Light and Dark - Spiraling into the Next Phase - My Intentional Life Change

I think I must have come through something. Maybe it's the sun. Maybe it's the air, still cold, but there's a damp that shoves the smells of musk and blooms up from the earth. It might be me, living out the myths of Persephone in the underworld, coming from the dark into the light. Ok, maybe it's just a case of seasonal affective disorder healing itself. No matter, I feel different. I sense light. And I didn't realize I was dark or depressed. It's Spring.

I picture a spiral. If I was asked to choose a symbol of some kind to illustrate my life, it would be a spiral. It conveys a sense movement... it may be up or down and always coming around. There's a near side,  the side I show, like the man in the moon, and a far side that only Sputnik sees, transmitting shaded glimpses back for study. As I spiral, I see the same sights, I go over the same territory but maybe with some movement... from a passage in a book, a conversation over wine, a Tweet, a poem, a fragment overheard from the stall in the Ladies...  something that swirls around  on the bright side and the dark and changes my view.

Ever since August, when I spontaneously offered to cut a day of work and agreed to take a 20% cut in pay and benefits, I've dwelt on this change. I organized it, named it,  monetized it to show value. I've refinanced my mortgage, reorganized my finances and done my taxes. I call my Fridays, my Serial Sabbatical. I schedule something to learn, experience or see on those days off.  I've spent time with friends in Spain and continue to renew my Spanish with Duolingo. I've made time to paint plein air, planned a vacation in Maine to learn about color and began an online sketching course.

With pressures for space at work, I gave up my office, moved into a cube and now work, most weeks, two days from home. I put in cabinets, bought a fancy bungee desk chair,  cleaned out two closets, made three trips to Salvation Army to do so. It's brought me an unexpected sense of expanded time at home, by myself and with a luxury of un-hurry.

All the while, I've stewed about these changes as a gateway to retirement. I equate these changes with the next phase of work or non work or different work as time will reveal. I'm living with a cut in salary. I have a day each week to fill. I'm searching to find meaning and purpose and organization in my life. And,  I wonder about how I'll live, where I'll live, will I live with someone,  and how well I live.

Last Saturday night, my friend... my friend with boundless patience agreed that I'd been spiraling round the same topics for quite some time. She reminded me that I already knew what to do. She'd seen this before, from another perspective... when I talked (and talked) about divorce... And knew all along I knew exactly what to do.

My spirals repeat the topic sometimes and they repeat a process. Even when I know the truth, my truth, I sometimes don't like it, and ask the question again like a Magic 8 Ball, hoping for a different answer. My 8 Ball is consistent, I'm just not ready to do what's best for me. Fear, inertia and fatigue block my momentum. I know that in the meantime, I continue to spiral, like I got pg and the baby's going to come whether I want it or not... (well that's exactly) what happened twenty nine years ago. This birth into a new life will be on my schedule and my sense of readiness whether I like it or not.

So, I think I came through something that I didn’t realize I traversed. This morning I felt a lightness that may be a sign of SAD lifting or maybe a sign that I can stop fretting. I have more of an understanding of my process. I have pieces of a plan, some of the what, some of the how, a sense of the when and now, I'll use my Fridays to discern more of each and always learning about the who.

Count Up: My Intentional Life Change - Status Report

As it turns out, the theme of my first quarter of the rest of my life is about money. Now into April and the second quarter of the year, I can see that I accomplished several things with my financial future in best stead. I refinanced my home moving from a 30-year mortgage to a 15-year. With the better rate, my monthly out lay is only a few dollars more but I have gained two big benefits. First, I am now nearly tripling the amount of equity. Instead of $150 per month, I gain $450. And, I no longer am escrowing, I am simply saving the amount to pay my taxes myself. When I retire and move to a more or less fixed income, but with this change, I will have less of a monthly nut. I will still save to pay for the property tax or I will use my savings then to pay it. For me, that is a big burden removed that gives me more money oxygen to breathe. 

I also changed my financial advisor. I chose one who is less incented to sell me stuff. The last one at Morgan Stanley kept pushing “alternatives”. This is the year 2015, but I kept picturing Enron or

Bernie Madoff. I don’t have a great memory for specifics, but I do remember the reaction to these two scandals from 2001 and 2008. I wanted something much more simple to understand and concrete, even if that is the miracle drug for what may ail my portfolio.

Of course, this quarter is IRS taxes too. I guess fortunately, I got a refund. I am hesitant because it was sizable and clearly I am not doing things right. I’d rather have the money in my pocket. It did go to paying off a lagging credit card, instead of a trip or something more fun. No, come to think of it, the remnants on the card were from my trip to Spain in February. All is well.

