Random thoughts about going back to work
Tomorrow we will get up earlier then usual, check out of the Extended Stay Inn and drive from Fairbanks, AK south on Alaska Highway 3 to about 11 miles south of Healy, AK to the McKinley Chalet. We will check in with HR and by sometime in the afternoon we should be full-time seasonal employees of Aramark, Inc.
Wasn't it just a little time ago that we had loaded up our truck, rental van and car, closed the Livermore house for the last time, dropped of my Lab badge at 7000 East Ave and headed East? March 29, 2008 if my memory serves me. So four plus years ago, my how my need for a job to define who I am and provide the daily structure to keep me honest has faded. I've worked pretty hard these last four years to push past those constraints and take me to the next level. I have failed. I say failed because I have not accomplished anything grand and suiting of such a luxury as not having to work for a living.
Now I have really enjoyed these years of few constraints and even fewer commitments. I think I have grown as a person, if only because I've allowed myself to take the time to think about what is going on in my life and not reacting to every little brush fire. At least that is me at my best, I can still be incredibly petty about certain things but I honestly think I have some real insight into what motivates and more importantly de-motivates me.
So with that noted, tomorrow, it all changes. I will re-enter the work force at a pretty low level, a bus driver, just like Ralph Kranden (Jackie Gleason of the Honeymooners for you young'uns). I will have that job that I used to dream about when my work-life was a little too demanding and confusing; a job with a beginning, a middle and an end. Every day I will drive a Dodge Sprinter around a couple of miles of narrow private road, ferrying passengers from the Chalet to their rooms and back. A simple route, a routine that should prove to be easy enough to do with minimal stress, and a chance to interact with humans from all over the world whose relationship with me will be as ephemeral as the Yukon Spring. And of course the chance to meet 460 or so others who will be doing all the other tasks necessary for Aramark to extract the last cent possible from our intrepid land-bound sea-faring cruisers.
I'm excited, I'm hopeful, I'm confident that all will go, wellllll and come September 20, Lis and I will have a treasure trove of experiences and friendships to compensate for a sightly over minimum wage income. Cut short here because the TV wins out.... Ah did I mention that is one of the pluses I'm looking forward to, no TV in our room.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Pleasure with pain for leaven
The title is stolen from the Swinburn Stomp, off the Fugs First Album. (Great poem, worth listening to on youtube) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykdn49CrcPI
So how does one go about learning? I mean really learning, you go to school, you read you interact with others and most importantly you experience. The latter is the topic of this blog.
I believe the most important life lessons I have learned have come from failures or very negative experiences. Perhaps the pain from not succeeding or the dealing with the less than pleasant experience is what really marks the soul and leaves that index point that we more easily remember once we have moved past the experience. Pleasant experience no doubt are also very instructive and lasting, but really is the lesson learned better preserved than that of the horrid experience? Not for me.
Listen, I need to be very clear here, I have lead a wonderfully charmed life with luck and richness that are embarrassing at times, but the lessons I hold dear, perhaps the ones I feel I have truly earned are those that had their teaching moment founded in ugly.
So if my premise is true, how should one go about learning the fine art of "good judgement"? The easiest way of course is to read a how-to-book, talk to folks who has good judgement (at least in your opinion), read widely of the classics ala "the Great Books" or perhaps attend a seminar. All of these sources will expand your views and broaden your judgement. Some of it will stick but I believe the most poignant are the lessons we learn from our actual experiences. What do we learn from the good, non-painful experiences? We learn the value of love, and caring and moral action, and can carry these values forward in our lives. But I just wonder if it isn't the really bad experiences that do the best job of driving the lesson home that are the ones that we literally take to the grave and maybe rely on more in our late 20 to 50's. I don't know as a fact, I just wonder.
So the leavening action of pain may indeed allow us to rise above the din of life and extract pleasure. I sure hope this is true. This is a more optimistic viewpoint as opposed to "you have to suffer to be able enjoy pain!" It's more of "out of this pain will come something good and perhaps pleasant."
