The Digital Bohemian

to play the game

2009-04-13T13:42:00.004-05:00

To play the game of office politics in business...

One needs to look the part. New clothes, sharp haircut, new shoes. Image is everything. Stand tall, stride when you walk with your head held high. People notice when the wardrobe ratchets up a notch. Constancy is key. Keep it up, keep it moving forward.

One needs show competence. Not just that you know your job, but that you do it well. You need to reach outside your box. Put a toe in the other waters. Not only hit all your marks, but hit the others all around your box. Hit the marks of those who are doing the job you want to do. Reach. Keep good notes. What are you spending your time on, both that is directly related, and that that isn't but in the area you are moving. People notice when you are above and beyond, reaching out, past your job description.

One also needs to have the attitude, the confidence. Remember when I said you've got to stand tall, to stride when you walk? Do that, pick up your feet, hold your head up. Meet people in the eye when you walk among them, don't cast your eyes down. Don't forget to smile, be easy with not only your peers, but those above you in the job you are looking for. Be easy all the way to the top if your corporate culture will allow it. Adopt a more alert, yet relaxed posture when in meetings, especially with those who have pigeon holed you as a lifer in your current position. If you wear glasses, use them in your body language when you make a point. They are a good tool. You have the ability to change the power dynamic across the desk if you have the confidence to go for it. People notice this. Especially when teamed with all the above. They begin to wonder, what is he up to, where is he going, did we underestimate him, he may be right for the job after all.

To play the game, takes all three.

I'll let you know how it plays out...

progress

2009-01-05T11:54:00.005-06:00

Unlike many in the IT world I've managed to stay pretty static in my jobs. Don't get me wrong, in the early days of the late 80s, early 90s, I could barely stay in a job for more than 3 years before I would jump for something new, different, challenging. Then I hit a contracting job in the mid 90s that had me moving to a different company nearly every day, working on support issues, training, server stuff. Always something different. It kept me interested, until the money ran out and the company started folding up underneath me. I jumped then, after 5 years to my current company.

As I look at the calendar and realize that I am approaching 10 years at my current company. 10 years as a network administrator. I managed to stay fresh, involved, passionate about my job, in the early days by finding facets I could explore. Network Security, interoperability between NT and Unix, learning Linux and implementing it in the network for a specific task. I am the one and only go-to guy here when they have a network problem, locally, in the branches, with the wide area network that I built with my own two hands here. The guru.

It's been going stale though. 10 years is a long time to deal with the same users with the same problems, over and over again. I've been back in school, on again, off again, over the last nearly 10 years I've been here. Out a year here and there, back in, a few classes, then another stall. Conflicted about what I could do, what I should do, what I can do. I threw up many roadblocks to my own progress. Many agonizing weeks, months, of asking myself, is it the path for me.

A friend of mine commented the other day that I have a sponge for a brain. A question is asked, and I'll dive right in, research, locate, assimilate, and regurgitate the answer in a way that others can understand it. Quickly too. I thirst for knowledge, for information, like a man dying in the desert for want of water. She's right. I do. What I like is seeing the pieces come together, forming a unified whole in my head. I like being able to understand it enough to be able to explain it to others.

I have a wide variety of interests, flying, computers, AI, robotics, glassworking of various types, history, english lit. Over the years I've given instruction to other people in many of these. Those times, have been the most enjoyable ones.

Now that many other factors in my life have waned, fallen to the wayside, cooled. The static, the interference they caused in my head has eased. My way is clearer now. The path more defined. There is nothing standing in my way now but myself.

The 20th starts a new semester, and another step along the path.
Here's to putting that sponge of a brain to use...

what are you "cut" out for...

2008-12-22T22:49:00.003-06:00

That's a question that is asked a lot. What are you cut out to do. What is your talent, your calling, your single path in life.

In many ways people from my generation were trained to that question. I'm approaching my mid 40s, cut my teeth on the old standby tv shows in reruns. The Andy Griffin show, Father Knows Best, My Three Sons, even Leave it to Beaver. Shows that were built on everyone having their place, everyone knowing what was expected of them. How they should live, what they should do.

That culture was built on everyone knowing what job they were cut out for. Predicated on the assumption that that is the only job that you will ever do. It also, by and large, pushed a nuclear family with a sole bread winner. Everyone has their place. They perform to their expectations. There wasn't room for people to grow, to evolve.

