Thankful for the balance

Welcome back, everyone! I hope you’ve all had a very nice Thanksgiving holiday. I most certainly did. I accomplished the one task I set out at the start: vacuum and clean the interior of my BMW M2. Job done, the rest of the time is pure rest and relaxation.

Cleaning the inside of my car is an annual tradition (unlike any other). Because I drive the BMW so seldomly - and typically it’s just me inside - the interior never gets too grimy. The few people I’ve chauffeured around have all remarked in amazement how clean it is. I would sheepishly reply that it is not due to any sort of cleaning diligence on my part. Granted, I probably would vacuum more often if the M2 needed it.

I am thankful I live close enough to work for me to walk (instead of drive). Furthermore, what I am most grateful for this Thanksgiving is happy employment, one that allows for taking an entire holiday week off with zero issues. There was no stress at all in going back to work today. I slept quite soundly the previous night; the dreaded “Sunday scaries” are fortunately not a thing for me.

You absolutely cannot pay me enough (more) to break this peace of mind.

The contrast of seeing people working during Thanksgiving week (shoutout to the folks keeping Whole Foods open for half a day that Thursday), while I am freely hanging out on vacation, fills me with immense gratitude. Sure, I’ve hustled tremendously to be where I am at, but it would be naive to think there weren’t some lucky levers that got pushed by some sky deity along the way. My original staff position - some 10 years ago - only opened up because someone left.

No amount of agency on my part could have control that!

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Fall (everything).

Time horizon

It’s crazy to realize that it’s been four years since I traveled to South Korea. What a lovely two weeks that was, and it’s a shame that I haven’t gone back since. Obviously, the pandemic stole what will be two years of prime travel opportunity. I think it’s very likely the first place I fly to, once it is all possible again, will be back to Seoul.

I miss that country very dearly. And with four additional years of Korean language learning under me, I think I will have an even better experience the second time around. Like going to places the foreign tourists don’t usually frequent.

It goes to show just how long it takes for things to happen in our lives. We are so caught up with cheats and shortcuts, but ultimately anything that is good and great takes many years to achieve. Whatever grand plans you have takes time to execute; meanwhile, your everyday life is still as mundane and Groundhog Day-like as ever. I think it’s easy to be frustrated with such gradual change. This age of ADD and constant connection do not contribute well to waiting.

I probably would have raged if I were told back in 2017 that it would be another four plus years before I would go back to Korea again. That sort of time horizon just isn’t satisfactory to this culture of you only live once and wanting to fit as much life into the shortest timeframe as possible. This is why I spent six-figures on a Porsche 911 GT3 probably a full year before I was completely ready. Because I was unhappy with the sameness of life, and needed something new, big, and exciting.

I’ve changed my mindset since then. I understand that things take time to develop, and goals worthy of pursuit have horizons that stretch out in multiple years. The typical day-to-day life is going to be the same week after week, so I might as well be happy about that and get on with it. Be grateful that I even get to do any of this in the first place.

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A well-worn shoe.

Invert and look

Customer service jobs tend to follow the 80/20 rule: 80 percent of your problems are raised by 20 percent of your customers. That’s certainly true in my field of IT support at a college campus, though thankfully the ratio is more like 80/10.

Sometimes the 10 percent that causes the headaches can be so overwhelming that you lose sight of the fact that the other 90 percent are perfectly nice people, and aren’t troublesome. Thank god for that! We should be grateful for that majority. Imagine if the numbers are skewed the other way: it would make the job downright intolerable.

The rule to invert your perspective and thinking of a situation can be so powerful. I’m fine with dealing with same few problem customers day after day: that’s the job, after all. So long as the work isn’t overwhelming in volume, who cares if I’m seeing the same person for the third time, troubleshooting the same issue after many weeks. Or so what if someone has two computers that need support instead of the standard one.

Instead of railing against whatever perceived unfairness, remember that they represent a small percentage of the supported population. It’s not worth the time and energy to force them onto some procrustean standard. Better to deal with them directly and idiosyncratically.

Because truly, if all customers were competent and never run into issues, there would be no need for people like me working in IT support. Therefore, at the very least, I am grateful that I can keep employment! That will quickly erases any stress or bad feelings towards any particular customer.

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The school of my people.

Thankfulness 2020

The emotion I want to convey right now is that of gratitude.

