How time flies…. when you are slaving away…

I am a little saddened but not surprised that months have past since I started this blog and made the first post. Four and a half months in fact. A whole season has gone by. Long and tedious days of working on a mega project will do that to you! But… change is a foot. I’ve kind of accelerated my goal of living without that full time company job. My rumbles of discontent grew to a deafening volume. I reached the point of enough!! I had a gutful and I’ve gone cold turkey. 

Yep, I’ve quit my day job.

As you can imagine, there were more than a few reactions of surprise - from people that I worked with and for, family - but also heaps of support. For me, it was a must do. Starting this blog and not making a post in 3 months is symptomatic of the rest of my life. Phone calls unanswered. Friends that really should disown me because of my complete lack of attention. Paying others to do my housework and gardening. There has been no time for anything and I needed that to change.

I must confess that this change has been in the wings for a while - a couple of years actually - and it is not the first time that I have quit my “day” job. I have been pretty aware of my values and what means something to me since I attended a seminar with Maggie Hamilton on her book “Love your work, Reclaim your life”. That was seven years ago. I still read bits of her book regularly. Thinking about what was important to me lead me to work with various companies and roles and eventually to my first escape attempt in 2009. I swapped a managerial job for a full-time PhD - a break away from the office to explore an area of interest and also the possibility of a different kind of work-life.

For several reasons - I returned to the corporate project world. Concerns about security. Keeping up with the Joneses. My love of shopping! And travel! The need to have an income. I was scared to jump out of the engineer box that I fit neatly into. Truthfully, I was worried about what other people would think. But as I found out - if you don’t love it, it’s just not sustainable. At least not for me.

Working in my previous job showed me the importance of being interested and absorbed in what you do each day. It really highlighted that I want to take the time to pursue my interests - in transitions and choices that people make in their work life, particularly of the careers that women in engineering and other “non-traditional” professions carve out for themselves. I’m going to take some time to focus on progressing my PhD. I’m also doing a small amount of work at the university. I’m making time to catch up with forgotten and neglected family and friends (oh… and housework. Occasionally.) I’m grabbing this opportunity to carve out my next direction with both hands.

A couple of weeks in to this new world and I can safely say that I have not thought back to that job once. Permission to exhale has been granted!

The Beginning

I've been thinking about writing this blog for a while. It's about a dream that I have - of a life that is free, fulfilling, rich and meaningful. And very different to the one that I have now.

Snapshot of now: On paper, it's a successful life. Married, we both have well paying jobs with companies in the resource industry. We have a lovely house. We are able to take holidays and travel. Despite the trappings of success, it's a fairly one dimensional life and it’s an unsatisfying and exhausting life. We are slaves to the imposed structure of full time corporate job. I hate it. And no doubt about it - this has been entirely of our making. We chose the path and followed it. Blindly. Because that's what you do. Right?

We have a strong desire to change the life that we have. There is really no alignment with the work that we spend 60 hours a week doing and our personal values. Work takes up more than 12 hours of our day, leaving a few precious hours in the day to take part in the life that we would rather be living.

I’ve started this blog as a way of exploring and sharing the move to a better life. What does that look like? A more conscious life. One with freedom to make choices about how we spend our time and energy and who we spend it on and with, time to action those choices... choices that are good for us, for our immediate circle and the community that we live in. 

We have a 12 month goal - by 2012 - > no full time jobs with big corporates, no work that sucks the life out of you each day so that all you can do is mong in front of the TV each night, no 12 hour days unless you are absolutely loving it, no brushing off friends and family because you... are too busy, too tired, too impatient. Instead, a new style of work, more time with friends and family... meaningful relationships, increased well being, more success (as defined by us!).

I'm excited!