That's not how people are though. That culture, worked for our fathers, their fathers, but not for us in our mid 40s. One of the reasons it stopped working is because the contract between employer and employee was broken. You can't count on business having any sort of compassion for its workers. Why would workers think they will, should, do the same job, day in, day out, for the entirety of their working lives?

What the youth have been discovering, in part due to the push of their parents in my age range, is that you won't do just one thing in life. People are capable of growing. There are no boundaries in your life. You aren't limited to just being cut out for just one job. It's okay to have a career that you succeed at. It's also okay to grow tired of that path, to follow another branch, another path of your interest. To start again, find something else that trips your trigger, that thing that makes your eyes glow and invades your dreams at night.

We live longer, healthier lives than at any time prior in the history of the world. We have far more time to explore, to think, to consider, to learn, to feel. It's okay to find out that what you were "cut" out for 20 years ago isn't a tailored fit anymore. Now, you're "cut" out for something else. It's okay. It is all part of our journey of self-discovery.

That's part of why people go back to school. To take another degree, often in a different area than their first. They take classes in painting, clay, drawing, small business, even things such as nursing, or vet tech. People grow, change. They reach deep inside themselves to find their next path, their next tailor "cut" life that is waiting for them.

It's okay..
People, evolve...

as a semester winds down

2008-12-15T13:01:00.005-06:00

Another 6 hours are behind me now. An A in an IT class, and it looks like I've pulled a B out of my org behavior class. I have never worked so hard for a B in my entire life.

I've been on again and off again about taking classes in the spring. I've felt burned out again, it seems to take so little nowadays. I have been at time both frustrated, and confused, as to which direction to take my life. We won't even go into the feelings I've had about why am I even still trying.

Suffice to say, it's been a rough semester. But I'll go back. I've developed a sort of clarity all of a sudden, an ease.

Something happened last friday. I don't know why, or how, but something deep inside me changed.

usually..
My head is a busy chattering place. Emotions, feelings, ideas, whizzing back and forth in constant movement.

I feel...
Pressed for time
I feel... stressed, unhappy
Always finding something to be unhappy about.
Things, irritating me at every turn.

But late friday this started..

It's like, I don't care
But that's not right, because I still do.
but... it's like things feel at ease in my head
my conscience, my life... not quite relaxation..
But close, as if some giant tight wound clockwork spring has finally run down. Almost a kind of a limp emptiness.

A kind of almost contentment, acceptance, maybe. But more like a sort of clarity, focus, but not the busy, hyper-focus I usually have. There is a kind of muscle tiredness about it, a small sigh, but then a relaxed release of it, of the, maybe baggage is the right word to use here.

In many way it's so very freaking weird to feel this way after so long.
No anxiety, no weirdness, no stress.
No hyper-focus, or chatty thoughts.

Just, kind of...
here...

and feeling...
weird...

But almost, nearly, content, okay.
Almost as if I somehow, found a center inside myself. And for once, everything has nudged in line and I'm, balanced.

I hope this feeling..
this... balance...
can last

life continues

2008-09-03T14:09:00.003-05:00

One class down over the summer. One CLEP exam taken and passed. Two more classes started. The semester is just a week along and I already feel lost and behind. This does not bode well. Work, continues to be a bear. My personal life, rocky.

I find it increasingly hard to focus on things. To hold all the bits of this life together. To make progress.

It feels like there is a something big looming over my head, resting on my shoulders. Something waiting to bear down and crush me like a bug.

Focus. The watchword. Focus. Something that in the past I've proven myself cable of great, sharp, pinpoint focus. Focus. Things blur, are indistinct, shimmering in the summer heat. I cast about, grasping for purporse, result, reason.

I find myself at times ready to shift the entire lot of my life into the bin. Chuck it and walk away to find a sandy dune on a beach. To sit, baking in the sun. Ears, mind, numb by the sound of the ocean. Lungs full of the salty sea air while the cries of gulls echo along the beach.

Through this all life continues. The clock turns 'round the face twice. I show up at work another day. I try to make progress in class, at home. I... exist.

Life continues. As it must, as it shall.

a long time, no posting

2008-06-18T14:56:00.003-05:00

a long time, no posting...

In this digital world one should be able to squeeze a few precious minutes in order to post for the living, the curious, the digital. It's been a long spell since the last post. Many things have happened. Some good, some bad.

My ground school completed. The scout troop did well, learned a lot, and enjoyed their flying. If I have inspired any of them to someday come back to the dream of flight, then I have done a good thing in the world.

