Resolutions

I'm finding myself having trouble with new years resolutions this year.  I've always liked new years, and making resolutions.  I love the idea of sweeping away old habits and improving oneself by developing new ones.  I love the introspection and self examination making goals for the new year can bring.  I love looking forward to to the possibilities and opportunities of a new year.  This year, I'm having trouble, though.

One question I'm struggling with is what manner is best for making new years resolutions.  I've traditionally followed the pattern of building one resolution in four areas of life: social, physical, spiritual, and intellectual/professional.  Reading Baumeister and Tierney's Willpower I began to question this strategy.  They suggest that one should limit themselves to only one new years resolution, as having several causes them to distract from one another.

This doesn't seem unreasonable, and as I'm looking at things I want to do this year they all seem to roughly fit under a sort of unifying umbrella.  I've been thinking about creating a resolution this year that's more of a mission or values statement and peppering a few specific goals under that.  I'm not that interested in having a non-specific focus, though, and prefer to focus on the quantifiable and observable to something I can convince myself is motivating or working without having anything to look at to support or refute those assertions.

I'm also wondering if this is a good year for resolutions at all.  Much of this year will be just transitioning through larger changes in life that fit in to broader goals and plans of mine and my family.  I'll be starting my new job, finishing my associates degree and certifying as an MLT.  All of these plans are probably what I'll really be focusing on, and don't really require any new goals or resolutions for 2016 to progress.  So to all of my friends, should I make resolutions this year?  If so, how?

Thirty Years

Yesterday was my thirtieth birthday. As I leave my thirtieth year of life and enter my thirty-first I reflect on the passed year.  Year thirty feels as if I've been a plane that's waited at the gate, taxied up the runway, and taken off for a new destination.  Here's the highlights:

• Working at inthinc : I continued my job at inthinc technology solutions for the first part of the year.  This time taught me once again the importance of good management.  Our last manager was very skilled at keeping the support team of which I was a part happy and feeling valued within the company.  During the first part of the year we had no manager and a number of internal conflicts arose within the team as well as numerous difficulties arising from a lack of effective interfacing with the rest of the company.  Our new manager, when hired, eventually turned out to make promises like a politician, fail to inform us about and connect us effectively with the rest of the company, and make the talent feel undervalued. I was the third person to leave the team as the burden on our team increased and feelings of valuation decreased.  After leaving the company I continued to hear of hardships and found the company was losing money and talent at an alarming rate, though it seems to have stabilized at this point. I have a number of good friends from my time there, but am happy to have gone.
• Returning to University : Leaving inthinc prompted an overall career change.  I had noticed that the career trajectory in technical support would take significant time to advance and might not lead to a place I really wanted to be.  Looking at what field might be related to my previous scholastic experience in physics I found that radiology is something that would probably take about as much time to train in as it would to advance in my current work, had similar job demands at higher pay, and ultimately would be more fulfilling and interesting.  I enrolled at Weber State University and started attending classes. I was reminded how much I appreciated the university atmosphere and learning new material.
• Entering Medicine : Preparing to enter the field of radiography I've been learning about the medical field generally as well.  I trained as a phlebotomist and am making arrangements to test for my limited x-ray machine operator's license.  I have been fascinated by the challenges and nature of the medical field. There's an intriguing intimacy to healthcare that makes me feel a great deal of responsibility toward patients. I never thought that biochemistry would hold any interest for me but after studying it (in part at least) for a semester I've completely turned the corner and am engaged by protein structures and metabolic pathways.  There's clearly a lot to learn and do in this field and I'm eager to continue exploring it in year thirty one of life and beyond.

What to write when nothing comes to mind

So I like to post at least once a month, and here I am sitting on about an hour left to August and I still haven't written a thing.  There's lots to write about, I can always launch into another mathematics and society rant, or if I'm watching my blood pressure something about computer science and beauty has been ruminating lately.  A friend put forth the interesting idea lately that computer literacy is the new literacy, and I'd like to write on that but felt oddly compelled to do some research before doing anything with that idea.  I'm engaged now and should have lots of ideas and feelings about relationships, love, and weddings.  I've even thought about doing some amateur tech journalism, but the most interesting thing I can think of now the big moves Microsoft is making, and since I'm currently working for them I'd prefer not to get into NDA territory, even though I probably wouldn't say anything that hasn't yet been said on most other tech news outlets.

