Do what is right

It was Martin Luther King Jr day yesterday (or today if you're in the U.S.). A celebration of a man who fought with his words (the pen is mightier than the sword, after all) and showed the world his dream. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and assassinated for his support of the underprivileged, King was a strong, confident, intelligent man who knew what was right and used his nous to battle the institution.

May we all learn from his example. Long live the King!

The lonely life

When you travel for work there's a real discord - those who don't or have never done it think it is a glamorous privilege that you should be thankful for (what do they know about jet lag and facing a grueling meeting when your stomach is in another time zone, your neck is sore from the dodgy hotel pillow and you twisted your knee getting passed the man in the aisle seat when you needed to get up to pee) and those left at home don't realise how hard it is to be away from everything that is familiar and the people you love. While their life continues as usual, yours is thrown into upheaval with no routine and none of the creature comforts of home.

You miss the simple things - like morning snuggles with your love, home packed lunches, slumping on the couch after a long day and being able to select an outfit from your entire wardrobe rather than the selection you packed (and no matter how much experience I have with packing I always seem to get it wrong - shoes especially, probably because they take up so much room). But mostly, you miss the people - loved ones, extended family, friends, even co-workers in your usual locale (so much so that when you do go into your home office, you don't get anything done because people want to chat to you - which, while lovely, is not very productive). And when you get home you're both exhausted and overrun. All the things you can't do when you are not at home still need to be done - lawns, cleaning, general maintenance - and you generally come home with a mountain of washing PLUS everyone you would usually see during the week wants to catch up so your weekends are lost in a blur of unpacking, chores, catch ups, washing and repacking.

Trust me, there is nothing glamorous about it.

While travel for pleasure is an adventure, travel for work is a chore. Airports are not friendly places. Planes suck. Cabs are a nightmare. Accommodation is never of your choosing. And you are at the mercy of everyone else. Your time is not your own. Because you are away from home the corporation thinks they own you and that they can invade your every waking hour. There are dinners and breakfasts and lunches so you can't even eat in peace. Meetings are scheduled not only on local time but you're also expected to keep up with what's happening at home, meaning you're always working long days. On top of that,you need to find time to get your ACTUAL work done. Not a mean feat when you're hungry, tired and without your usual support network.

Sure, occasional travel for work can be a perk. A side trip to another city is an opportunity to try new foods, meet up with colleagues you only know from the sound of their voice and make real connections. But sustained travel (especially to the same location and even more so if that location is overseas and you regularly have to deal with the joys of immigration and customs at both ends of your journey) is just a pain in the arse - sometimes literally.

There are times when you can go all week without having a real conversation with someone in person. Sure, you might speak to your loved one on the phone (if you're really lucky, they will take time out of their routine to Skype or FaceTime you) but it is not the same. And you can almost guarantee that no one will touch you from departure to return which is depressing because the healing power of touch is greatly underestimated. Sure, massages can alleviate some of the touch-deprivation but it's costly and the masseur doesn't give a damn about you personally so it's just skin to skin without any of the warmth that comes from hugging someone you love.

Give me a home-based job any day!

Birth and rejoice

Last week I posted about a spider I have been watching while I work from home with the kids on school holidays. Today, there are spiderlings! I consider myself lucky to have witnessed the wonder of birth (albeit with a cow and her calf) and this fills me with all the same emotions. I am honored to be a part of a world where I am privileged enough to have the time to ponder and the energy with which to do so.
While my life is busy (full time job with regular trans-Tasman travel, two kids, training, eating clean and the usual drill of living), I am 'rich' enough to put food on the table, have a house to live in (that is kept warm in winter and cool in summer), a car to drive and clothes on my back.
I am one of the lucky ones for sure!

Satisfaction comes from accomplishment

I have a somewhat repetitive job that rarely sees me 'complete' anything. While I generally love the challenge of project work, weeks and weeks on end of cycling without getting closer to your destination can get disheartening. I have found that the lack of achievement can be quite depressing. Despite working ten to twenty hours a day, I never finish anything. I say the same things at meetings week after week and the risks I identified months ago are not being mitigated.

All this adds up to very low job satisfaction. If it weren't for the amazing people I work with, I would have resigned a long time ago. I have, however, found a way to cope with this. Apart from my somewhat addictive need to complete a level of candy crush on a weekly basis, I find that I get the most out of my day if I dedicate an hour each morning to a task BEFORE opening my email. This approach means that I get a chunk of dedicated time to a single task of my choosing before getting distracted by what everyone else wants me to do.

Like training first thing in the morning, it doesn't matter what happens in the rest of the day as I have managed to accomplish something towards the end goal. It sets a happier tone for the remainder of the day and allows me to walk away in the evening with some satisfaction and sense of accomplishment even if I didn't 'finish' anything.

Nature always wins but kindness can too

I'm working from home this week. There's a spider in the corner of the window I sit in front of. She has an egg sack and carefully tends to her web most of the day (at least, whenever I look up from my computer to give my eyes a break from the screen, she is doing something to the web; legs moving frantically).

Yesterday, she caught and killed another spider. This morning there is no sign of it. She's either completely ingested it or taken what she needs and discarded the remains.

She fascinates me. Tucked up in a corner next to a neglected window which should have been washed months ago following the ravages of winter storms, she sits. A diligent mother, she turns her egg sack routinely through the day presumably to ensure none of her offspring get too hot (the window faces south but temperatures in the afternoon are still reasonably warm).

Most of the time she sits right in the corner but I snapped the shot to the left when she made a journey down south to check out one of the anchoring arms of her web.

You can make out her egg sack on the top left of the photo. The curved black blur is a little leaf that blew into her web sometime during the day yesterday. She scurried to investigate it then moped away, perhaps disappointed it was not unexpected afternoon tea.

What amazes me most about her is that she's a survivor. Alone in the world, she fends for herself - food, shelter and procreation. She has no posse, no support crew, nothing. When her eggs hatch, her babies will disperse and she will, most likely die. Her job done, she will perish. Her life purpose to survive and produce more spiders. Yet she (in the colloquial sense) persists. Generation after generation has been and will be the same. Live, breed, die.

And that's really the sum of most animals' life - live, survive to adulthood, have babies, die. If we're lucky, as humans, we get the opportunity to leave the world in a better state than if we had not lived but mostly, we are insignificant.

In that insignificance lies either depression (I'm meaningless) or hope (in anonymity you can make a difference to the lives of others or the state of the planet). From random acts of kindness to advocating for those who cannot speak for themselves (children, animals, plants, the oppressed) we have an opportunity to make a change for the better. Where violence breeds violence, kindness is contagious. Plus, it's free. It costs nothing to be nice. Like they say, spread that shit like confetti!

Reverse learning

I have the name of my book. When I get time I intend to share my separation, divorce and rebirth story and I will call it 'Reverse Learning'. Recently a colleague was telling me about a new approach being taking in some universities whereby students are required to do reading in their own time and any activities/homework in class with teacher support and they're calling it reverse learning.
For me, reverse learning epitomises the journey I have been on. Where I did not possess the life skills required to cope with separation and divorce and the flow on effects that had to all facets of my life. Over the following years, I had to peel back the layers of myself and learn some very harsh lessons. My book, when I get time to write it, will focus on all the skills and life lessons I learned as a result of my "failed" marriage (though I know I gave it all I had, all the way to the end) and the changes I have made to help my relationships with everyone, not just my significant other.