Earlier in the blog I posted about a friend of mine that passed on New Years morning. I am very sad to say that some sixty short days later his younger brother also passed due to unforeseen complications of a fairly simple medical procedure. This shook my world to its very foundations. I find that even now, several months later, it still brings me up short at times. Both of these friends meant a lot to me. I've tried to make some sense of it and cannot. It is the way life works though. The universe rolls on, and good people fall beneath the wheel.

This loss triggered another bout of introspection, soul searching, reinterpretation of what my life must be, must mean. All of this to no avail. I have found myself just as aimless in my course across the sea of life as I have always been. Though perhaps I feel the loss of time, of opportunity, more keenly now than I have ever before. I attempt to heal, to find the one true path to follow. Only to be cast upon the rocks once more, bruised, battered, disgusted with my life, my lack of progress.

I posted in the past of grand plans of my degree, of finding a purpose going forward, of listening to the life lessons of my departed friend, only to find myself again drifting again. Treading water as I conceive of, put in place, and feebly try to execute another start on a path.

Will this one work, this attempted restart? I don't know. I have to hope I will finally make some progress. If it fails again, like so many other false starts, at least I will have tried to move my mired wheels forward another fraction of an inch.

Nobody ever said life was easy.

Time to pull myself up by my bootstraps again.

it's set...

2008-01-22T15:46:00.000-06:00

It's all set. Feb 23rd, 9 am, I'll start teaching my first private pilot ground school.

It's to a scouting group. They are even providing the space to teach the class. The badge requirements are that they attend a ground school built out of the Jep text. Be ready to take the written when done. Actually taking the written isn't needed. But I hope at least a few decide to go forward with it. It would be very cool to light the fire in someone about flying.

I've worked out a deal with my old CFI who's an ASA dealer to provide us the e6b and protractors at cost for the group. I'm trying to keep the cost as cheap as possible for them.

It's pretty neat to be in a position to finally be able to use the AGI certificate I got last year. Now to build out the lessons. This is the hard part. That and facing my first class.......

My current plan is 8 in class sessions. One trip to the airport after the first 4 classes that cover the airplane, what makes it fly, instruments, and the like, for a touch and feel with a real airplane so they can hopefully connect book stuff with real world stuff. Then back to the classroom for the last 4 classes, covering weather, regs, cross country planning and the like. For the last session I've talked with some friends who have volunteered themselves and their planes to hop the class members for a local flight. So 10 weeks total, 8 class sessions, 2 airport field trips, 2 hours every saturday morning.

At the end.. Maybe, some of them will want to start flight training. I need to prepare a fact sheet for the local CFI's and schools at the 3 airports nearest them.

This is the sort of thing I want to do, perhaps, most of all...

when just you think...

2008-01-21T13:21:00.000-06:00

When just you think that you've figured it out. That the world wants you to abandon one thing, or at least push it to the background of your life. Something happens. Your world is tossed topsy turvey.

This has happened to me in the last 3 days. After trying for nearly a year now to find a place, a way, to teach a Private Pilot ground school. After giving it up as an unobtainable goal because I'm not attached to a flight school. I'm an oddity in having an Advanced Ground Instructor certificate while not being a true Flight Instructor.

An opportunity fell into my lap.

So it would seem that in less than a month I'll be facing my first class of students. A scouting group working on a badge wants to go through a FAA ground school. To be exposed to aviation, and perhaps, for one or two of them, to take the written.

Never give up. The universe provides.

student id

2008-01-16T10:41:00.000-06:00

Things continue to move along on the degree front.

I received an email from the school yesterday. I'm accepted into the undergrad program. They've assigned me a student ID and password for the blackboard system.

From here I'll be able to watch when my transcripts arrive. As well as how they are applied into the degree plan. Hopefully I'll be able to tell if they've been able to use the other documentation I forwarded them on Monday.

I don't mind stating that I'm nervous about this entire process. I've got a good friend who has her degree from these folks. They worked with her and she's good to go. I'm hoping to have similar success. The unknown though, it haunts me. My problem is that I think too much, run down too many paths, always looking for the flaws, the hangups, the problems. It's part of what paralyzes me in getting things done.

It's all sent off though. All I have to do is wait now and see. The waiting is hard for me. It's so easy for me to spin off somewhere else, thinking that this will all be for naught. Focus though is key. I'm currently working through a CLEP guide for an exam. If I need a few credit hours I hope to fulfill the requirements via CLEP. This keeps my mind occupied, my thoughts focused. Hopefully it'll ease the angst of waiting.

Still, I have a student id now. It's a start...

offers

2008-01-14T14:05:00.001-06:00

There is something disingenuous to an offer when you go to take someone up on it and it is retracted.

