When I read a part of an article that asked the reader to describe themselves in a single phrase, my immediate thought was “I don’t really have time.” As it turns out, this was not only appropriate for the situation, but a surprisingly accurate answer to the question. I’ve come to realize that the amount of time different parts of my life occupy is startlingly disproportionate to the relative importance of those parts. This isn’t a new idea, nor is it a revelation to anyone who’s ever felt overwhelmed. I know that everyone, at one time or another, feels as though they’re spending too much time at work, not enough at home, and not getting shit done that they want to get done. For me, it’s the first time that it has slapped me so coldly across the face.
In 2002 I was laid off from what now qualifies as the best job I’ve ever had at a company that – at the age of 23 – I would have sworn I’d retire from. Afterward I was completely aimless – I had all but given up most of my creative pursuits because, frankly, I loved my job so much that they lost importance in my life. You’d think that losing a job like that would encourage me to pick them back up, but it didn’t. I was so distraught at the loss that any other pursuit just faded to an ugly gray-brown at the edges of my vision. That was, I know now, the point in my life when my priorities had become muddled, and I started losing sight of the things that were truly important. Priorities shifted around in my mind and my life, and my primary focus became pulling down as healthy a paycheck as I could manage.
All I could think about was how badly I needed a new job. I freelanced for a year until it dried up, then ended up getting another job through a friend. Temp work desk job, but overall pretty fun stuff, if at times monotonous. It paid the bills, which reigned as supreme priority, and so I stuck around. I spent four years working ungodly amounts of overtime and striving to get hired on full-time. I’d apply for jobs and get denied, and it would eat away at me just a bit, but somehow drive me to believe that I just needed to try harder to make it happen. Trying made me grow more angry over time, but each time I’d take a break I’d think of it as time to reset and come back with renewed vigor. By the time I reached one of those breaks in the middle of 2007, I was ready to quit (and maybe I should have). I left with the intent to decompress, and my wife and I decided to take a vacation: 9 days in the northwestern corner of Glacier National Park – the middle of nowhere. 3 days in, my mother unexpectedly passed away at the age of 59.
The next two months of my break were spent dealing with my mother’s death. By the time I returned to work, I was more frazzled than when I had left, and quickly decided that I was either getting hired right-the-fuck-away, or getting out. I started pushing, and at the end of 2007 the “dream” finally became a reality: I got hired. The job was a huge boon financially, as it roughly doubled my pay and included full benefits (holy shit! health insurance!!). I rode a wave of euphoria, again giving me a reason to ignore the fact that I still hadn’t regained my priorities. The job, in all fairness, was pretty great at the start, and I was well suited for it. It still wasn’t really what I wanted but, fuck, who cares, right?
After the glow of the first year wore off, the job got worse and worse for me; each day became a bigger bundle of frustration and apathy. I began to resent not only the job, but people I worked with and the organization that employed us all. I haven’t yet been able to determine how much of that worsening was real and how much was perception, but there are countless arguments about perception vs. reality that I could use to prove or disprove whatever interpretation I feel like supporting at the time. The key was that I was growing steadily more dissatisfied with where I was, and I couldn’t readily identify why.
Outside stresses definitely contributed: in 2008, my father told me that he had been diagnosed with ALS – Lou Gherig’s Disease – a degenerative nerve disorder that would eventually rob him of his motor skills, speech, his ability to eat and drink, and finally his life. Over the course of that single year, he went from being the strongest, most self-sufficient man I’d ever known to having to quit his vocation of 40 years, pack up shop, and move in with my wife and I so we could take care of him. 2009 was even harder, as I watched his condition deteriorate until he was beginning to lose his ability to walk, speak, and perform some simple tasks. On Christmas Day of that year, he mercifully passed away in his sleep, well before the disease could place him into the motorized wheelchair he had received just the day before. My dissolution with my job got worse and worse in the year after his death, to the point where I went home grumpy every night and woke up to a sense of dread every morning.
My mom’s death came with a shock of perspective: that time was short, and not even remotely under my control. Two-and-a-half years later, my father’s death heaped on another revelation: that I needed to use what I’ve got while I’ve still got it. I began searching in earnest for a new position, looking for any opportunity I could find just to make a change. My creative juices also picked up again, my brain shifting into high gear, pumping out idea after idea. I started writing, drawing, and designing games again. I started a podcast and a novel, and began to feel like my priorities were starting to return to their natural state, but now they no longer meshed with my time. When one’s focus shifts away from family or free time or creative projects and settles on work, time tends to warp around the career. Work time slows and every minute extends to stretch around the top of the bell curve, and “free” time rolls off the top of that curve and rockets past us, full of raised hands and screams of all the fun and happiness that we can’t seem to find the time for.
After busting ass on job interviews, I finally got that new position (at the same company), only to find that I’m still disgruntled, acutely feeling the effects of time as each minute of work leisurely ambles by. My new job is a gigantic improvement over the previous, and I (actually) love the day-to-day. The job has shown me, however, that I’d likely be disgruntled at any job that isn’t of my own creation. While you’re at the bottom of the corporate food chain, the job demands more of your time because you physically need to be there to get it done. As you rise through the ranks, the paradigm shifts so that you’re no longer required to put in extra time, but you’re expected to, whether that rule is spoken or not. And in both situations, the expectation is that the job comes first. After all, that’s what they’re paying you for, and what would you be without the corporation?
All this has finally led to me regaining my sense of priority. My job, awesome as it may be, has to begin taking a back seat to my family, my free time, and my creative pursuits. Will this lead to me having more time? Probably not. In fact, the shifting of priorities has already extended the middle of that bell curve and made me feel like I’m floundering in the quicksand of my job. It has, however, caused me to stop letting the rigors and frustrations of my workplace follow me home, and has begun to wash away that gray-brown muddle, revealing the goals underneath:
– To start a blog. DING!
– To finish my first novel by the end of 2011.
– To finish at least two of my current game designs, and potentially work on getting them published.
– To make steady progress toward one of my ultimate goals. More to be revealed on that in the future.
– To write more. All the time. Even if it’s crappy, overlong blog posts.
– To draw more.
– To design more games.
– To play more.
– To never let my priorities shift away from the things that truly matter to me again.
We’ll see how this all holds up to reality.
