February 13, 2007 by karamonroe.

Buster, over at Mutual Improvement, has posted an interesting question - what is your order for the following list of priorities:
Home
Travel
Creativity & Self-expression
Love & Relationships
Beliefs
Education & Self-improvement
Money
Work & Career
Health

Well, for me, I would reorder as follows:
1. Love & Relationships (where I put family as well)
2. Health
3. Beliefs
4. Creativity & Self-Expression
5. Work & Career
6. Education & Self-Improvement
7. Money
8. Home
9. Travel

Of course, any time you do an exercise like this, the obvious question that comes to mind is - is this how I’m living my life. For me, the honest answer is no. However, my work towards fulfilling my 12 habits and towards examining the reasons why I work and perhaps finding a new job are all important aspects of getting this list back in the right order in reality and not just on paper.

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February 13, 2007 by karamonroe.

Have you ever had that discussion with your parents - you know the one where you are unhappy with your job and you’re looking for a change because of all the stress, chaos, and simply the lack of passion for what you’re doing. And when you do have the discussion, the parent (in my case my father), get’s that glossed over look in his eye and says - you haven’t seen stress until… or you don’t know what work is until… 

Please don’t get me wrong.  He has worked harder in his 65+ years than I probably will work in 90+ years if I’m blessed to live that long.  However, times change dramatically with each generation.  His experience with work was different than his fathers and mine is different than his.  Not only are the contexts and the environments in which we work different, but we are different people.  Not terribly different, but different enough for me to know that I can’t work because it’s a good job with good pay and good benefits if it doesn’t interest me or feed my passion for living. 

I like a posting at StartupSpark on how you’ll know you’re an entrepreneur (You can also find the listing at lifehack.org).  I don’t think you have to necessarily own your own business or jump into a start-up company to be an entreprenuer or at least have an entrepreneurial spirit.  I certainly have held positions where I felt like an entrepreneur.  I loved the work, I loved the people whom I served and whom I worked with, I had a passion for what I was “selling” (and for that matter still do even though I haven’t been in that position for more than three years), I lived my work, I was always looking for new opportunities - both to extend what we were doing and how we were doing it and, most of all from the StartupSpark list, I think that I was always prepared to say, “I don’t know but I’ll figure it out.”  That is the part I’ve lost in my current position.  I can easily say I don’t know, but the I’ll figure it out part - that passion to answer the next question, conquer the next challenge, fill the next void, just isn’t there in this job. 

So dad, for you, please know - I don’t really think I have it bad.  I just want more.

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February 13, 2007 by karamonroe.

They aren’t quite yet calling it a blizzard, but it appears we might end up there by the end of the day. Regardless of what they are calling it, I’m staying home!!! Today is a day to spend cleaning, doing my taxes, baking some cookies, and playing with the kitties. I’ll also probably spend a significant amount of time playing with my new camera, a Nikon D80. I took this shot early this morning while coordinating all the phone calls and instant messages and emails regarding whether or not we would be closed today. Glad I made productive use of all the down time between photographs. The shot taken with White Balance set to -3 to warm up the ugly yellow color of the light, but all other settings were using the Program Automatic Mode.  After all, the camera knows far more than I do about photography!

From Blog Photos

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February 13, 2007 by karamonroe.

The midwest is being pounded on by mother nature in the form of a winter storm. It’s one of those storms that isn’t really bad yet, but has promises of many great things to come.  As a facilities director, it is my job to assist in the decision making regarding whether or not to close our little campus.  Thankfully, we’ve decided to close for the day.  Needless to say, this helped me greatly in my question towards the early rising and more routine evenings/mornings as I always try to get to sleep a bit earlier the night before a stron like this since I know I’ll have to be up so early and I got up at 4 this morning to start monitoring the weather situation.  I did take a couple of cool pictures out the window this morning with my Nikon D80 which I’ll share with you in a post a bit later.  If you’re in the midwest, stay inside today and off the roads.  If you’re on the east coast, particularly New England - get ready.

Anyway, if you work in a business where you have the opportunity to take a snow day once in a while (either the business imposes it or you simply save a sick day or two in order to use as snow days - regardless of whether there is snow on the ground), I say congratulations.  It is a great day when mother nature says, you need to stop.  For those folks who can’t stop - doctors, nurses, my social worker friend who works at the local hospital, road crews, police, fire, and emergency workers - the rest of us NEED to stay off the roads and let these people do their jobs under the worst possible circumstances.  The rest of us need to cuddle up under a blanket with our favorite pet and a good book and catch up on our leisure reading, blog postings, or just get a little shut eye. 

I do love snow days.

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