I worked somewhere close to 13 hours on Sunday. My boss, surprised that I did, and that I was in at 7 am this morning to finish up the tapes offered to let me take a day off this week. I thought for a moment, checked the department schedule and said "fine, how about Friday?"

"Oh! Can't do that", I hear. It seems that he's going to take the day off, just hasn't run it by our big boss yet. Can't have off next Monday either as our helpdesk is out that day.

Forget it... It's not worth it this week.

Still, shouldn't offer what you won't deliver.

paper...

2008-01-13T18:45:00.000-06:00

I spent a bit of my downtime today collecting information. Paperwork to send to the university I am applying to. You see, they offer credit for certifications you may have collected in your outside life.

So I've collected not only my old networking certifications and made copies, but also made copies of my FAA pilots certificates. Written a few cover letters so that tomorrow I can get them notarized and in the mail.

It'll be interesting to see how much, if any, credit they will extend for these hours, days, months of my past life spent in the scaling of various cliffs of knowledge.

I'll let you know!

movement

2008-01-11T20:12:00.000-06:00

I've spent the last several days thinking about my immediate future. Reexamining old goals, taking a critical look at my current employment situation, pondering my future employability.

Like many INFP's I tend to get caught up in overanalyzing things. Running iteration after iteration through a scenario. There comes a point though when you have to stop. One has to end the repetition for after a time it becomes pointless and paralyzing.

One has to MOVE.

Today was a movement day.

I cut my teeth in the computing industry. Not believing that having a piece of paper was important in order to get a good job as long as you can show that you know your chops, I never completed work on a college degree. I've been back to school off and on over the last 25 years, slowly accumulating a strange mishmash of credits while I've bounce around, unsure what I wanted to be when I grew up.

Now, when you are in your twenties, or even your early thirties, the lack of a degree isn't as much of an issue as you might think. Especially not in the early days of the late 80's, early 90's in the computing industry. Once you reach your forties though things start to change. If you've never had management experience one finds securing a decent job an increasingly tough proposition. As the industry has aged, the mavericks, of which I am one, become a hard sell to management. Your management gets younger, you get older, and they look down their noses at the 'supposedly' unskilled help.

If you want to move out of the work environment you've called home for 25 years you tend to find your hands tied. Even if you want to stay in your industry, you find moving to a new company at a comparable pay level tough. Everything now reads that it requires a bachelors degree with some experience preferred. In a lot of ways the bachelors degree has become devalued into nothing more than a ticky-box for HR to check when vetting an application. If you don't have one, you get put in the less desirable pile. If you are in the less desirable pile, you tend to not get a second look.

I don't have a degree. I now believe that I NEED one.

I've toyed with the idea of getting one quite a bit over the last 10 years but have never been able to consistently focus the time and energy needed to secure one. I've started looking at distance learning programs. Especially programs that offer a catch-all sort of bachelors degree. One that will maximize the scattershot nature of my college past. One that perhaps offers a way to convert my rather focused work life to my benefit.

I believe I've found such an accredited college and program.

Today, I moved. The time of being caught in an endless loop, iterating through options, thoughts, ideas, has come to an end. I moved, and felt the stasis that had been gripping me on this topic creak, bend, then shatter around me. Forms have been filled out and sent. Transcripts have been queued for delivery. The collecting and documenting of life experiences has started.

With any luck 2008 will be the year I gain my bachelors degree. One more thing accomplished. More paths will be opened, more travels possible, for The Digital Bohemian.

just push on...

2008-01-06T14:34:00.000-06:00

It's been a rough start to 2008 for The Digital Bohemian. I found out late last year that a good friend was dying. He passed early New Years morning.

I could go on for hours and pages about my friend. About his life, his accomplishments, his family. I won't though.

If there is one thing that my friend showed me over and over, is that no matter what life hands you, just push on. Decide, move forward and see what life brings next. He hadn't had an easy life, family, business, friends. There was only one thing that ever slowed him down, and it's a lesson that I have learned from him well in what not to do.

I've made progress in the last two years on life long ambitions. I've got a few more waiting in the wings that have been stalled. Stalled by other issues in my life that I can't go into here. I shall borrow a page from my friends life story though. Just push on. Decide, move forward, see what life brings next to me. INFP's easily become paralyzed by too many options, too many choices, too many fears. My friend wouldn't let himself become paralyzed, even after he heard the bad news in September. He pushed on, he moved forward with as much dignity as his illness allowed. He tied up things he needed to.

