Motivation

What's your job like? Mine is pretty seasonal. At my review I told my boss that the most difficult part of the perks of my job is just staying motivated. I don't work in a typical buzzing office full of sales people and secretaries. My office is a communal space where I have half of it dedicated to me and my stuff. I can go an entire day and not actually speak to anyone face to face if the receptionist is out. It's the misanthrope's dream employment. The management rarely interfere with me because I'm 200 miles away and rarely make a fuss big enough to reach their ears. My working experience is pretty peaceful and very anti-Dilbert overall.

The problem with all of this isolation and freedom is lately I've been having a hard time remaining motivated. Why fix a patch cable when you can clean your Inbox for 15 minutes? When faced with two options, both being just for the sake of making things a little more professional looking but one being more difficult, I usually opt for the one that means I can drink coffee at the same time. Even if I do start one of the more difficult projects on days when I don't like easy as much they rarely get completed in good time.

What I do have is the desire to get motivated. Since I'm not going to be micro-managed any time soon and I spend an awful lot of time in this office I thought I'd look up some ways of keeping myself enthused. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot of time has been devoted to creating 'motivational' resources on the Internet. One of the first Google results is for a site called Motivation 123. Not motivated to find a creative name then...

The first thing they recommend is coming up with a list of personal goals. That's a bit tougher than trying to come up with career goals, isn't it? It's not like you can actually put a value on overcoming something or having a title put on something you've accomplished. Say if I was to completely overcome by dog phobia, I wouldn't known as Recovered Phobic MLS on my business cards, would I? That lack of solidity makes personal goals very difficult for me to comprehend.

Personal goals:

1. Construct better sentences
2. Stop saying 'FUCK' so often
3. Finish applying for a nice 5% interest savings account

Why those three? I want to be a damned good writer some day. That's a long and windy path through many, many brambles. I need to improve my metaphors for one. I also need a better concept of grammar for another. For some reason a lot of those old rules just kind of slipped through my head when I was a kid. It's such an issue I can't tell an active verb from my ass.

Fuck. Would you believe I use phrases like 'fucking ominous?' That's the kind of vocabulary I have. It's decent. It's a good vocabulary. I know a lot of large and condescending words. I also punctuate them with 'fuck' as a substitute for er, or ah. I know there are other words than fuck and my usage of fuck is not due to any lack of education. I just like fuck, I like to use fuck. Unfortunately a lot of people don't like fuck and think I'm being 'abusive' when I use the word fuck when in fact I'm just breathing.

The 5% savings account? I'm trying to be a grown up. Grown-ups should save 10% of their income every month in case something terrible happens. The older I get, the more paranoid I get. If I give the bank my money, I want them to give me a good interest rate. How boring is that?

We'll see how it goes. The attainment or process of attaining said personal goals should be more entertaining than coming to that conclusion. Or at least I hope.

I'm going to go get some more coffee now.