Yesterday, I received a report that shows the amount I will receive from my pension, monthly for the rest of my life, once I retire.  It’s not a lot, but I am grateful, that there is a constant source of income from outside my savings and Social Security. My next financial hurdle is to determine whether to stay, rent out or sell my current home. I like the idea of a rental property. I like the idea of renting-out where I live now because I see evidence that they rent quickly. Mine is larger with three bedrooms and two baths where most have 1½ baths, so I should be able to rent it and create some income. The question is, when do I do that? Now while I am working? If I wait, I don’t know how the banks will look at my credit once I retire… especially since I took a 20% pay cut with only working 4 days each week. My friend Karen pointed out that my talking about it feels like when I was deciding to get a divorce. I talked and talked about it, till I got it completely rationalized, event though I knew from the beginning exactly what I wanted. I know I want to move and rent my place. (As long as I don’t have to go through a move.)

I will continue to look at other revenue sources… coaching and consulting for example, over the next few months to learn what that could yield and what resources a launch would take.

In addition, I want to figure out one major volunteer project to align with during retirement. I want to find an issue that I can throw myself into and maybe make a difference. While others are working, I can keep the passions alive to get things going. I am leaning toward saving the planet. Is that big enough? I also think about joining the Peace Corps once  I stop working. I like the idea of a complete adventure for a month or three. I’m interested in looking into that and similar volunteer experiences. I like the idea of moving to a small place which I can lock up and leave for a couple months at a time… maybe with a lake view.

One theme for the next quarter will be where will I live and another theme of the next quarter is how will I live? The report I mentioned earlier had a date late in November for my potential retirement. I found that unnerving. The date is too soon. I will likely work longer to build up all coffers, but then again, if I can put everything into place, I will walk away from work without fear and with confidence that all will be well, to quote the saints! 

Nostalgia - You Are What You Were When and What You Choose to Be Now

I just got an email that has cute pictures and in poetic form tells all the things they miss about the nineteen-fifties, then asks me to send it to someone else who'd appreciate the memories.

I realized in reading it, I don't like those memories.

Those cliche' views leave out that women were relegated to staying home or could only get secretarial, teaching or nursing jobs, and African Americans had to sit in the back, couldn't eat in most restaurants, and feared being lynched. One couldn't marry someone of the same sex let alone show them affection. Education wasn't valued, men knew best, white people were all powerful and the United States was proud it dropped nuclear bombs. And, pedophilia, depression and anything else mental was seen as a personal fault not an illness.

I get the idea that we are who we were when, but I would relate to nostalgia better if it acknowledged the "and then... this evolved into that." I'd appreciate it if it noted that in time, change doesn't stop. Are they still wearing saddle shoes and wearing a pageboy or duck's ass? I mean everything they listed as contemporary will be just as old and past in twenty years anyway. I don't really like revering a time unless you can learn from it. We may rail against things not made as well now, but I'd rather have a cataract removed now than then... An hour in a chair in out patient suite vs three days in sand bags in a hospital... give me the good ole days... NOT.

I don't like nostalgia. Personally, I have no interest in making any of those times anything more than that... a place in time. I'd rather use my energy to make peace with today... to embrace all the things that have changed and live with integrity among them, to bring myself to understand the present, maybe try to make it better from the lessons that I learned from when I grew up. I'm so dismayed at seeing the fundamentalism that's trying to turn back time like in Indiana and around the world.

I still don't get why I feel different now that I am 60 from when I was 40. Ha! Sure, I can't get pregnant but I still have my whole life ahead of me to birth new things. I have to remind myself that it's okay to start things... even a business. I just may need a sooner than later succession plan. Thank goodness there's an app for that... probably.

There are years ahead. My watercolor painting reminds me daily that if I am at all normal, then I'll look back on the junk I'm doing now as the time I had to put in to get to where I will be then. My brother just bought something that requires classes and learning to be safe and to get good at it. That's inspiring. It's good to start something new. When my friends retired they picked up and moved to France. They started over... even language. That's more and more inspiring the closer I get to that time.

I find myself placing meaning on retirement that means shut down; that makes it seem to coincide with diminishment, but I don't know if or how that's going to happen... There's no sense in acting like it is inevitable or it's total incapacitation.

So, I’ve beat to death the idea that I really don't like nostalgia. The reality is, I do like to tell stories. So, my learning today is that I don’t want to be nostalgic for the sake of remembering. I want to remember so that the present and the future is worth remembering. 