With everything that’s going on with the coronavirus, it’s easy to be caught up in the moment, become always reactive to things changing rapidly all around us. Days start blending in together, and you’re simply doing your best to find some semblance of normalcy, especially so in the earlier days of the current crisis, when you have no idea what new paradigm shift the next hour will bring. When you’re so busy trying to stay afloat, there’s no time to take a step back and look.

It was not until I start detaching from the situation and started to view things from on a macro level that I realize how lucky me and my family have been during this period of shelter-in-place. First and most important we are healthy and doing well physically, which is worth absolutely everything in these hazardous times. Secondly, our financial situation have remained very solid: my job allows me to work from home, and my dad who does general contracting hasn’t skipped a beat, because construction projects never really took a break.

Even the least fortunate of us - my brother - was lucky to get a month’s salary for March, and then filed for unemployment. Thanks to the generosity of the federal government in expanding the amount of unemployment insurance, it means he’ll be quite okay during this quarantine as well.

Indeed we are extremely lucky; there’s no other way to put it. Obviously I’m incredibly grateful that it turned out this way for us; I only need to go on twitter for a few moments to get a reminder that countless others haven’t got it so easy in this era of COVID-19. I hope to never take this for granted.

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I am thankful for this little bugger too.

Return from Thanksgiving

And we are back!

It’s been slightly less than two weeks of unadulterated break time, and I am delighted to report I’m ready to get back into the swing of things. I had originally planned to take the entire Thanksgiving week off from work, but due to the calamitous wildfires up in Paradise and all the smoggy air that permeated to us here in San Francisco - a solid week of hazardous conditions, campus (where I work) has been completely shutdown since the 14th.

A sort of forced vacation, if you will; I didn’t even have to utilize any of my precious paid-time-off accruements. That said it’s somewhat difficult to enjoy such good fortune while people are dead and thousands are displaced due to the fires. Again, if you haven’t donated to our neighbors in their time of unfathomable need, please do so.

So what did I do during the fortuitous time off? Nothing ordinary. I purposely stopped my normal schedules of reading and studying, and instead enforced an extended period of mindless entertainment. It was not without some struggle: I’ve been so indoctrinated to always be learning and improving that the notion of not doing any of that was a shock to the system. Many times in the past week while watching yet another car video on Youtube, I would suddenly get the urge to be productive and think “perhaps I should pick up the book and read for an hour’.

But I successfully fought it: not one page of book was read during the great respite. As “useless” and “waste of time” as it may be to binge watch the latest series of Wheeler Dealers, the time spent away from my normal routine (including not going to work) was ultimately beneficial. I relish my job immensely, and count myself lucky to be in a position to do it, but even so, a hiatus from the monotony is absolutely critical. Europe has got it correct in that regard: countries there take the whole month of August off.

The important thing a break provides is perspective, and being able to detach from the regular situation. During the time off while enjoying the slew of non-productive activities, I regained appreciation for the usual work I get to do, and gratitude for the life I am currently living. Countless others aren’t able to simply paid to stay home for a few weeks; that thought alone is humbling enough.

So I’ve returned, refreshed, and ready to attack. At least for the next four weeks until it’s time for Christmas break again. I do love this time of the year.

My primary position during Thanksgiving week.

Be thankful for the food

One of my worst habits is I eat food too quickly - especially when I am hungry or the food is extra delicious. Both my father and brother wolfs down food with much speed too so I guess it runs in the family. I've no doubt it contributes to my chronic stomach acid problems (it remains disappointing that I can't drink coffee), and more importantly I am not taking the time to savor the plate. 

Sure saves a lot of time, though. 

A mechanism I've gotten into to combat the ingestion haste is to be thankful for the food before commence eating. Not dissimilar to what Christians do in saying grace before a meal, when I give thanks for the food, I give myself a reminder what a blessing it is to have the opportunity to eat the particular meal - no matter how extravagant (or not) it is. In that mindset of gratitude, I find myself deliberately slowing down to enjoy each bite, and it's been highly beneficial. 

In concurrence I also acknowledge having the good fortune to not have to rush through a meal: there are no deadlines or work pressures that would otherwise require me to eat fast to return to what I am doing. For sure there are others that don't have such luxury. 

Lastly, when I eat slowly, I also end up eating less - those satiation signals after 20 minutes or whatever, which isn't so bad now that I'm on this side of the 30 divide.