Adjusting

Apparently I am semi-retired.

I guess that is the most accurate description of my new life. I work 20 hours a week. The rest of time is mine.

Gotta say it again because it feels so good to say it - the rest of time is mine.

I work from 2:00 to 7:00 Tuesday through Friday. Don't have to leave the house until 1:00. Three day weekends every weekend. The job is exponentially less pressure-filled than my previous hellish experience.

A lot less corporate too, which is always a bonus.

I had a month off when I initially fled the scene of the previous job and it was an extraordinary feeling. Being human I wish it was longer but Carol came home from work every night and smacked me upside the head with a 16 pound sledgehammer asking: "Did you get a part time job yet you lazy bastard?"

I don't enjoy headaches so I got the job.

I thought it might be depressing to go back to work after a lazy layoff but it has not been bad. Precisely because I still have so much time.

Had dinner with my long time friend Phil recently, who is also semi-retired. He said it took him about a year to adjust to the new lifestyle. That sounded insane to me but I am beginning to understand where he was coming from.

After 40 years of bowing to the demands of ungrateful employers, being chained to whatever work schedule was required, the mind does not automatically adjust to new found freedom.

Freedom can be dangerous. I am finding that I need to impose discipline upon myself if I am ever going to become the greatest human being who ever lived.

The new work schedule provides a structure because I know that from the time I drag my tired old ass out of bed I have until 1:00 to accomplish great things.

I created a list, a guideline of sorts, to address all the areas in which I need to improve, to adapt and make changes.

It's a broad list.

Because I am covering a lot of ground to get to where I want to be. There are personal goals, intellectual goals, social goals and career goals.

So far I have been all over the map in attacking these aspirations.

Because my mind has still not grasped the fact that this new life is real; because my brain has still not adjusted to the time I have available to me.

Sounds silly I know, but the change is so huge that it sometimes overwhelms. There is so much I want to accomplish and I have the time I need to do it, yet sometimes the brain freezes - "What should I do this morning?" What is the best use of my time right now?"

Of course I put too much pressure on myself because that is what I do; it is who I am. Pressure freezes.

The reality, however, is that time is racing by. I don't want to be Joe Perry. I don't want that wake up call. By the way, Joe - I am pulling for you, man. Get better and get rocking soon.

Making progress, though. Wasting less time, focusing a little more. I have only been working the new job for 7 days. I am coming into it, adjusting to the new "new" schedule.

Funny how the human mind works (or doesn't work). You think you will react this way to change but you react that way instead. You think you will do this in this situation, but you do that. You think you will feel this way, but you feel that way.

The fun is in not knowing where I am going. I'm pretty sure I'm headed somewhere, somewhere new and different.

I don't like goofy motivators, cute cliches designed to inspire.

However..............I have fortune cookie wisdom taped to the cover of the notebook that contains the blueprint for my new life.

The fortune says: "Trust yourself. You know more than you think."

I have always known this but never been able to act upon it.

On the inside of the cover I wrote two words: "Confidence and Perseverance." I heard somebody talking about success recently and those two words blasted right in to my skull.

That is how I will get what I want.

Ciao, baby.