Doodles from the Cube, 17th ed.

This is the monster who guards our pantry door.

Doodles from the Cube, 16th ed.

Memorial Day

Hi Everyone!

Ok - this is an apology to my five blog readers out there.  Today is Memorial Day and I have been busy doing other things besides the blog.  So, today EYKIW will be taking the holiday as well.

I promise that I will have something for you guys by Friday to read and Wednesday has a promising doodle.

A big thank you to all of the US service men and women who have served!

God bless!

Sven

Materialism Thought Expeirment: My Take

Here it is 6:15 am on the day that I need a post.  So bombs away!

I said last time that I would throw some thoughts out there on the thought experiment and what it means for me.  In 15 minutes…actually 14 minutes now…that means it will be largely unedited and a bit like a stream of consciousness at times.

The first thing to hit me when thinking of getting plucked from my life now and placed somewhere in the middle of nowhere is that I would not be anxious about losing my stuff.  In fact, I look forward to paring down to just the necessities.  But then at that point, I start to become anxious.

As much as I tout myself as being unmaterialistic, I do lean on materials to be happy or achieve a purpose.  For example, my computer.  Do you know how long it would take to write this post with a stick in the Gobi desert?  To be honest, I don’t really care so much about this particular computer, but the hours of music that I have written and recorded, two books that I have written, and countless other intangible goods of mine are on here.  And they all haven’t achieved their purpose.

Which gets to the heart of my anxiety: I am most anxious about not fulfilling my purpose.  I have this grand scheme of what my purpose is, or at least what I think that it should look like.  I need to have a way to be creative for the betterment of humanity – or so I think.

Then I think through this thought.  I am Catholic, and I believe that all things occur within God’s Will.  Either His Ordaining Will, which is where God explicitly states what should be done, or His Permissive Will, the route where evil is allowed to exist in the
world by us persisting in our sin.  An act of transporting me out of where I am into Mongolia, would be an act of God’s Ordaining Will.  So, some relief that I get from my anxiety is that God is there; I am not alone.  And in so being, there is some purpose for me to be in Mongolia herding pigs (I’m a pork guy).   Even if that purpose is for me to become fully detached from the things of this world, including what I initially considered my purpose of existence was.

In the end, we all die.  We all have to leave this behind.  How much easier it is for our souls to fly to the next life if we are not attached to this planet!  Because even if we live for a purpose, in the grand scheme of things, it will not amount to anything.  Only what we do to help others and amplify God’s goodness in humanity will matter – but even that, credit is not usually given to us on earth.  Any reward will be in heaven.

OK….whew.  Done.  I’m going to load this in for Svetlana to review!

God bless,

Sven

Doodles from the Cube, 15th ed.

Guest Art: Doodles from the Cell

Svetlana and I are pen pals with a prison inmate through the Christian Pen Pals Ministry.  His name is Mike, and he drew these pictures which he included in a recent letter to us.  We've been blessed through this ministry and highly recommend writing to a prison pen pal.  We were amazed at the level of gratitude and loneliness expressed in the letters we receive.  Just a few minutes of our time each week, writing a simple letter, makes such a difference to these fellow human beings who are desperate for communication from "normal" people out in the real world.  It also helps us focus on our many blessings which we often, sadly, take for granted.

The Bonds of Materialism

I was thinking on this stuff this weekend when I made up a little thought experiment.  You want to play?  Read on!

Consider if all of a sudden you were plucked from life as you know it and were dropped in the middle of Mongolia to herd sheep.  Or pigs if you prefer.  You would live in a small yurt and your day would consist only of your herding duties with your sheep.  Or pigs.  What would you feel?

How would you feel not having your bed to sleep in at night?  Or your normal food?  Or any of the modern conveniences such as a phone, internet, modern plumbing, or fifty-three changes of clothes with matching shoes?  How would you feel not having the modern materialistic world around us?

Think about money.  How would you feel not having a cent to buy whatever you want or need?  What about making do with just what you have?  Entertainment as you know it would be gone – no movies, out-to-eat, or concerts.  Even the concept of paper to write on would be too far-fetched.  How would you feel?  Think about being desolately poor.

What about friends and family?  Could you leave them behind?  Would you miss them?

What about work?  That promotion that you were working for is not happening.  That book you are writing?  No one will read it.  The music in your head will be silent – can you leave these goals behind?

I might be off the mark, but I think that most of us would be anxious considering this prospect.  How could we cope?  We’ve gotten used to it and we’ve assumed that it will always be here.

Consider this – we are just as human as every other human in the world.  There are some people who live exactly like I described above.  No modern convenience - life is consumed with survival and making do with the meager materials that they have.  There is little thought to amusement, entertainment, what feels good, what tastes good and the like.  But unlike us, who are bound to modernity, they are free.

So what am I getting at?  Well the first thing is, I need to do a blog post or else I’ll forget how to do one.  It’s been over a week since I finished one.  OK – besides that, my point is that we have imprisoned ourselves with our hubris and our modern lifestyle.  Our modern lifestyle is consumed with materialism, consumerism, and the pursuit of wealth.  We need the latest gadgets and toys, we need to have expensive cars and houses, and we need to grab as much cash as we can.  The harder we hold onto these things, the tighter our bonds become.  We are no longer free to help others.  We are no longer free to contemplate God.  We are no longer able to become the people that God wants us to be.

As for our hubris, consider how much of our lives are tied to vulnerable infrastructure.  Consider how crippled our society is when the power is out during a one-in-five year storm.  Consider how much energy is spent on acquiring money that can in an instant become as useful as toilet paper.  Do we know what would happen to our digital world during a hyper intensive solar storm? Consider that we have only had our level of technology for a couple of decades.  The sun has been around for four and a half billion years.  Do you think that we know every kind of radiation that the sun can throw at us like a one-in-a-million year event occurs?  It is within the realm of possibility that the modern world as we know it can collapse almost instantly, and we all will be forced to herd sheep.  Or pigs.

Now consider standing on the precipice of life, just about ready to die.  That is about the same as the thought experiment – we lose everything that we have lived for.  All those goals that we had will be left unfinished.  All of our wealth will be gone.  Whatever reputation that we had will be washed away in the ocean of time and we will be forgotten.  When all of that is taken away, is there anything left of us?  Can we let go at that point and take the plunge?

The point of this exercise was to identify how materialism is binding to our souls.  We can be called at a moment’s notice to drop everything and do something drastic; do something wonderful – but we can’t if follow through if we are bound.

