Chapter 5: Eight Months On

Where Am I? – eight months after leaving work.

The first few months after leaving my last workplace I needed to rid the politics of work from my brain (and heart) by getting everything I felt down on paper.

I then went mad doing loads of things I’ve always wanted to do – learning to ski, going on a cycle training camp, stewarding and participating in the mass anti-Government / anti-war demos, travelling to Africa, bike racing, the three peaks challenge etc – its been brilliant.

From doing these ‘ challenges’ I figure I love
The escape from every day life
The anticipation and preparation required
The camaraderie and team spirit when doing them
The physical challenge for my body.

I love everything about them! (apart from the downer I feel the week after, up and until I have set my sights on the next ‘challenge’)

Africa was a trip to see what affect it would have on me – it was major – but in a way so not what I was expecting. I have got to a stage where:

I have come to the conclusion that at the moment I cannot believe in the existance of God and that I am here to stand on my own two feet, be answerable to myself and those around me and to simply contribute to and enjoy life as much as I can.

That I will get no further ‘real’ satisfaction from attaining achievements in order to provide fulfilment to myself. If I’m not happy and contented with myself now then achieving things – starting a new company etc will not do it for me.

So, where do I go from here?

I’ve stopped looking for satisfaction elsewhere and am trying to live day to day. That’s easier said than done. It was easy at first but I’m still looking for my life to be moved forward daily by reading the newspapers, buying the latest CD’s and spending too much time on e-mail and the Internet. I need to break that connection. That thing that creates a forward moving thread through my life. It’s as if the world (life) moves on and I have to hold on to it to move my own life forward, rather than my own life having its own momentum.

I am currently living without that recognisable purpose – a thread that I am running along that gives me an identity to myself and for my friends. I have no pigeon hole.

A small point to you, but major to me is that I’ve also got to consider that I’m in danger of ruining my enjoyment of playing sport. Previously this has been the great escape from the daily stresses. I can lose myself chasing a ball or a faster cyclist. But now I’m looking to be fitter and healthier and to achieve physical challenges playing sport, means it turns into a daily measurement of my improving (or declining) fitness. So it’s now as much about heart rate monitors, calories burnt and how best to replace them, amount of liquid drunk and, especially having been to Africa for a month, are my bowels opening regularly enough! If I’m not getting fitter (or more importantly if I don’t feel I’m getting fitter) then I’m getting the first nervous thoughts that playing sport could start to create its own stresses.

The fight to not return to my former life is also a daily battle. I know it so well. It gives me that thread and pigeon hole. I’m good at it. While at home, spending so many (wasted) hours on the internet is like sitting in the drivers seat of a car I know so well, that works well, and having to try so hard not to turn the ignition on.

But I don’t want to look back later in life and think of the opportunity I missed, back in the office after only 8 months ‘off’ and the missed opportunity to do anything I really want to do. I’ve got to get out of that car and get on my bike.

The trouble is I’m still having ideas for new businesses almost daily – some of them are big opportunities and at the moment it feels like too bigger a deal to throw them away by simply not doing them. I have to keep meeting former colleges and clients that thankfully without knowing it are providing me with enough reasons to sedate the urges to rejoin the rat race too quickly. Them, complaining bitterly of work, bosses and low pay while meanwhile all taking mobile phone calls while you’re trying to have a conversation with them.

I think being an ex ‘worker’. I have the same mentality to people that take mobile phone calls while you’re with them as ex-smokers have to those who still enjoy the habit. I know I did it at the time but I couldn’t see how bad it was until I stopped and now I hate it more than anyone. Anyone else feel the same?

The ‘Work’ ethic is going through massive changes, currently being shown by the enormous amount of people like myself, and the endless broadsheet supplement columns about us, people that have upped sticks from the rat race and left in search of fulfilment elsewhere. People that were brought up with the ethos that a job was for life but are now old enough (and luckily cash rich enough) to take first mover advantage from the newer ethic that a job is for 5-10 years max.

We are a celebratory obsessed culture and all the business news we read about these people – TV stars, Sportsmen etc is about the length of their new contract – and it’s never more than about 3 years. Sven Goran Eriksson signing a 5-year deal with England was viewed almost as a job for life.

I think this will become the complete norm, which it probably is already getting to in the urban centres. You can achieve all you can in a job in 5-10 years and then you move on, to maybe even a completely different career and you opt out completely as soon as you can afford it.

This development means that soon we wont be looking on impressively at the businessmen that have been at the same company (or even in the same business) for 20 years and are at the very top of their profession. They will be seen as the sad suckers. The ones that can’t do anything for themselves and rely totally on the rat race system to provide their daily life support. When we meet a 50+ year old who’s a chairman or CEO in our profession, we look up to them and think how wise and good their job is but for how long will that last?.

So where am I?
I don’t know. I know what I’ve got to get to but I’m not any closer – the goalposts keep moving.