It’s January 8th and I’ve technically been unemployed for 8 days now. As I write that it feels like a lot. I need to get my act together I think… anyway it’s technically been 8 days, but I ramped down far before my last day. I get a lot of questions about how this thing is going so far. I don’t really know how to answer that so here are some off the cuff thoughts 8 days in.
- My brain feels free
- Being healthy is MUCH easier
- People are confounded by this situation
- There is so much opportunity in the world it’s unreal
I won’t delve into all of these in too much depth, but I’ll say a bit about each one of them…
My brain feels free. I always dove into my work life really deep. I worked reasonable hours in the traditional sense, but my brain never stopped working. Those hours don’t count officially, but for me they were really my differentiator. My wife has caught me literally talking out loud trying to solve work problems many many times. I would literally dream about work on a consistent basis. These things were normal for me. They didn’t only happen during busy times. They happened all the time. Now that need is gone. My mind is free to think about other things. I literally feel more present in everything I do. I’m starting to think about life and things I can do in a totally different way. It even comes down to really small things. For example I decided to make Kelli, my wife, a star board. I literally give her gold stars for doing good stuff. It was a small project, but it’s something fun we have now. My mind wouldn’t have been free to connect Gretchen Rubin’s book, and her need for theoretical gold stars, to something fun I could do with my wife. Now I can, and I did. It’s an interesting phenomenon.
Being healthy is so much easier. The biggest thing is that I can 100% manage my time and energy. I have time to weigh my food and count my macros. I have time to food prep if I want. I’m also not in catered meetings where lunch is chosen for me. With control of my time comes control of my energy. If I have energy at 10am I can go to the gym then. If not I can do something else. The whole paradigm is much easier this way. The only counter to that is without a job there’s no real reason to say no to happy hour or meeting friends out other than your own discipline. If you can fortify yourself against slipping there it becomes really easy. Even if you have a day where you drink too much at happy hour or don’t sleep enough you can nap. Then go to the gym. Stock your house with healthy food, and even if you slip you don’t slip far.
People are confounded by this situation. Mostly older people. Most of the people I know work full time so I have a skewed sample with this one, but it stands nonetheless. I’ve been told by multiple people that I should never quit a job until I have another one. Now of course this is 100% opposite of what I actually did. Others seem to think I’m lucky and wish they could do it. However, almost no one seems to know what it’s like. What do I do all day? Am I just applying for jobs? No one seems to understand the day to day, and well neither do I really. I have no idea what I should be doing. I just try to keep moving. What’s interesting is people seem interested in this journey.
There is so much opportunity in the world it’s unreal. I think a lot of this realization goes back to my first point… my brain, and certainly time, are fee to explore. I see so much opportunity in this world it’s absurd. When I say opportunity I don’t only mean jobs. I mean in multiple dimensions. Right now I’m writing this to take advantage of the opportunity to share my thoughts. I’m looking to partner with a local company to help them on a project for free. I’m reshaping my own life with healthy habits. We just got a puppy so there’s an opportunity to take care of it. I’m looking at doing additional volunteer work with other companies. I’m also starting to think I’ve been undervaluing what I’ve been able to accomplish at Nielsen. As I talk to recruiters and companies it seems like they’re dealing with a lot of problems that I’ve already solved… maybe this is just me getting a little cocky, but whatever. The reality is there are 1000s of companies dealing with tech problems. That’s a lot of opportunity.
More to come later. This is my first every Life/Experiments post. Right from my brain to the blog to you the reader. If you have feedback or thoughts I’d love to hear it.
Cheers,
Bobby