desperate for change

Check out this quote from my astrological “personal guide to the future”:

Because it isn’t easy for Virgos to relax, you need plenty of hobbies and pastimes to steer you in that direction.

This commentary is totally spot-on for me. I think that this is even more so these days in the working world than even when I was still in school. Or perhaps it seems that way because I still need to “gear-down” from working as hard as I did when I was in school.

I think that I have trouble managing my downtime. In fact, I don’t let myself have any downtime: any spare time goes to reading, studying, research, designing, planning, and scheming. The fact is, years of doing this has caught up to me, so much that lifting a pencil is too much mental exercise. My head hurts from so much thinking.

There was a period of a few weeks earlier this year when I was actually scheduling in some “fun” hours: it was when I was practicing for the Gala Ball. Yes, if I don’t schedule anything, I automatically default to my “usual.”

Okay now – just gotta find a few more fun things to put into the after-five schedule.

In a previous post, I theorized that one path to entrepreneurial success is going with the “dull, boring but useful.” (Okay, you might have your own exciting, sexy and useless thing that make money too, but we’ll save that for another post.)

I would like to add one more qualifier to “dull, boring, useful”: valuable. Something people would pay money for. Ultimately, the world rewards us for adding value to people’s lives. The litmus test for the amount of value we are adding, is precisely how much money people are willing to pay for your product or service.

Even in the world of blogging for Adsense dollars, you know you are adding value when you can confidently say: “I know peeps who would be willing to pay money to advertise on my blog.” Not exactly the easiest way to make a buck, but it has been analyzed to pieces. The point is, even supposedly free enterprises could have some monetary input.

I recently came across this trip report about a college investment club’s visit to Omaha to see Warren Buffett.

There are a lot of take away messages about investing and about life. I’ve read about Warren Buffett in other articles and books but those often focus on his investment success and his friendship with Bill Gates.

One message that the students came with struck me: “Stay within your circle of competence.”

It is important to recognize your strengths and weaknesses. In the game of life, you want to be in areas where you have an advantage. When you are in an area of weakness, ask questions and get help.

In our modern society, we value highly professionals with specialized skills: dentists, lawyers, software programmers, plumbers, auto mechanics, etc. We all have our designated roles to play in this world.

Do you have an arena where you can step into, where you know you can beat everyone else? That’s where you need to be.

I just got a postcard in the mail from my vacationing friends. Normally I like to put up postcards at my cubicle at work, but I think I’ll just keep this one at home for a bit.

You probably don’t need me to tell you that if you don’t like your work, you are dying a little bit inside every day. In that case, going straight to hell is going to be the most direct way to your final destination. I think that it takes a lot of courage to admit that the ship is not going the right way and a course correction is in order.

(Moving away from the metaphoric hell is probably best.)