starry night
Recycles dryer sheets
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2006
- Messages
- 158
Remember, I'm still new to this - just having RE'd last month (3-15-06), so many of you have undoubtedly made these discoveries that I am reaching daily.......
I was sitting happily in the Library this morning perusing Sy Hersh's piece in The New Yorker ('cause we don't subscribe -- get it free at Library) on the Bush Admin's push toward Iran, when I paused to contemplate "How great is this, that I have time to fill my brain with ever more issues, news, current events. While I was shackled to the work-a-day world my mind was filled with so much USELESS flotsam -- which is now jetsam.
I mean really, all that product knowledge, procedures, customer data, rules, regulations, policies, database maintenance, corporate contacts, contracts, underwriting, accounting -- it was seemingly essential THEN, and I was good at it and well-thought-of, but REALLY!!!! - it's just so much SOUND AND FURY -- SIGNIFYING NOTHING-----NOTHING!! Jettison that from my hard drive, I've got more possibilities to explore, discover, know!
I know some people may fear that the "R" word means surrendering to atrophy of the intellect, but NOOOOO - it is mind-expanding and makes room for the input of what we WANT to study and consider, not the temporary mastery of job detail. That all seems to matter so little now. And I find this realization a bit pathetic, that what seemed so essential, necessary and important really wasn't. OK, so I helped to serve the customer, and others still carry that on and on in my absence, but in hindsight it seems so meaningless, monotonous, even futile. Not the part of my life, my intellect or my essence that adds value or growth or understanding.
I get to spend more time with our local news and issues, read WSJ for much more than industry competitive info, study other issues, contemplate, discuss things that matter to me instead of briefing yet another business meeting on stuff that doesn't make my life whole.
So, when the unknowing, yet well-meaning, say to me "Aren't you afraid you'll be wasting your brain by not having the stimulation of your job HA, HA, HA, and au contraire.
......It keeps getting better each day.....
I was sitting happily in the Library this morning perusing Sy Hersh's piece in The New Yorker ('cause we don't subscribe -- get it free at Library) on the Bush Admin's push toward Iran, when I paused to contemplate "How great is this, that I have time to fill my brain with ever more issues, news, current events. While I was shackled to the work-a-day world my mind was filled with so much USELESS flotsam -- which is now jetsam.
I mean really, all that product knowledge, procedures, customer data, rules, regulations, policies, database maintenance, corporate contacts, contracts, underwriting, accounting -- it was seemingly essential THEN, and I was good at it and well-thought-of, but REALLY!!!! - it's just so much SOUND AND FURY -- SIGNIFYING NOTHING-----NOTHING!! Jettison that from my hard drive, I've got more possibilities to explore, discover, know!
I know some people may fear that the "R" word means surrendering to atrophy of the intellect, but NOOOOO - it is mind-expanding and makes room for the input of what we WANT to study and consider, not the temporary mastery of job detail. That all seems to matter so little now. And I find this realization a bit pathetic, that what seemed so essential, necessary and important really wasn't. OK, so I helped to serve the customer, and others still carry that on and on in my absence, but in hindsight it seems so meaningless, monotonous, even futile. Not the part of my life, my intellect or my essence that adds value or growth or understanding.
I get to spend more time with our local news and issues, read WSJ for much more than industry competitive info, study other issues, contemplate, discuss things that matter to me instead of briefing yet another business meeting on stuff that doesn't make my life whole.
So, when the unknowing, yet well-meaning, say to me "Aren't you afraid you'll be wasting your brain by not having the stimulation of your job HA, HA, HA, and au contraire.
......It keeps getting better each day.....