I could probably write about several aspects of this thought experiment, but I think that I am going to stop here.  I have some thoughts about my situation that actually helped me to move forward in this journey.  I will hopefully share that with you all next Friday.

God bless,

Sven

Doodles from the Cube, 14th ed.

Sometimes doodling happens at the dinner table, on a scrap piece of paper that one of our toddlers had previously scrawled across.  There's no right or wrong way to be creative.

Of Frogs and Boiling Water

I had a couple of ideas hit me today between my shower and when I was supposed to be concentrating on my rosary on the way in to work today.  So what should I write about…eeny-meeny-miney….MOE - Frog in the hot water.  Sheesh, like that hasn’t been done to death.  Oh well, let’s do this thing!

First off, a bit of background.  The frog in hot water boils down to this (pun totally intended):  if you put a frog in boiling water, it will jump out.  Because the frog is cold blooded, the difference in the internal temperature and external temperature is so disparate that the frog knows something is wrong and jumps out.  However, if you put a frog in room temperature water (or cold water) and then slowly heat the water, the frog will eventually cook itself to death.  Basically the frog slowly raises the internal temperature to match the outside until it gets to the point that the outside temperature causes mortal damage to the frog.  Hope you like frog legs.

Anywho – I know that most people are familiar with that image, but I wanted to illustrate it.  In pop culture references, we use this often for individuals that slowly start sliding into dangerous behavior and addictions.  I usually hear it applied to a single person and it’s a good analogy. 

But I am thinking of humanity as the frog and the world as the water.  Well, basically, western society.  Maybe just American society.  I don’t know, I can only really speak about what I have seen and extrapolate.

Consider how far we have come in the last century and a half.  For the US, that is right after the Civil War.  Back then, most folks had to work hard, morning to night, just to survive.  Vacations and holidays were not nearly as prevalent as they are today, and the idea of saving for retirement was not even on their radar.  Because radar wasn’t invented.

Think about conveniences invented since then:  refrigerators, cars, and better housing.  Think of the infrastructure in roads, power plants, airports, and seaports.  Machines have helped us to do more work in less time.  Not only that, but it’s much cheaper too.  As a society, we’ve developed surplus in our bank accounts and institutions that wasn’t around back in the late 1800s.  We have more mental stimulation through fantastic machines than they ever thought was possible.  We are flush with material wealth that is far beyond the comprehension of the third world.

I think that technology is fantastic and can make our lives better.   But our natural human tendency towards evil takes these great tools and rather furthers evil in the world.  Television in itself is not evil.  But our tendency to put on more and more salacious shows to get ratings is.  There are so many flashing lights and loud noises, that we have been reduced in our capacity to reason beyond sensory stimulation.  Even our ability to socialize is limited in depth to text or video through our machines.

The world, through our own doing, heats up and we the frog are becoming mortally damaged by trying to keep up.

Again, technology is not the problem.  In fact, I think that with good discipline, all of the technology that is available can complement a good, healthy, and holy life.  Just because pornography enjoys (pun not intended…ugh!) a large portion of the internet, the internet should not be shut down. 

Technology has nothing to do with it.  Kingdoms and Empires have risen and fallen over history numerous times.  Consider them as frog cadavers floating in once boiling water.  Take the Roman Empire.  No one at the time thought that Rome would fall.  It was huge and wealthy, not unlike the west or specifically the United States.  But in the end it did.  Increased material wealth leads to complacency, idleness, which then gives plenty of opportunity for our hands to do evil.  We indulge in pleasures and sensory stimulation to pass the time with little thought to the needs of many who do not have enough to survive.

What would happen instead, if we gave that wealth away so that someone could get what they need to survive?  That would take away a huge temptation for us to self-indulge and help someone else survive.  This voluntary poverty by those who are blessed materially, would be a tremendous boon to just overall wellbeing in the world and keep the “heat” down on the water that we are swimming in.  Could this solve the world’s problems?  Maybe, but I’m not optimistic.  Anything to do with voluntary poverty has to be that – voluntary.  Only when we do it because we want to choose this, do we fully achieve charity.  Involuntary poverty is basically socialism which has been shown not to work.  Why?  Because the people with wealth love their wealth and the people who receive the wealth just feel entitled to it, rather than grateful for the sacrifice that was made.  The idea of socialism is based on a truth: we need to share.  But the vehicle was hijacked by people with less than pure intentions.

Oh good gravy, I have made a mess of this post.  Hopefully I left something in there to think about.  For me….mmmmm….frog legs…

God bless,

Sven

Musings on Marriage

I've been thinking about marriage recently.  One reason is that this is the month of Svetlana's and my thirteenth wedding anniversary.  Another is that my sister is getting married in October and there is a lot of excitement in our family about it.  I guess thinking about both of them, I do a little bit of comparing and contrasting of what I think of marriage versus the modern view of marriage.  It is a stark difference.

I’m actually not going to dive into a why I think that I am right and that the world is wrong, but rather write about blessings that I’ve seen in my thirteen years that really made the marriage stronger and made it work.

I think one blessing was that we got married young.  How young?  Well, not in our teens, but just barely out of them.  I wasn’t able to legally drink!  Furthermore, I wasn’t done with college and Svetlana had just graduated with her four year degree (completed in three years!).  Neither of us had a job.  I had saved up a grand total of $3,000 dollars from my work as a karate instructor and lunch money my parents gave me.  That is all we had in the bank account.

We were lucky that the apartment complex gave us three months free rent.  The first month was practically a waste because we moved stuff in but lived with our parents.  It was empty of people until after the wedding.  I think that was another blessing because it meant that we started the marriage off by figuring things out together.

Consider: no job, no experience living on our own, only $3,000 to keep us afloat until Svetlana finds a job (we agreed that she would be working while I focused on finishing my degree).  We had to work together to figure this whole life thing out.  Before the wedding, we were best friends and talked about all sorts of stuff together, but it wasn’t the same as the intimacy of having to share the same fears together and fight together.  Only young lovers would be so foolish!  I would say if it wasn’t for that foolishness, things wouldn’t be going as well as they are now.  Things weren’t always peachy as it is always a transition learning to live with someone, but I would say it would be much harder coming from a fully independent life into married life.  There was much less that I had to let go of; I wasn’t set in my ways.  Neither was Svetlana.

