career choices: post-office

What happens after you get laid off from that desk job, the one that was doable and steady but never all that exciting? Or perhaps you just had your fill of getting the morning coffee, going in to the office each day, fulfilling your responsibilities with efficiency if not much enthusiasm, and eagerly awaiting that lifeline and timeline du jour: 5 o’clock.

To be able to turn a static life into one of stimulation

and #achievement is not an easy leap, and often requires courage to live with the resulting uncertainty. But provided that health is not an issue (a circumstance never to be taken for granted, especially among the younger generation to whom death is a mere mask), why not use the layoff notice or cubicle boredom as a springboard? Why not make the jump into something that enhances, that enables a real contribution rather than the contrition that often accompanies the status quo?

David brooks, in his telling op-ed article in The New York Times, put it succinctly:

We don't decide about life; we're captured by life. IN the major spheres, decision-making, when it happens at all, is downstream from curiosity and engagement. If we really want to understand and shape behavior, maybe we should look less at decision-making and more at curiosity. Why are you interested in the things you are interested in? Why are some people zealously seized, manically attentive and compulsively engaged?

Yes of course, there are many office jobs that provide creativity and camaraderie, paychecks and perks, benefits and brainstorms. By all means, go with them and make the most of the resulting opportunities that can be both plentiful and tangible.

But for those who fall within the elevator’s lower floors, take heed and hope. Press the buttons of your personal enthusiasms. Watch the double doors open and walk confidently outside.

There can be kaleidoscopic life post-office.

sitting in traffic: wait loss

The concept of sitting amongst interminable traffic is so widespread and familiar as to make regular clichés seem like fresh air in Beijing. How we respond can make the difference between being impatient and forlorn for the entire day or at peace with productivity in light of what cannot be changed.

Do we curse or listen to an audiobook? Do we throw up a thin body part in a form of gesticular cancer or do we put on a foreign language-learning CD? Do we feel stress to the point of needing a heart stent or do we call ahead and let them know that we’ll be late?

As with most negative circumstances, how we deal with the inevitable daily pitchforks inherent within automobile transportation reveals much about us. In addition to the above options, perhaps we’ll take that unanticipated extra half hour forced to lick the pavement and call a parent, a sibling, a friend in need. Perhaps we’ll take some quiet time—away from distractions as plentiful as they are unproductive—to carefully think about a child’s needs, a pending surgery, a particular career challenge.

In just one of innumerable high-profile instances of road rage—as common as the color red on stop signs—the neighborhood-watch volunteer from Florida, George Zimmerman, just missed getting shot on the road in an incident tied to a previous encounter. While thankfully most road-rage incidents do not involve players like Zimmerman who have had run-ins with girlfriends, an ex-wife and strangers, and who have killed an unarmed black teenager, how can any of us know that the tailgater behind us or the weaver in front of us will not cause broken ribs, a concussion or worse upon the body in our own driver’s seat?

Whether trolling the Northeast Corridor on I-95 as one of countless hot, packed French fries or stuck in a construction backup on the most local of roads, why lose limb, or worse, life? Must the experience take its toll? Why not take a pedal-step back and accept the peaceful route?

Wait loss then becomes minimal.