My friend blazed a trail for me to follow. He taught me an important lesson in his final months. Just push on. If he could do it even to the end, then the blocks to my ambitions are trivial.

Just push on. So you can see what life brings next.

I will...

when the door you seek... is right there...

2007-07-02T18:59:00.000-05:00

I have been accused of flitting from topic to topic, plan to plan, path to path.

It's a fair criticism of me. I could say it's the INFP in me coming to play. That would be true, to an extent. I've spent so much time in the last 10 years trying to find the right path, the right door to open. Looking for the things that makes me happy. I have dove deep into many hobbies. I've followed many paths part of the way. I've found a new shiny thing and let it divert my attention. I've rediscovered old dreams, old habits, old joys and considered once again.

I've let myself get wrapped up in things, in wants, in trying to keep up with other people. I've tried to force my life into something acceptable to others. Through it all, I wanted, I strove to think, to cast about, to look, for that one special door that I could step through. That one path that led to contentment with what I could do, what I could offer in life.

Even as recently as yesterday, as late as noon today, a few hours ago, I was spinning in place. Asking myself, are my plans right, will they open that door to the world I want.

When it hit me like the proverbial load of bricks, the door I wanted, the path I needed, was right there. I've already walked through it. In and out the door dozens of times in the last year. It's possible that things could be better. It's possible that more changes are to come. I've been too busy thinking I still sought the 'answer', to realize that the door has already been uncovered and I've been using it.

The door I sought, is right over there. It's been hiding behind me, me, wanting to try to force it to grow, become something else faster than it may be able to. The fact of the matter is, the door is fine, the path well groomed, were there nothing more to happen along the path, it fills the answer, the need, the want.

So my friends, when you aren't sure any more...
Look around you, it's possible that the door you're seeking is right over there...

Immersion

2007-05-29T15:59:00.000-05:00

Immersion…

It’s the way I learn best. In a highly informal poll of other INFP’s it seems that it is the way most of us learn best.

I’ve been asked many times before. How do you focus like that? Why do you become so consumed by what you are interested in to the exclusion of all else? How is it that you know all this?

I will admit, I am an information glutton. I will gorge myself on everything I can get my hands on if a topic interests me. It is what makes me good at my job in Tech Support. I may not have every answer off the top of my head, but I have a huge base of information to draw corollaries from. Things aren’t quite working right, but this is similar to another problem I’ve had or read about over there somewhere. Allowing a gut faith leap of faith to the solution, I am more often correct than not.

At one time books were my friends. I would read 3 to 6 a week if they were popcorn, perhaps 2 if they were dense texts. Page after page would be consumed stored away, for recall later. In high school I discovered that I had near perfect recall of text on a page, if I could only remember the page number it was on. This talent has since faded with time and disuse. Now I am more likely to pull my information from the net, blogs, websites, feeds.

Books have fallen by the wayside the last 10 years or more in my life. With near instantaneous access to depths of information on obscure topics there is a feast of facts on which to gorge upon. This makes the ready task of information immersion that much easier. Opening the pores to absorb everything that comes your way. Sure there are problems with this. Things aren’t fact checked; you need to be careful as to who your sources are. Still, on this wild web spanning the globe you will find pockets of information, people, who know their subject, willing to accept another into the fold.

I find though that as I’ve grown older I begin to miss the feel, the smell, and the weight of a bound paper book. I blame going back to school, leaving the business degree I had been following and falling into the English program for that. A homecoming of sorts, the feel of paper, the rustle of a turning page, reminding me of a long ago dream.

I had once wanted to be a Renaissance Man, a polymath. One who would have read everything ever published. To have within the gray folds of my brain the sum knowledge of all that had come before. Of course it isn’t practical or even remotely possible anymore. The last men alive that could honestly lay claim to that title would have likely been Milton, perhaps Goethe. The sum of all our knowledge has grown larger than any one person can contain anymore.

Immersion. Diving deep into the well of knowledge, grasping the elusive ideas, facts, knowledge and rocketing to the surface with rare jewels. Correlating barely related things, seeking connections, flashes of insight, understanding.

Perhaps inside many INFP’s want to be Buckaroo Banzii, Rock Star, Brain Surgeon, Race Car Driver, savior of our dimension. After all, it’s all in the books, waiting to be pieced together. Focus learning, immersion, isn’t bad. It’s one of the most beautiful ways to learn things. It feels good to get it, to grasp the concept, to understand when the gray mists are swept clear.