Within a month, Svetlana found a job and I went to summer school.  We prayed about what I was going to do for a job when I got out of school.  At first I was thinking of being a teacher, but after a novena to St. Anthony, I started looking at being an actuary.  The fall came and I began my last year of school.

Then we did our next foolish thing, which was a tremendous blessing.  We got pregnant.  It was early in the spring of my last semester and we decided to be open to life.  That meant that we weren’t planning one way or another about children, but rather letting God have the final say in whether and when we should have a family.  There was a possibility we couldn’t have children.  God decided to bless us, which introduced all sorts of new anxieties.  Svetlana was going to quit her job when the pregnancy progressed far enough and I got a job.  We decided that we would live off of my income, and that she would stay at home.  Again – utter foolishness.

I graduated and began the search for work.  I took my first set of actuary exams and got the results on the same day that we went to the OB for an ultrasound.  I failed.  And that closed the doors to the actuarial career at least for the time.  I reached out to my karate instructor to see if I could teach and possibly help manage the school (he had three at the time).  When I called him up, he was just about to offer another guy the job of school manager.  Considering that I was an “insider," it made life easier for him.  So he gave me the job instead.  That was in the summer.

The pay wasn’t great, but we survived.  I took an actuarial exam sort of as a pragmatic measure while I managed the karate school.  That December, my first son was born.  In January, I got word that I passed my exam.  In April, I got an offer to begin work at an actuarial consulting firm.  Money was tight for a while afterwards, but it was good enough.  We had our little family and we knew things were looking up.

Looking back, I see that we were foolish in the world’s eyes on several fronts over the years, but I see time and time again that it has been a blessing.  Getting married young was a blessing.  Not cohabiting before marriage was a blessing.  Having children early and not knowing how it was going to work in the end was a blessing.  And should we be surprised?  This foolishness is a throwing of ourselves on God’s mercy and loving care even when we lack the knowledge of how deep and abiding that love and mercy is.  By having faith in God you won’t necessarily be given a bigger, better house and the like.  No, you’ll be cared for – we were never without – but you will get something more: the grace (that you don’t deserve) to make it through life’s trials unscathed and become a much better person.

I may muse more on marriage over my blogging life.

God bless,

Sven

Doodles from the Cube, 13th ed.

Coloring Outside The Lines

For some reason I was thinking about coloring books this weekend.  I think that it must be the coloring book app that the kids have on their Kindle.  My daughter really loves playing with it and is hounding me to get it on my phone:

“Did you get the coloring book app?” she asks bright-eyed.

“Nope…not yet, Shrimp,” I respond without lifting my eyes from a good old Snood clone on my phone. (Yes, that is her nickname).

“C’mon, you should get it.  It’ll be fun!”

“I’ma...you know…uhhh…hey so what did you do today?” trying to change the subject.

I actually don’t know how those conversations end.  I don’t think that I say that I don’t want the app.  Coloring stuff hasn’t really been my thing.  But the conversation does conjure up thoughts from my childhood.  I started thinking about coloring as a little kindergartner.  Which brings up the first of many characteristics that divide the human race: coloring inside the lines.

Coloring inside the lines has been synonymous with conformity and following the letter of the law just as it is written.  You follow authority because – well they are the authority.  You have to do as they say or else you get in trouble. 

So, if coloring inside the lines is synonymous with conformity, then coloring outside of the lines stands for rebellion.  These are the trouble makers with no thought to authority and social mores.  They sow seeds of confusion and chaos wherever they go.  They thumb nose at authority and welcome the trouble that it brings.

These two views – I am projecting from my own experience of what other folks think – are most prevalent in the world.  If not exactly how I describe, at least a partition of humanity into two categories: conformity and rebellion, yin and yang, Beavis and Stuart.

But I thought about it a little bit more and I don’t really think that you can tell much about a person just by the fact that they do or do not color within the lines.  Especially as kids.

Let’s take for instance kids who color within the lines.  It’s true that the future “yespersons” of the world would probably color neatly inside the lines.  But I don’t think that is everybody.  See, they look at the boundaries on the sheet as the boundaries they should adhere to because someone above them told them so without any evaluation on their part. 

What if someone else took a look at the lines for coloring and instead of taking them as the boundary, evaluated the usefulness of that boundary and in the end agreed with it.  They don’t go with authority because of authority.  They go with authority because they happen to agree with authority.  As kids, these folks would look at a picture and color in the lines if they thought that the coloring page was agreeable to them.  I think that is a very different person than the yesperson.

Complex coloring pages also have several small partitions, and it takes time to color each little one.  To color inside the lines takes either patience or commitment to duty.  Either you take it on because it is a constructive task; you agree that the task provided is worth it. Or you continue with each little detail because this is what you should do; you accept unequivocally that authority should be followed because it is authority.  Within the same group we have a sharp contrast.

Now let’s look at my clan – the color-outside-of-the-liners.  Why does someone color outside of the lines?  Sure there are folks who color outside of the lines in spite of authority as pure rebellion.

But I think that there are folks coloring outside the lines that look at the boundaries as suggestions.  They take a look at the boundaries that someone put up as suggestions for them to take or leave.  And they leave them.  These, I contend – can be closely related to color-in-the-liners that evaluate whether it is a picture worth coloring or not.

Another thing is that for detailed coloring books, the details can overwhelm people.  They take a look at each little detail and decide that the subdivisions are too fine for them to comprehend – they prefer wide expanses.

Or they lack patience, or don’t want to color, or they are spastic - all very possible reasons for not coloring inside the lines.

Nowadays with the prevalence of “geek chic” and the like, I think that people look more favorably on kids who color outside of the lines as if they are an Einstein in the making.  And although maybe the kid who colors outside of the lines might be a big picture person who breaks through boundaries to a greater world on the other side, it could also very well be the kid who colors neatly within the lines because they haven’t seen the coloring page that they didn’t like.  What happens when they see something that they disagree with?

In my humble opinion, I think that the coloring thing tells you if it’s a boy or a girl more than anything else.  Or more accurately, whether they like to color or not.

God bless,

Sven

Living for Heaven

I need to write this out.  I don’t know why, but I feel I am at the cusp of understanding something profound and I need to get to the bottom of it.  I feel depressed and sad and it has to do with this cusp.

Let’s start at the beginning.  We will only be happy when we do what God has asked of us.  However, we will never be fulfilled because we weren’t built to be fulfilled on earth.  There will always be a longing to be fulfilled regardless because our souls are meant for eternity.  But, I believe that we can have peace and joy in that longing when we fix out hearts on God.  This is in stark contrast to the sadness and depression of longing for the things of earth.

