Better Days

Ever since I made that decision to leave the current job, I have been different... in a good way.

Sundays are less snappier, I have lesser lines on my face, I don't look as tired as I had been for the past 9 ish months, and my relationships are improving.

All relationships.

My mother told me that ever since I started working in the new position, I have become tiresome to deal with. I am almost always bitchy and I was pessimistic.

Okay, I am not the most optimistic person in the whole world... as a matter of fact, I am more sarcastic and realistic than most people. However, my pessimism was... bearable.

Until 2014 came and push it on overdrive.

I got to know that one of my friends actually was contemplating on avoiding me. But then he thought, that this woman (Ehem.. ME) needed help. I Needed Reinforcement.

I have never thought that something as small as a job can bring about a significant change in my personality and the way I treat the people around me.

Of course, I have never been the picture of positivity, but I am not exactly negative either. I would like to say that I am a healthy balance of the two, before this.

Sure, quitting a job is scary as hell. But I have always thought that there is a reason for everything.

Although it may sound kind of ... disturbing, some of us are just designed to work better at night.

How else would I be able to come up with a wordy (ish) entry 10 mins before midnight.

I was sucked into the pretense of a better normal life, dealing with normal people schedule, going through normal HELL of traffic jams and to be completely destroyed, mind, body and soul, every day, after 5.30 pm.

The workaholic now figured that while she wishes she can be flexible, She will not be able to, for the longest time.

Things will be better. It always had been, if it doesn't, well... there are always cliffs to jump off  other options.

Pardon my overactive mind.

Prelude on - Oh what a wonderful year 2014 had been.

One of the way that you can cultivate happiness in your life is to, actually, love your job.

Somehow, this always correlates back to the environment and all other contributing factors that went into the job.

My mistake, one that I think will plague me for a long time coming, would be that, I ignored my guts. I managed a team, taken on a few projects before in my previous employment, surely I can take on anything without checking in with my gut feel right?

WRONG.

I should have known that if there is one thing  that I should trust, it would be my instinct. 

For 10 months, I was questioning my cause of unhappiness. 

And I came to a few realization : 

1) I had been in the graveyard shift, and was technically a vampire for 5 and a half years. What made me think that my circadian rhythm can adjust to prolonged normal shift, astounded me. My brain went fuzzy and consequently, I have not been sleeping well, no rest, equals to slow responses and very bad decisions.

Very bad decisions led to depression and self deprecation.

Self deprecation, leads to.... zero productivity and frustration.

Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is BAD.

2) My line of directions came from two people, both knew the lines of direction flow (One was offshore, one was onshore). None overlaps the other, and if there had been, clarification was brief and to the point.

Now my previous employment was not perfect. Actually, it is flawed in many ways. However, I was fortunate to have a good director (Who later also left the company).

He trusted my judgment, and I was productive, and passionate, a far cry from what I am right  now (Don't ask me why, because I do not have an answer.)

He didn't change his mind every quarter about strategies laid out--- And he didn't have an assistant to contradict the direction given.

Simple things like these would be a huge deterrent to good process management.

Directions were everywhere, from everyone, and this in turn, frustrated me. 

3) Hell is here on earth itself

You don’t have to die to know the wrath of hell. It is easy to know and feel what hell feels like just by living my life for 10 months.

First, I am in no way trying to belittle / exaggerate my minuscule definition of hell. I know to a certain degree, I have no right to complaint if put side by side with a Palestinian.

But, every person’s universe is that person's own heaven or hell. And this is my hell.

One of the major thing that I hate about the last 10 months, was the commute and the traffic, to and from my home to the work place.

Collectively, I spent up to 3-4 hours in my car, depending on how bad the traffic is for the day. I will spend up to 8 hours in the office. I would usually skip lunch but still work the full 7.50 plus the 0.50 break that I am supposed to take.

That didn’t actually make much of a difference.

My right calf is smaller than my left. So… you get the idea.

I have mentioned before about my unfortunate abnormal circadian rhythm situation. My insomnia, something that I have learned to live with quite harmoniously for the past 5 years before 2014 was on overdrive for the past 10 months.

I have tried every single thing that I can think of, that will not have any kind of severe side effects to my health.

Warm milk, simple carbs, natural sleep remedies, going to sleep earlier on the hour everyday, melatonin and even… Valium.

I was so close to using marijuana to treat my insomnia, but I figured that reporting to work, stoned, is not ethical. (You don’t say.). I have ‘people’ to make that possible for me. But , I looked the other way.

Pairing my sleep disorder with the hell, which is the horrendous traffic, meaning that I will have to wake up at 4/5 am everyday. Which means I have to be home by 7 pm and go to sleep at 9.30 pm.

But my body never allowed me to sleep at 9.30 pm. I would usually toss and turn on my bed, until it was well over 2 am. In the dark.  

The worst thing about all this was that, I would actually be conscious about the time I went to sleep, I will know that I will wake up groggy and unrested 2/3 hours later.

So tell me, is this a way to live in the long run?

Someone told me to stop what was doing and go and find another job. This was when it was still 3 months into the 'gig'. But knowing me, I told this person that I will adapt to it. Without a doubt, I will. I have always had a healthy and strong willpower.

However, on this, I came out battered and bruised, and it was my good luck that I managed to avoid a few road accidents that may have been the end of my life, as I know it.

Sometimes, we have to surrender to the one thing that we just can’t do. Soldiering on will not have any meaning.

I doubt my tombstone would dictate :

‘Here lies Ayu, she was a person who tried to convince herself that this job is worth being miserable for. Eventually, she died in a car accident due to lack of sleep and constant nonsense from her job.

However, she SOLDIERED ON UNTIL HER DEATH.’

Now what kind of fucking logic is that?

My entry on 31^st December will not include any kind of good words on 2014. When T passed away in 2012, it was a sad thing, but it didn’t affect me in a big way. When I got retrenched in 2013, I was anxious, but I was still reasonably—hopeful.

2014 made me re-evaluate myself in the worst way possible. At one point, I was irrational and that rendered me with a feeling of hopelessness.

I know it is still too early, but I hope 2015 will be better.

It fucking better be, because I am going to make it!

On a Quest For Happiness

Right now, I am devouring everything that I can to make myself happy.

At 35, I realized that all the money in the world is not going to actually make me happy.

I also realized that my perfect working hours are not the hours that would have been perfect for everyone else. I hate waking up in the morning. I can feel energized at 7 pm and I would hate myself, at 7 am.

To fix that, would take a LONG time.

I came across a Facebook Meme that quoted 'I am a daydreamer and night thinker.'

I became wildly obsessed with thinking at night.

And also, I cannot see myself giving my heart and soul to my work anymore. That much 'revered' corporate loyalty is no longer there.

I feel as if I am wasting my time in meetings and amateur decision making based on weak data and assumptions of second guessing what customers want.

So I have thrown in the towel on living life conservatively, based on how everyone is surviving.

Sure I still need money, maybe someday, I would even make more money, but the time is not now, and I would rather be a minimalist, then an unhappy, bitchy yogi.

Namaste...