tips and tricks of The Outer Worlds.

My first reaction was that I was pleasantly surprised.

I was pleasant because I again had the patience to really dig into something, even that something was a video game. I still remembered during the year end holiday period, I tried Fall out 4 and GTA V but quit the game within 10 mins or so and never started them again.

I was surprised because at first I could not figure out how I got the time given the busy schedule. Then I realized I clocked those play time mainly in the midnight or early morning, which meant that, after a busy day of work, I chose to pay games for a few hours, sometimes until 2am, instead of going to bed. Cannot say it was good habit, but at least I knew I wanted to play and complete those games. And I recalled that I wished to have more time for gaming. Haha...typical me as a consultant a few years back.

To me this is a good sign. Now I learn new things every day and I know there are things I want and am willing to pursue. I do hope to make Principle in 2 years and Partner in 6 years, even though my offer is still being processed. Haha...

Did I miss my old job? Honestly, sometimes I did. If I could just relax, enjoy the good work-life balance and take the salary home every month, I would have had a good life and if I still did not like the job, the salary would have made me rich enough to retire in 15 years or less. But I guess that was just not me. And now it is not like I could go back to it. As people day, grass on the other side is always greener.

I like where I am going and I am willing to do everything to get there.

As a closing, I strongly recommend the game - the Outer Worlds. While running around the map for loot still bothers me a bit, I enjoy the game a lot, especially the "Tinker" feature, which basically allows me to pick a weapon or armor I like and keep it until the end.

Till the next time!