When we long for earthly things, we acknowledge at some level that we might not see come to fruition whatever it is we long for.  This is because everything that we want here below (money, honor, and pleasure) are temporary and will eventually fade away.  Therefore, if we think that it will fulfill us, we feel a strong desire to pursue it right away lest it fades away.  Once it fades, we can’t obtain it and feel like we are missing something.  That’s why when our hearts are fixed on something of this earth and it is too far away, we find ourselves at depression’s door.  Or, even if we are successful in our goal, we will soon tire of it and set our heart on another impermanent goal.  Then we wonder if we will ever be fulfilled.  We won’t find peace or joy.

In contrast, Christian longing is one of peace and joy because what we long for, we know will come to fruition.  And unlike the things of earth, it will never fade.  The only requirement is that we need to persevere.  The only goal that matters is for us to be in heaven with God, where our souls were meant to be.  We secure this by doing God’s will for our individual lives and entrusting our numerous failings to God’s mercy.  Setting our hearts on God and trusting in His mercy, we know with certainty that we will be fulfilled.  It is then a matter of when, not if.

However, even with the best of intentions, if we hold onto desires for things of this earth, we will struggle with sadness, depression, and emptiness.  In short, if there is any sinful desire comingled with our heavenly goal, these negative emotions will come to roost.

Back to our case study: I have stated that I am on a journey to unjobbing from the corporate world.  Why?  Because I feel that this is God’s will for me. At least I say it is.  The thing is, I say it is because I have made observations about my proclivities and talents and came to a rational conclusion.  However, there is a part of the equation that I didn’t state.  I have earthly reasons for unjobbing.  Sinful reasons that hold me back from doing it with joy.

When I say sinful, it is not the salacious type sin that we see in the press.  In fact it is the sin that is celebrated on earth even among the most “upstandingest” of citizens.  It is a craving of human respect and the pride that fuels. 

When I look at my work as a musician or as a blogger (the only two public unjobs that I currently do), I do struggle with the utter lack of listeners or readers.  It feels flat not having people tell me that it is good or that I made a difference in their lives.  The only people that I hear anything like that from (and I do appreciate it) are my wife, my children, and my wife’s extended family.  I don’t hear anything like that from my own family of origin.  And I definitely don’t hear that from strangers.  Except every now and again about some of my sketches during earnings calls and the like.

I am sad and depressed because of the lack of respect from people.  But what I should be more concerned about is what does God think of this?  People and fancies come and go; God is eternal.  God does not care if what I have done is done to a certain standard only that I have done what He asks.  He might call me to paint, and I may live my whole life in obscurity, and I die.  My work may never ever be given any acclamation even after my death.  But if I did it for God, then I won the only praise I need. 

It is tough.  People are all around us.  The worldly call to fame and fortune is on everyone’s lips, every TV, every radio, every song – everywhere.  God is silent.  It is hard to reassure ourselves of our hearts desire if it gets drowned out by noise.  That’s why prayer is necessary for us.

In terms of unjobbing, what does this mean?  I need to do what God is asking me to do right now, without question.  Considering I still have a corporate job, I need to do that.  Considering that I have the time and the drive to create, I need to do that.  I need to stay in prayer about both of these so that I know when or if I need to make a change in either.  It is possible that I will never make it out of the corporate world.  And if that is God’s plan, I need to be OK with that, or I will see more sadness and depression (and an extended stay in purgatory). 

Basically, God could call me to scoop poop for the rest of my life for meager pay, and for the sake of my soul, I need to accept it.  And in so doing, I will find joy and peace because no longer will the sinful desires of the world be hooked into my flesh.  No, I will be living for heaven.

Before ending off, and I feel that I need to add this, by being unknown, God has delivered me from a cross that I might not be able to bear, at least not yet and maybe ever.  Human respect carries with it a force that can change the most sincere of hearts and corrupt the most pure.  For us to go through life without an iota of honor or a penny to our name and be at peace – imagine how sweet heaven will be.  Woe to those that are exalted on the earth and bestowed treasure – for their path to heaven is increasingly narrow.

I am glad that I am going to adoration this afternoon – I’ve got a lot on my mind.

God bless,

Sven

Doodles from the Cube, 12th ed.

Fear

As I trudge ahead in this journey to unjobbing, I am coming to terms with fear, what causes fear, and the effect that fear has in my life.  Fear, like any emotion, can be a catalyst for good or evil.  So, I am going to just play with this idea a little bit and see if anything comes up.  Warning, this might not make any sense.

Let’s start with a rather easy scenario: drawing a picture.  I have at my desk a stack of blank paper (well blank on one side – misprinted actuarial exhibit fodder on the back).  I have pens.  But, I am often hesitant to draw in fear of a “bad” drawing.  Bad in quality, not bad as in evil mind you.  I wonder how many drawings and scribbles have not come to be because of fear.

Now fear can come in many different flavors.

How about fear of rejection?  I have mentioned that I have a long history of rejection when it comes to music.  I currently have about six hours of music and compositions out on a social site with several hours of completed music offline.  I have written tons of music and continue to write tons more.  But I don’t promote it.  Why?  Fear of rejection.  For me, to present a piece of art to someone is, in a way, to present a part of my soul.  When I throw it out there and it is rejected, it hurts.  It is much easier emotionally to just create for those that appreciate it, such as my family, and not chance that rejection.  At least in the short run.

What about fear of regret?  I mean that is fueling this whole blog – I fear that I will regret the decision to not give blogging a shot.  Or unjobbing.  I don’t want to be on my deathbed regretting the decision not to try something because I was afraid of failure.  There is fear again, but it’s on the other side as my adversary.

Ah, the fear of failure.  In an effort to mitigate regret and possible unfulfilment at the end of my days, I need to take a chance.  Let’s take for example my novel.  Ohh – better yet – leaving the corporate world for unjobbing.  What if in spite of my best efforts, nothing takes off and I am left with the feeling that I wasted great swaths of my life working in a cube and I never succeeded in finally breaking free. 

If I look at it objectively and practically, it isn’t a bad thing if I worked the rest of my life as an actuary.  I provide well for my family and children.  I have set hours and can plan vacation.  I can give a lot of money charitably to others to make the world a better place.  Really, it’s not that bad of a deal.  Why risk losing it?  Why try and possibly live north of destitution being an artist and introduce a whole host of other fears.  Wouldn’t it be better to just give up the whole unjobbing thing?