I Don't Work Fridays - An intentional decision to change my life balance

This posted in January 9, 2015. 

“Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” (American Proverb) I remember seeing this saying on a poster in college, profound for me as Never Trust Anyone Over Thirty. And today, I begin a new day, knowing that I didn’t know a lot back then about the future… like I might turn thirty some day… but at least today, I know that I don’t know what ten years from now looks like. I only know that I have more time in my weeks to use well. Today is my first free Friday in my four-day work week.

It sounds great, right? For now, and with intention, I no longer work a traditional five-day work week. I find it a bit daunting now that it finally arrived. 

I don’t remember seeing this T. S. Eliot saying on a poster, but it speaks to me: “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” (First, I like that the poet ends his sentence in a preposition. More importantly, I like the idea he ends up with.) Since my first meeting on Monday morning of this past week, when It took three reminders to my colleagues that I work a 4 day week, I created a mantra   to cement this new fact of my work life, “I don’t work Fridays.” It turns out that I needed to use the saying every single day when looking at calendars to schedule meetings and calls. Reactions were for the most part positive. They spanned from a smile and congratulations, to encouragement and reminders to protect it. There were challenges too. That same person who told me to protect it, told me I should attend a meeting because it was important. I don’t work Fridays, was all I said.  A while later another person who'd heard me say it asked me in an email, after I declined an e-invitation to a meeting for today. I am pretty sure she was yanking my chain. I responded with, I don’t work Fridays.

Reality set in as this week unfolded, by Wednesday afternoon, I realized that it would be difficult to get all my tasks checked off my list. In the olden days, (last week), I might finish projects in the evening or on the weekend. Now that I am intentionally working a four-day work week, I realize that my intention isn't about jamming in a five day work week into four. My objective now is to focus on exactly what I need to do to be considered successful in my work. Today, the first day of the rest of my life, I declare that I am no longer ambitious for growth in my career. I am leaving behind fears of being passed over, settling and complacency. I am embracing being relevant and highly valuable today in my job. This is hugely freeing. It may be the key to allowing me to be everything I have wanted all along.

The plan began August 2014 while developing strategy and budgets for 2015. I offered up 20% of my salary to make ends meet... though it may have sounded precipitous, it wasn't without thought. A catalyst for this decision began much earlier as I wanted more time to explore  what I am meant to do in life. I feel it… a flow… a moment of peace, maybe success, a full deep breath. I am driven to know that more. I like what the French painter/sculptor, Jean Dubuffet* said,  “Unless one says goodbye to what one loves, and unless one travels to completely new territories, one can expect merely a long wearing away of oneself and an eventual extinction.” So this morning, I have no intention of wearing away myself, though I do expect extinction. Instead, I’d like to wear myself… to fully express myself. On the first day of the rest of my life I am booking a trip to Spain… talking to a friend about an investment, breaking a loaf of bread, taking lunch to someone shut in after a work out, and working on a painting. Tomorrow is the weekend, when, ok, I’ll admit it, I might sneak a peek at my emails, because, I don’t work Fridays. 

It's a beginning.

*Sculpture at the State of Illinois building, Randolph and Dearborn, Chicago

Visioning My Future - A Tactical and Practical Guide for the Next 12 Months

Happy New Year!

It’s January 1, 2016- and I am thinking about how this upcoming year will unfold and what I want it to hold. This post outlines my process for planning out five years and tactics for 2015. Ever since 1982 with Shakti Gawain’s Creating Visualization as a guide, I’ve spent time on (or around) New Years day alone or sometimes with friends creating a vision for the year.  I've collected them in journals, on legal pads and on poster, foam core and cork-boards. Sometimes they’ve been built with pen and ink bullets, photos, collage-style and personal sketches. 

This year, a new chapter in my life is manifesting. I see a future that is shorter than the years I’ve already lived and I recognize there are things I want to do that I must initiate soon to see to fruition, or develop competence to leave a legacy. I am aware that this shift encompasses all aspects of my life as I now live it, including career.

Career for me is about accomplishment, social interaction, contribution, competence, livelihood and creativity. In other words, no matter if I was entry level, the boss, the owner, in subservient or leadership positions, there is value for me in  work… most of the time. Overcoming obstacles, dealing with stress, inventing ideas and processes, making connections… every experience enhances my life in and outside of work.

Like squeezing a balloon, I feel less pressure for building career and more on creating a life and legacy beyond employed work. I can’t ignore the building pressure.