Give it a try if you are passionate about something. You might be surprised at what you can accomplish.

what parts we play

2007-05-09T14:36:00.000-05:00

In my last entry I spoke briefly about school. Even though I’ve had to lay out of class for most of this last year I do still keep up with my school newspaper. This week is their graduation issue.

There has to be a term for the feeling you have looking at a list of names while feeling left behind. Seeing people who you’ve shared coffee, books, discussions, arguments, insight, notes, moving on in their life, their career. I am, and have been, a non-traditional student. I have been in school a long time since going back and it should no longer be a surprise to see people matriculating up the ladder.

It is somehow painful though to feel left behind. Many people go back to school later in life and make it through. I am no different than most. I took too long to find my path in college though. My history is now checkered. Were I to complete my undergrad I would be a bad risk for graduate school. The mythical PhD I finally found that I wanted, is likely now beyond my ability to attain.

It is a sad testament of our culture, our world, that I in tech support, already earn far more than most of my fellow students will ever dream of making as college English Professors. The world’s priorities are all about how can someone make the most money. What has the bigger payoff? What is more practical? The generation of today is being driven in larger and larger numbers into ‘practical’ careers. Yet, our country has increasingly become an economy of service industries.

Who will be our great thinkers, our great writers, and our great artists of the future? One of the most popular books of recent times is constructed for our world of microsecond attention spans. Rapid-fire chapters, often times not even a page long, flitting from scene to scene, character to character. With fodder such as this for our minds, who is challenged to explore for themselves. Characters are cardboard, depth is shallow, entertaining for the moment, but tiring in repetition.

Yes, it is with sadness I look through the school newspaper today. I’m reading the names of my friends who are going on with their dreams. I wish them the best of luck. I’d like to think one day I can follow them, but I don’t know if that will be true. I am starting to feel old, stuck in the system. I’d like to think that the ever-slimmer numbers of English, History, Philosophy, and Art graduates that come out of the universities today will be able to make their mark. I hope that they’ll have their chance to change the world. I hope that perhaps, just perhaps, there is hope out there, and that someone can show the world again that there is more to life than chasing the bottom line.

Perhaps that is the answer in a nutshell. If we can find a way through our own actions to show that there is more to life than chasing the bottom line.

As The Bard once said,
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players…”

Each of us can choose to make a difference…
It all depends on the part we choose to play.

thoughts on projects, life, INFP

2007-05-07T09:39:00.000-05:00

The problem with being an INFP is that we tend to suffer from the "ooooh! Shiny! I must go do that now!" syndrom. I am very guilty of that. I see a world of oppertunities out there, so many things that are very, VERY interesting to me and I dive deep into them. I'll spend months, sometimes years researching something, pouring over it, learning as much as I can and then something else will attract my attention and I'm off on that tangent.

In some ways this is a good way to be. I have a wide base of knowledge on a LOT of different things. I am a great generalist. It makes me good at what I do for a living in the tech industry because I have such a wide knowledge base I can make the right, gut leap of faith that's required to figure out and solve many problems.

It can, and does, often make for a somewhat less than satisfactory personal life though. At least this INFP has felt many, many times that he can't ever finish anything of importance in the world. I'm a hard worker, you can't question my company loyality or work ethic, yet I cap out in positions and levels due to my 'formal' education level. I have at least three quarters of two or three different four year degrees. Will I ever finish any of them? At this stage in my life I'm not sure.

That's not to say that an INFP can't finish projects, can't accomplish life-time goals. I recently accomplished a rather large one in my life last winter. So there is hope out there. It's a constant struggle though for me. I seem to want to have a lot of irons in the fire, things working in the background, even though that same process leads to frustration and lack of accomplisment.

For me, lately, there is an increasing feeling of internal resistance when starting a new project. I still seem to flip inside my head, one moment I want to do this, another that, but when it comes down to actually starting something in real life I hesitate. That first step to start down a new path is difficult to take now. In some ways this is a good thing. It will tend to keep me more on track, moving deeper into my current projects, my current interests. It helps me focus on movement with a purpose, to not be so scattershot in my life.

What would be my advice to any other INFP's out there? I guess all that I can offer is this....

Try to find what you love and follow those paths. Life is too short.

Whatever you do, don't beat up on yourself for changing horses and running down another path. It's part of who we are, what we do. In the end, you'll find the path whose tracks are worn deepest for you. You'll find the path that keeps calling you back to it, time and time again.

reset

2007-04-16T23:43:00.000-05:00

reset...

the blog is reset

let's see what comes out of this world once more