Which leads into the fear of unfulfilment.  I think that every single human being strives for fulfilment in this life in the way they feel is best.  For many, they look for tangible things in this world to find fulfilment – pleasures, riches, honors, power and the like.  For a few, they look to intangible things – love, friendship, family, a spiritual connection with God.  At the end of my life, will I happily go into that dark night, or will there be a pang of unfulfilment?

So now we have a conflict:  pursue unjobbing in pursuit of fulfilment (note that neither of those is certain) or forego that risk for the certain (or near certain) life of remaining in corporate America.  In economics, any possible profit from a decision needs to be compared to the cost of choosing not to pursue another decision.  To evaluate the decision to forego unjobbing and to stick to being an actuary, I have to estimate what I am giving up.  In terms of material wealth and the like, it’s hard to say: there are tons of people that just scrape by unjobbing.  On the flip side, for those that make it big, there is a possibility of significant wealth.  In the end, I don’t care about making it big, I just want to provide.

A character from one of the Redwall books my
daughter requested me to sketch for her.

But the real kicker is this:  by attempting to unjob, I am giving life to ideas that would not otherwise come to life.  If I do not try blogging, or novel writing, or making music, or anything other than being a good little cog in the corporate machinery – I could miss out on an opportunity to change the world.  Why change the world?  Because it can be a much better place.  And if more people took a chance to make it a better place it would be worth it.

I think that I gave myself a pep talk somewhere in there and I do feel a little better about taking on this journey.  I still have my own personal boundaries to tear down to go forward, but I feel more resolved.

I’m going to go pick up a pen and draw something.

God bless,

Sven

The $86,400 A Day Job

What if I told you about a job where you get $86,400 a day.  And – here’s the catch – you have to use it all in that one day or else you lose it.  Then the next day, you get another $86,400 to spend during that day with the same stipulation as the day before.  What would you think?  What if I said I didn’t see it on some get rich quick scheme forum on the net?

Before I tell you how to get this job, think a little bit about your strategy.  Would you spend it on cars, houses, and gizmos?  Would you spend it on experiences such as travel, vacations, and amusement parks?  What about investing that money for later returns?  Would you shop around for the best deal for your money, or would any old shop be fine?  Would you use only what you want and let the rest get chucked out?  Or would you spend every last penny somewhere?  Really think on it.

Do you have some answers?  Do you know what you would do?  Good – I’ll tell you how to get the job.

I first heard about this job several years ago from a talk show host.  I was a young Svenlet getting toted to or from school or extracurricular activity when I heard about it.  My dad would listen to talk radio in the car and expose all of us kids to the news and other stuff of the day.  When I first heard about it, I was giddy with fanciful thoughts.  $86,400 a day?  Heck, my parents didn’t make that in a year.  I would revisit this fantasy from time to time for many years.  When I first heard about it, though, the only things I thought of spending it on were Legos and video games.

Are you ready to get started?  You are?  Great!  You’ve got the job!

The job is your life.  Using the clever adage that time is money and an exchange rate of 1 dollar/second (inflation adjusted from the ancient Greeks), you can probably see the job more clearly.  Every day we are gifted 86,400 seconds to use as we see fit, but at the end of the day, we lose the seconds we do not use.

Now think back on the answers that you gave when it was a job with actual dollars.  Now think of the analogy of your life and how you use those seconds.  Do they match?  Most of us would agree that they don’t.  The reason is we don’t think about time as a currency. 

We take it for granted that we will have time to do stuff in the future, but don’t do anything today to make it happen.  It’s like saying you want to buy a million dollar house in the future, but don’t invest any of the $86,400 that you get every single day.

We tend to think about tangible things easier than intangible goodies like time.  So, let’s paint the analogous picture for the million dollar house with time as our currency.  The million dollar house could be something like writing a book or having a family.  Let’s say having a family.  In terms of time, it takes time to find a spouse, get to know the spouse, get married and make a home.  It takes time to make a baby (the fun part!), to incubate the baby, feed, dress, burp, change the baby.  It takes time to teach the child about good and bad, what is important, how to behave, how not to behave, how to control passions, and when it is okay to let them fly.  And if you have more than one child, there is more time committed to this family thing.  Many people take a look at the price tag and decide not to have a family.  At least not yet.  And then put it off until later, when there might not be a later. 

However, similar to real estate, a family is a time investment where we can reap huge returns over time.  Or lose the investment.  Same with money, using time has its own risks.  But without risk, you miss the reward.

Take a look at the writing a book example.  I’ve heard many people say that they wish they did something like writing a book or learning to play music or learning to paint, but decided not to pursue.  Why?  Well, the price was too much, and they didn’t want to invest the time into it.  I think that folks call that a speculative investment.

And similar to money matters, managing time takes practice.  The more that you use it, the better you get at things like spotting a deal, or using time efficiently, or investing for a superior return.

Also, there is no guarantee that there will be a future.  For example, the million dollar house could be sold before you raise enough scratch.  Or the price of the house could have gone up two- or three-fold where it is no longer attractive (also, I guess the price could have collapsed, but I’m wondering what that would mean in terms of time…).  Or you could get transferred out of your job.  That definitely puts a damper on things.  Does that mean we shouldn’t invest for the future?  No – it just means that we have to be happy with what we did with today not putting all of our time into being happy in the future.

And lastly, just like any job, you’ve got a boss.  And just like any boss, they’ll do a performance review and rate how well you did your job.  How well did you use that money?  How well did you use that time?  We’ll have to answer to the boss at some point.  The question is: will you get promoted, transferred, or fired?

God bless,

Sven

Doodles from the Cube, 11th ed.

I have been experimenting with adding color to my pen sketches with red pen accents.  What do you think?  Svetlana is partial to Van Gogh's badger (which evolved from a failed attempt at a cat).

Being Anything You Want

I was thinking very briefly on this just yesterday.  I’ve held this belief for a while, but only recently seen the evidence of its veracity.  And it is the idea of the self-made man or, more in the language of the point I want to make, that we can be anything we want.

My point is this – what good we do in this life is of no thanks to us.  Whatever great things we do in this life, it is not because we are great.  It is because we did what we were supposed to do.  Conversely, whatever failings we had, it is not because we are a failure.  It is because we did not do what we were supposed to do.

There is this feel-good philosophy prevalent in the modern child-rearing approach that anyone can be anything.  “You can be anything you want, honey.”  It sounds nice and helps us sleep better at night when we tell our kids this, but I believe that its intention is wrong.