As a first and most concrete step to reduce the tension, beginning January 5^th, I arranged to work only four days a week, creating an entire day to use in development of this new lifestyle. In addition, because of circumstances regarding space where I work, I gave up my office for a hotel space and will work 2-3 days a week from home; giving me an extra 4-6 hours every week for use as I see fit. Though the loss of the day also means a 20% cut in salary and vacation time, it’s a cost well spent.

With the New Year and new life immediate, it’s imperative I initiate a visioning process that provides direction for both.  Age, retirement and sense of purpose are driving the need for me to work on this. I’ve devised an outline that I thought might be helpful to others who are intentionally defining their future and tactically designing the next twelve months to work toward achieving the future.

Visioning My Future - A Tactical and Practical Guide for the Next 12 Months to Achieve It 

The goal of this process is to establish a dynamic vision of the future – for now, about five years out – 2020 and identify the items I need to accomplish this year to achieve the vision or redefine it.

Currently, rather than the boards I mentioned above, I'm working in a 14”x17” spiral sketchbook that I found in my closet with seven pages of sketches done in 1999. I like the spiral notebook because it opens flat and works as a single page or an extra large spread across both pages. A smaller sketchbook could be used too. I found from my work in creativity and innovation and as a visual person, I learned that I like to cut pictures and headlines and develop a collage to capture the essence of the vision. The process of looking through magazines helps me identify motifs and themes. The process also allows me to see how much of what attracts or interests me is omnipresent in the media and should be considered suspect of my true interest. Besides the pictures, I add my own sketches and notes, and sometime stamps and ink.

Beginning today, I am spending time setting up the book and filling in my top-of-mind ideas. In the next few days, I will build out the vision of the future. I know there are things to create in my life and others to leave behind. I will use the book to capture evidence of things I do through out the year that enable the future to emerge… like ticket stubs, photos or notes.  For example, I joined a new health club and went for the first time yesterday. I will affix the club’s name to the pages to show evidence of two goals in 2015: to ensure I have a social connection as I begin my more isolating work schedule; and preparation for a lengthy bike ride with my bike-riding friend, Nancy next summer. I can imagine writing in words or even glimmers of ideas. The book will become a scrapbook, calendar and soothsayer.

Here is the outline I am using. It is loosely based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs which is a simple and elegant way of encompassing most of the areas I consider. I’ve tried to apply other organizational structures, like the dimensions of wellness (Physical, Social, Spiritual, Emotional, Vocational, Environmental and Intellectual) but Maslow's structure, for me takes each dimension a step further suggesting less overlap and confusion. If you want more here is a post from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs.

Visioning My Future

(In the parenthesis below, I sprinkled notes to give you a sense of how I think about some of these. They aren't meant for you to use)

• 2-page spread [  |  ]  for 5 years from now - Visioning My Future 2020
• 1 page for Existence Needs covering: [ |
• Air (Don't really need to say a lot about this, unless you live in a highly polluted area; or you want to support efforts to improve air standards and reduce climate change)
• Water 
• Shelter (This is a big unknown for me, as I struggle with the question where and how I want to live in retirement - should I buy a cabin, land, place in the city now while I have an income to show a mortgage company?)
• Clothing

•   1 page for Safety and Security | ]

• Personal security
• Financial security (I might make a separate page just for this one as it is the big mother of all my issues)
• Health and wellbeing
• Safety net against disaster and disease

•   2 page spread for Growth  [  |  ]  

• Love and Belonging
• Friendship/Social Groups
• Intimacy (I'm continue to look for this)
• Family (What about a dog?)
• Esteem 
• Need to feel respected by self and others 
• Acceptance and valued
• Sense of contribution from work or hobby 
• Gaining an inner competence through experience - of strength, competence, mastery, self-confidence, independence, and freedom
• Self Actualization
• Identifying and realizing one's full potential (How does work fit into this?)
• Accomplishing everything one can, to be the most one can be athletically, or be an ideal parent
• Expression of self (painting, inventions)
• Self Transcendence 
• The self only finds its actualization in giving itself to some higher goal outside oneself
• Altruism 
• Spirituality
• 1 or more pages on a year in my life in the future state (how many trips, classes and pages written or paintings painted)
• 1 or more pages on a day in my life (What do I want my day to contain?)
• 2 or more page spread on 2015 - what I want for this year that also helps me evolve to 2020. 

                                           #####

If you are doing planning in any form, please let me know your process and how it’s going.

This post is reposted from 2015.