So how does one go about learning? I mean really learning, you go to school, you read you interact with others and most importantly you experience. The latter is the topic of this blog.
I believe the most important life lessons I have learned have come from failures or very negative experiences. Perhaps the pain from not succeeding or the dealing with the less than pleasant experience is what really marks the soul and leaves that index point that we more easily remember once we have moved past the experience. Pleasant experience no doubt are also very instructive and lasting, but really is the lesson learned better preserved than that of the horrid experience? Not for me.
Listen, I need to be very clear here, I have lead a wonderfully charmed life with luck and richness that are embarrassing at times, but the lessons I hold dear, perhaps the ones I feel I have truly earned are those that had their teaching moment founded in ugly.
So if my premise is true, how should one go about learning the fine art of "good judgement"? The easiest way of course is to read a how-to-book, talk to folks who has good judgement (at least in your opinion), read widely of the classics ala "the Great Books" or perhaps attend a seminar. All of these sources will expand your views and broaden your judgement. Some of it will stick but I believe the most poignant are the lessons we learn from our actual experiences. What do we learn from the good, non-painful experiences? We learn the value of love, and caring and moral action, and can carry these values forward in our lives. But I just wonder if it isn't the really bad experiences that do the best job of driving the lesson home that are the ones that we literally take to the grave and maybe rely on more in our late 20 to 50's. I don't know as a fact, I just wonder.
So the leavening action of pain may indeed allow us to rise above the din of life and extract pleasure. I sure hope this is true. This is a more optimistic viewpoint as opposed to "you have to suffer to be able enjoy pain!" It's more of "out of this pain will come something good and perhaps pleasant."
Thursday, November 17, 2011
The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.....
So today I start writing down that what seems to occupy my mind during my all too normal life. As we were driving to Costco this morning it struck me as interesting that I didn't know the difference between God and what we believe God is. I'm not a theologian, and I don't even have a particular interest in religion other than out of curiosity, so bear with me on this journey.
Clearly, humankind has an affinity for God or a God-like entity. It helps explain the working of the world that aren't so obvious and gives us a place to go for support or comfort. In exchange for this (I think this is true) we are obliged to worship God according to the terms of our religion. The first rule (for a religion) seems to be that we are to only worship the one true God and not any "other" God. OK so far so good. But here is where the confusion starts for me. If the major religions each believe in this exclusivity of their God and they all seem to have a pretty good idea of what God represents, as in the creator of the world, life, the source of humanity and etc. Why should we care that the manifestation of these ideas take on so many different forms, each followed by a religion and believed to be the only true deity? If the majority of ideas that are associated with God are pretty much the same across all major religions, why do we get so hung up on who God is as opposed to what God represents and why aren't we just amazed that we do agree so much on the ideas? I mean what the heck if we all are believing in the same thing what difference is what it's called. Perhaps we should accept that we really worship the ideas behind the God image....
OK this is my first attempt at putting these types of thought into keystrokes so I realize that I'm most likely coming up short, but perhaps there is enough here to spark a thought or two that will start the journey....
Clearly, humankind has an affinity for God or a God-like entity. It helps explain the working of the world that aren't so obvious and gives us a place to go for support or comfort. In exchange for this (I think this is true) we are obliged to worship God according to the terms of our religion. The first rule (for a religion) seems to be that we are to only worship the one true God and not any "other" God. OK so far so good. But here is where the confusion starts for me. If the major religions each believe in this exclusivity of their God and they all seem to have a pretty good idea of what God represents, as in the creator of the world, life, the source of humanity and etc. Why should we care that the manifestation of these ideas take on so many different forms, each followed by a religion and believed to be the only true deity? If the majority of ideas that are associated with God are pretty much the same across all major religions, why do we get so hung up on who God is as opposed to what God represents and why aren't we just amazed that we do agree so much on the ideas? I mean what the heck if we all are believing in the same thing what difference is what it's called. Perhaps we should accept that we really worship the ideas behind the God image....
OK this is my first attempt at putting these types of thought into keystrokes so I realize that I'm most likely coming up short, but perhaps there is enough here to spark a thought or two that will start the journey....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)