The intention of that philosophy is to instill in kids the idea that if they want something bad enough, they can get it.  If they want to be President of the United States – they can if they want it bad enough.  The fact is, the kid that wants to be President eventually wakes up and realizes that the dream died several years ago and that they failed on some level by not being President.  Yes, they failed, but they failed in a journey that they weren’t supposed to take in the first place.

But for most of us, we don’t even get the chance to wake up one morning to go to a dead end job and realize that we failed.  We’ve had grown-ups intervene before then.  They’ve been through this dream, fail, live your life cycle.  The dreams that you have as a kid don’t work out even if you want it bad enough.  So at some point they take it upon themselves to help us wake up and face the “real” world.  They teach us of more “practical” considerations in picking a career or finding a path, without real consideration of who we are as persons.  And we believe them because there is an amount of sense in it.  You need food.  You need a place to stay.  A car would be nice and working a bad job so I can go on vacation once a year sounds like a good plan.

No – I really think that the philosophy of “anyone can be anything” is not to teach kids that they can be anything that they want if they want it bad enough, but rather that they could have the skills to be anything – they just need to find what that anything is.  It is to encourage the child who doodles in class instead of listening to their teacher that being an illustrator one day is a real option in life.

Finding that “anything” is the goal in growing up and the practical considerations of life will be taken care of – it might take some creativity.

How about instead of looking at the kid wanting to grow into a magnanimous adult, let’s take a look at a mover-and-shaker of the world and work backwards.  Albert Einstein is a great example.  He’s unanimously regarded as a phenomenal genius in theoretical physics.  Did he have to work at being a genius?  Besides some mathematical training - no, it was ingrained within him.  He did not come from a pedigreed academic background or any connections other than those he had as a patent clerk.  The gift of genius was within him.  The reason that he became the ubiquitous Einstein is because he let his genius shine through.

Alternatively, Einstein could have taken the practical route and just stayed a patent clerk.  It paid the bills, why rock the boat?

But the point is this: Einstein’s genius was not because he wanted it bad enough.  It was there the whole time; he chose to let it shine through.  And, that is what we should do with our own unique gifts.

Not many of us will attain the same stature as Einstein, and that is fine.  Even by allowing our own geniuses to shine through, we won’t all be regarded as immortal geniuses.  I think that when we dream of what we want to become, we are interested in what our stature will be with regard to the rest of humanity.  We want to be this towering giant of prowess, when in fact, we would be perfectly happy being Joe Shmoe doing his thing to pay the bills.  Just because we are true to ourselves doesn’t imply fame and fortune will follow.

We were given these gifts (or lack thereof) by no power of our own.  Therefore, by being true to what we are, we should never be left wanting in what we need.  God made us the way that we are and He made us to be ourselves.  Why do we think that if we do what God made us to do, that we wouldn’t be able to survive?  Why would He make something destined for failure, when we have the assurance that He loves us and wants us to be with Him in heaven?

In the end, the only power that we possess is the power to use the gifts that God gave us.

God bless,

Sven

The Virtue of Just Showing Up

I heard a radio personality a couple of years back speak about how he has been going to the gym for years.  Considering that many people fail to commit to the gym so faithfully, someone asked him his secret for his longstanding consistency.  And his answer might come as a shock, but it really shouldn’t.  He said that he just kept showing up.  He made it a point to make it to the gym at a certain time and day.  And he always went, even when he didn’t feel like it.

I find the anecdote inspiring.  I see this as the central virtue of my journey from my job into unjobbing.  How?  By doing something every day to bring me one step closer to my unjobbing dream.

The journey to unjob requires a development of alternate skills and capabilities so that I can get paid doing something that I like doing.  In order to develop those skills to a professional level, I have to practice.  One way that I have been doing that is waking up around 5:00 so that I can practice writing by working on my book.  Right now, I am editing a book that I wrote a couple of years back and needs some real extra attention.  Some days, I don’t feel like it.  Some days I work on it and can only get through a couple hundred words.  But other days, I can get through over a thousand before I have to get to work.  Some days at the end of the session I feel pumped.  Others, I feel defeated.  But regardless, every day I get up and try again.

By being persistent, even if results aren’t consistent, I will eventually finish.  My last book took about a year of working in the morning in a semi-consistent fashion (I also worked on music and other stuff – but it was always 5:00 in the morning).  When I look at the individual days, it doesn’t feel like a lot and when I am working on it I don’t feel like I am getting anywhere.  It can be quite discouraging.  If I did not feel that I should give writing a fair shot, I could see myself giving up on it a while back.

Similar to the gym, we get better the more we practice.  Whenever anyone first starts lifting weights, they start out light and get tired easily.  Again, there is the temptation to despair and give up.  But, by consistently going to the gym and lifting weights, they develop strength and toned muscles that they never knew they had.  Creative work is nothing different.  With my music, I am making it a point to always work on developing my writing by having a steady stream of projects.  For example, I have decided to write music for all 150 Psalms.  That is going to take a while, and will take maybe the rest of my life.  I plan on working on these in between other projects, but it gives me something that I can consistently practice my writing.

This virtue of just showing up also helps keep my perfectionism in balance.  By working on persistently producing and developing my tools, I am less worried about a subpar result.  I think a great example is this blog.  As I am writing this, I don’t feel like it is that great of a post, but I am doing it anyway.  Why?  It will make me a better writer in the long run.  It teaches me to be persistent even when I don’t feel like doing it.

So, even though I am an advocate of just showing up, I haven’t been great at following it here (hence I had to pull some “guest” posts from me back in 2012).  The part of just showing up that makes it work is that you have to have a time and place for you to show up.  If you don’t know when or where to show up, how can you?  I realized that recently with my prison pen pals.  I kept falling behind in writing to them because I didn’t have a consistent time to write to them.  I used to able to do a lot at work no problem.  But now, work is busy (and interesting) and I have an obligation to give my all to that work.  So, that puts me at a crossroads with the blog and drawing.  If I am going to keep doing the blog and working on my drawing, I need to set that time and place.  That will be my goal for the weekend – find my time and place.

In order for us to make any changes to our life, whether they are habits, or jobs, or…whatever – we need to make a consistent effort by just showing up.

God bless,

Sven

What is Success?

The last post was a blast from the past about the importance of failure.  Today's post is another essay I wrote in 2012, but this time about success.   Enjoy!