So, plenty of interesting things to write, but just can't bring myself to put the words down.  Why?  Well, writing is hard.  It takes a mental effort to organize ideas and thought, and even more if an idea isn't quite yet fully formed and needs additional thought to be complete.  I got home tonight, ate some snacks for dinner while putting on some TV shows I wanted to catch up with, and then started thinking about writing.  But I wasn't really thinking about writing, I was thinking about the show I was watching, and I'm only finally banging this out by pausing the show and focusing on writing.

My mom is a six time published (and that's just the novels) author, so I've picked up a thing or two about writing.  One thing about it, which I suspect extends to any art in general, is that the most important thing is to sit down and do it.  While the romantic thought of waiting for inspiration to strike and then whipping up a masterpiece overnight in a frenzy of artistic furor may be appealing, it's just not reflective of reality.  The Sistine Chapel ceiling was painted because the pope offered a large commission, and Michelangelo signed it "Michelangelo, a sculptor" to express his feelings that he didn't consider himself a painter and would rather be working on his statue of Moses.  The Sistine ceiling is well known as one of the greatest pieces of art in the world, and I've always liked the thought that Michelangelo didn't even want to paint it.  I think we can learn a lot about how we can do great work even when we really don't want to do it.

Have I learned how to be happy at a job?

This question occurred to me earlier and I've been wondering ever since. There's a whole bunch of people moving to a different jobs where I'm working and I've been browsing other jobs as well.  It's possible this is perfectly reasonable and the place I work now is just a horrid place to work, but I've come upon another possibility: I haven't learned how to settle in and enjoy a workplace.

It's not that hard to believe. I haven't had a really long term job since high school. I've popped in and out of on campus work and temporary summer positions. And for most of the last year I've worked hard continually looking for a full time job, so I'm already in the habit of searching out opportunities.  Even in all those years of schooling much of the experience was putting in the time at one class and then excitedly looking at the course catalog to see on to which class I would move.  All in all, it does seem that I lack any recent life experience in finding a way to say, "I like where I am now, no hurry in finding something else."

Of course there's nothing wrong with a little ambition and trying to improve one's position in life. It's actually a great virtue, trying to better oneself.  I worry that I may be being all to quick to give up a good thing, though. I live very close to where I work and would almost certainly have to give up the short 20 minute walk to work in favor of either buying a car or finding public transportation options. Both of these possibilities are more costly and neither provides the modicum of exercise that I enjoy with walking.

Putting aside these practical considerations, though, I have a greater unease that I'm finding gratitude and satisfaction difficult.  Which I shouldn't because I have much for which to be grateful, even in the narrow field of my career.  My job went through quickly, allowing me to set myself up in Salt Lake near my beloved.  I think I should make more, but then again when is that ever not true and I make enough to live quite confortably and make good progress paying off my debts.  I'm providing a service that does help people and hopefully makes others' days just a little better.  I get to talk to people from all around the world.  While there's plenty to complain about, there's also plenty to appreciate.

It's interesting to consider how we learn to be happy with a job, and moreso how we do so without becoming complacent or stagnant with our position.  I look back and I see a life spent working hard to get to the next level and move on to the next thing, and while in many ways I plan to continue doing this, I also want to make sure I can simply enjoy the situation I'm in as long as it's not one in desperate need of change.

Better to fail with honor than to succeed without it

Just a thought I had earlier, but surprisingly profound. We focus a great deal these days on success, be it in a career, academics, or even romance. How well do we remember honor? The size of communities might be a factor. People are less likely these days to know about your character or integrity so it's easier to throw out a job title or specific qualification when making introductions. Even when true, declaring oneself honest, diligent, or kind rings hollow without the actions to back it up.

The internet is no help either, with the famed (or infamous) "anonymity" allowing people to act reprehensibly with little to no repercussions. Maybe though, the internet can one day save honor in some small way. Consider if everyone had a sort of 'master online account' (similar to google or facebook accounts). If these had a 'integrity' score on them, which was easily viewable by anyone like an ebay or amazon seller scores. After interacting with many people integrity could be averaged and scored like so many other things are these days.

The possibilities (both good and bad) of a system like this are just barely blossoming in my mind, so maybe I'll let this simmer for a while and take the idea up again. To anyone reading, what do you think about being successful vs. being honorable, or having an integrity score indelibly linked to your name through the power of the internet?