"What is success to you?" This was a question posed to me one day during an interview lunch. I have been interviewing for actuarial positions for the last six months and I thought that I had run across all of the interview questions that I could imagine. This one caught me by surprise, because I knew that if I answered honestly, I would be hurriedly shown the door.

Before I finish this brief story, lets take a look at how this is an open-ended question. What is success? Well, I went to dictionary.com and found some definitions:

1. the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors.
2. the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like.

There were three other definitions - two used the word successful (circular reasoning?) and the third was obsolete. So I left those out.

Armed with these definitions, how do we define success for ourselves? Applying the first definition might be morbid - but worth a shot. Let's see...the definition of success for me would be the favorable or prosperous termination of myself. Most probably my life. Essentially, success would be what my life would be like at its termination such that I find it favorable and/or prosperous. OK for me, that would mean living a life of doing good for others, developing my God-given talents, and being the best husband/father/grandfather/etc. that I could be. In short, a successful life here just means that I am in heaven when I am dead. I have little care for the things that others care about in terms of temporary pleasures of this world. I would not have a TV if my family would allow it.

I don't think that a response down that path floats in the corporate world. I presupposed that they cared little for my view of the afterlife. Furthermore, conversations like that make some people nervous.

OK, lets try the second definition. Success for me would be the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like. So, I guess, this would mean, what titles or wealth would signify that I was a success? OK, if I answered honestly, I would say that me working in my little studio for the rest of my life would be a success, given that I provided for my family. I don't want accolades, wealth and the like. I want to do what God called me to do, and that is it. FWIW, my dream job is actually not attainable...a monk.

That definitely would not float in the corporate world either. So, how do I answer this question?

There was a presupposition to the question, that I had a plan for my success, some golden idea of what sort of honors, titles, and the like that I want. They, I believe, wanted to see where I wanted to see myself in their company based on my answers to their questions. I believe that was their end goal.

In the end, I gave some canned response - something to make it look like I would be a good corporate zombie. And in the end, did it work? Probably not. I did not get the job and it may have been because of the response. More probably it was due to other things as well. But it did open my eyes: if my goal is to be self-sufficient in an artistic career (music, writing, or otherwise), then I need to work towards that end. That may mean doing other work until it gets started, or go full-steam ahead now towards it.

Failure IS an Option

I wrote the following essay back in 2012, but I think it's good stuff and deserves a spot here on EYKIW.

Failure.  The sin of wasting time, energy, and money on uselessness.  The sin of falling short of expectations.  The sin of falling short on results.  Failure.  It is one of the greatest insults of modern man, the pariah of our society.  Even if we have a slim chance of failure, we still balk at the chance to chase our dreams.  The last thing that we want to see in the mirror is the word failure pursed on our lips.

The fear of failure is everywhere.  Whether it is big life-changing risks, a change of hairstyles, or not getting enough courage to ask the cute guy or girl in class to a date.  If we shy away from taking a chance, we will not be rejected.  But, we will never get a chance to fulfill our dreams or even experience the bitter taste of failure.  You know, failure is not that bad - there is actually a lot of good that comes out of failure.

That is right - a lot of good coming out of failure!  There is so much that we can get from putting our heart into something and failing.  At the very least, it shows that we are not scared to try; we are not scared of trying to make a difference.  We learn from failure - the cadavers of failed ideas are great ways to learn and do better on the next attempt.  Also - even though we may fail, our failure may eventually be seen as a visionary masterwork over time.

One of the greatest mottoes (editors note:  holy crap!  I did not know that the plural of motto had an e in it) that I have run across with life is this:  we only have one shot at life.  We can't go back in time or give life another shot.  We only have one and then we die.  And I hear some of you say, "So, don't screw up!"  Let's take that reasoning to an extreme and play out our life.

If our goal in life is not to screw up, then that means we will only take on risks that are nearly impossible to fail at.  What does that mean?  Generally speaking, I believe that we would then stick to well trod paths of life.  We would not take on paths less taken or paths altogether not taken.  For example, this means if we wanted to write a novel, and we knew not a well trod path to writing that novel, it will be left undone.  Why?  Too much of a risk of failure.  No one we know or too few we know have done it.  Basically we train ourselves to believe that the most fantastic of real lives are not really real - novelists exist, but they are not normal people like me.  I wonder how often the next greatest American novel was not written because of this fear of failure?

Let's say that we had a dream that we wanted to pursue.  For the sake of illustration, we have this dream of producing a rock opera based on the musical failings of pop-icons.  Title:  Death by Bieber.  We pursue our dream and make it happen - and guess what - it fails!  Ticket sales were poor and the critics came down hard in the reviews.  Nothing much to salvage on this project.

So, that was all wasted time, right?  Not at all!  We learn quite a bit by just completing something.  Part of it is the intricacies that hide behind the silver-lined dream: looks nice on the outside, but it can be hell on the inside!  We could learn that we were not cut out for it.  And that is fine.  You can say honestly, at the end of the day, that you gave it a shot.  How many people just wished that they had followed a dream but ultimately never did?  At least you gave it a shot - and there is satisfaction to be had in trying.

You could also learn the more obvious from a failure:  this does not work!  And that is good too because if you feel that you like doing the work, you can put forth the effort to try again - tweak it or start over again.

Another thing that happens with a few "failures" is the eventual title of being visionary.  This happens often in art and music.  My favorite example is Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.  The music was harmonically adventurous with plenty of use of dissonance for musical color.  It was a piece of music so far out of the norm - that it was too much for the people of 1913.  So much so, that at the premiere of the ballet, a riot broke out.  That's right folks, a riot in the concert hall!  Now, Rite of Spring is hailed as one of the most quintessential pieces of 20th Century music.

What would have happened if Stravinsky played it safe?  It is hard to say, but I am sure that the musical world would be much less enriched because of it.  I have found inspiration in my own work from this piece.  Other examples of this visionary failure would be Nikola Tesla and JS Bach.  Although some of their genius was appreciated during their life, the total contribution of their work to art and science was not fully known until well after their death.  They were not necessarily failures, but neither were they given the full credit they deserve in this life.

And to tie into what is happening in the world today: how do you think that this economy is going to get off of life support?  It is not going to be people doing the same ol' thing.  We need creative energy to find new avenues for development and economy.  We need people not to be afraid to fail - now more than ever.  We need people to take that step away from that "safe" job for their own sake to take a chance to make a difference.  We need those unemployed to see the opportunity to take a chance on their dreams.  That is the only way we can get out of this mess: take a chance at failure.

...Oh and BTW, the first attempt at this post was a failure.  I had to rewrite the whole post!

Doodles from the Cube, 10th ed.

At the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, GA

Standing For Your Beliefs

I kind of left the last blog post in melodramatic fashion with this epic choice that lies before me.  Typical, I did not leave many details and reasoned that the only option was to pray to God for His guidance in the matter.  Once you get to that point, it is somewhat scary and you begin to feel that you are just never going to get an answer.  You find your best coin and get it ready to flip it.  You call heads.

And then, when you least expect it, you get an answer.  Not only when but how.  Wow, oh wow, we got an answer.

To give a little bit of flavor to the situation, I currently work as an actuary in a position that is a little more than manual processes and keeping up with a rather antiquated status quo.  There is not much (if anything) in terms of innovation and in need of intuitive insights.  I am beginning to think that this is typical of Corporate America.  But what the work lacked, it made up for in time for me to do my own thing - both at work and outside of work.

Now, the opportunity that I was looking at would be different.  It would be in a field that I like, and plenty of work to build and use my intuitive sense on a daily basis.  It was what I could see as my best bet at being happy in Corporate America.  But, would I have as much time to pursue writing, music, and other purely creative endeavors?  I didn't know, but I was sure to ask.

So the choice was: stay in subpar work environment and leverage time for creative endeavors or pursue meaningful work in Corporate America at the possible expense of creative endeavors.  Wow - it looks clearer when I put it that way!  But the thing is, I deferred my choice to God knowing that He knew what was best for me.  Did He make me to be an actuary?

The answer to my dilemma came when my wife dropped this bombshell:  about five minutes from my prospective work there was a landfill that housed nuclear waste from the Manhattan project (you know, when they were making the nuclear bomb in the 40s).  That wasn't as much a problem as the next bit.  Less than a thousand feet from the nuclear waste dump was a subterranean fire - you read that right, an underground fire, and it was approaching the nuclear waste.  There is no telling what will happen when the fire does reach it, but it will probably spread radiation all over the place.

Given reports of high infant mortality, higher incidence of cancer in the area, the answer was clear.  There was no way that I would be at peace there, worrying about the safety of my family.  So, I had the rather awkward job of telling my recruiter that I would not pursue the opportunity, that I could not feel comfortable about moving near a place like that.

Oddly enough, that awkward part of telling them no right then and there was the most difficult thing.  I have a tendency to think against the grain, but acting against the grain is harder.  I am quite empathetic, so I project the feelings of judgment and rejection on others, even those that I have not met.  I was on the phone for twenty minutes with my recruiter who was trying to reason and persuade me to reconsider.  It would have been much easier emotionally to just do the interview than to go through the turmoil of turning it down before I interviewed.  This was on Friday, and only now, Monday, am I on a better emotional balance.

But I learned some things through this experience: 

1. God's plan is for us to be here for right now.  This might be a couple of months or couple of years.  
2. The time that I can leverage from my work now is a blessing and that I should use it to the full while I'm here.  I may never been in an opportunity like this again.  
3. It reaffirms that God hears prayer and answers them, as long as we work at listening with an open heart.  If I was not open to the possibility that this might not be the opportunity for me, I don't think that I would have made the sound decision to keep my family safe.  
4. And lastly, making a decision on your beliefs that makes you look like a kook is never easy, but you will get better sleep in the long run.

God bless,

Sven

Where Are We Going, and How Come?

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you and I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.

And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road although I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death, I will not fear, for you are ever with me and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

-          Thomas Merton, OCSO

Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit, Conyers, GA

The above prayer was the subject for a wonderful cross-stitch that hung on the wall outside of the retreat master’s office/confessional at the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia.  Whew what a sentence!  Anyway – I think that they also had little prayer cards they gave away at the gift shop as well.  I’ve read it and prayed it many times.  And in times of great perturbation, I received much solace in this prayer.

As much as we think that we are the masters of our own destiny, the fact is that we just aren’t.  We cannot even begin to hope to understand the myriad of perils and blessings hidden in each moment of every day.  And if we soldier on with only our own understanding, we are sure to miss some perils and gain some blessings – but not everything.

I began this journey with the clear purpose of shedding my corporate exoskeleton and embracing an unjobbing life.  As I have waded through, I see that the water is murkier than I first thought.  There are so many ways to quit Corporate America, or to unjob, or to finally be who I am – and it is that latter goal that I have to follow.  What good is “sticking it to the man” if it fails in my very purpose?  And what if my real purpose is to be in Corporate America and that I haven’t found my niche yet?  I could really be selling myself short if I don’t pursue the right opportunities.  But on the flip side – maybe it will be devastating to further pursue Corporate America.  Maybe by taking that new shiny job, I further ensnare my soul and waste precious life, even if I did with the intention of freeing my soul.

I am coming up to a fork in the road.  I feel underworked and overpaid where I am.  I feel that I have a lot of time on my hands, that I feel shouldn’t be there.  Is that a blessing?  Or a curse?  I have these pangs of guilt when I am not fully worked in my work place, sort of like I am cheating the company.  But on the other hand – I finish everything plenty on time and at a quality at least as high as my colleagues.  I ask for more work, and I still only get table scraps.  So, I write.  Or draw.  I work on the work that I feel I must do – the work that the creative Sven must do in order to survive in the hopes that one day, yes one day, I can just be creative.

On the horizon looms an opportunity in Corporate America.  I am interviewing for a company for a position that is right smack dab in a field of study in which I am most interested.  Although the surface looks promising, there are several unknowns.  It will be a 15 hour drive away from here – 7 hours closer to my family of origin though.  It is in a city that is well known as one of the worst cities to live in in the US.  Given my incredible work-life balance here – tipped way over to the life side – am I going to hope to get a better deal?

Or is it possible that I will fall back in love with being an actuary given that I’m doing the right thing in the right place?  I don’t know.  None of these questions do I know answers to, and what’s worse – I don’t even know how to begin.  That is where the Thomas Merton prayer comes in.

In the end, I want to be  what God made me to be.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  I landed into this profession after a period of intense prayer and I have to say that it has been a blessing in many regards.  Either taking this job or staying where I am is fraught with possible blessings or curses.  All I know is that I want to do God’s will and I pray that He makes it abundantly clear, because in the end, I have no hope in being who I truly am without Him showing the way.

God bless,

Sven