If I Didn't Have to Work I'd. . . .

You know you have said it. More than once. "If I didn't have to work, I'd finally get to do all those things that I really wanted to do all my life!" There. The reason you don't do all the things you want to do is because your job is in the way. That's it. That's where the blame lies. Ok, not blame, that's what the reason is.

Some early observations, and we'll see if there is any advice to come out of them.

Before I was tossed unceremoniously onto my professional a--, I had already been making lists, lots of them, careful ones and scribbled ones, of all the things I wanted to do just as soon as I was "free". They included, but were not limited to (she said in lawyer speak): writing those scripts for ideas I have had for ages, and two book ideas, working with animals at places like Shambala (big cats), my veterinarian, TLC, Animal Avengers, Best Friends (a little unrealistic as they are in Utah, but I still love them), oil painting, returning to the piano (in that regard a bit more than a year ago I had the entire piano refurbished and the pin board replaced--that happened after the refurbishing and a sudden problem developing with the block), singing, working with a particular charity that I have enormous affection for (Sisters Servants of Mary), acting, or otherwise using my voice and animated nature, reading as much as possible, getting another degree, developing my Christian faith, including systematic spiritual direction and the one that everybody jumps for immediately when you talk about not working--travelling.

A large part of the difficulty is contextual. Having a job (or for that matter going to school from K to post graduate), means there are prompts to either your extrinsic or intrinsic motivations. An example. Not all kids want to go to school, (they are not intrinsically motivated) but they have to--they are prompted by that mandate; they are motivated because the having to go motivates them. The kids that like school, well, they are already intrinsically motivated, but the prompt of having to is a nice frame for the day. I think I am mostly an intrinsically motivated person. I always have had ideas of things to do, like learning, but up to July 2011, there was always some kind of prompt, whether it be my mother (who demanded my education, God Bless her), my schools (which demanded my excellence, as did my mother) or having to make a living (which was a combination of ambition and survival). Contextually, then, I now have no external prompt (the job of 25 years is simply poof! courtesy of that delightful thing called "we're going in a different direction") or frame for my intrinsic motivators. Now, if I were 27 (when I came to California) rather than my current lot older age, my wanting to "get ahead" or "make money"  would readily be adjunct to my intrinsic motivation, as it did back then. I am entirely dependent on my intrinsic motivation, sans an externally imposed frame.

This nicely leads to the psychological challenge. Just doing things because I like to, or see a need for it, unconnected to a goal of some form of achievement (having to get a degree, to get a job, to make a living, to advance in the ranks of whatever I am doing) is unfamiliar to me. To the extent that "achievement " is still an internal motivator and it is also somewhat externally motivated as I clearly worry that my not DOING something tangible ("yes, I did publish that book and am making oodles of money) will be cause me to be denominated as "poor Djin she just hasn't figured out what to do with the rest of her life". Ouch.

People have suggested that I open my own law practice. Ouch again. I am a lousy business person and I just spent 25 years seeing what happens to lawyers in private practice who aren't business people. And, the truth of me is that I was not very happy with what I saw prior to my career of the world of private practice. It was actually quite ugly and it ate me up. Where I worked allowed me to sleep at night. I "achieved" there. I went from lowly trial deputy to manager and teacher. And then it was over.  My  view of achievement (internally or externally motivated), and how it is measured and rewarded was pretty well completely blown out of the water when my career ended in five minutes.

I won't go further down the other part of that psychological road (it would be a VERY VERY long blog entry as opposed to just a VERY long blog entry) but suffice it to say after being severed from a successfully performed job, and having never had a family of one's own, one (that is me) wonders about the overall meaning of (my) life. There is the lingering question of what went before so abruptly cancelled by someone you did not even know--what the heck was THAT all about?

Still intrinsically motivated  or not I sometimes wonder if I am a failure at "being free"  Here I am three months in and I haven't completed anything. Shouldn't I have? I guess, and here is another observation, maybe advice to myself and others, it depends on how you define completion, and achievement and success. You know.  Happiness is not about what you have. Happiness is not about the career. Happiness is not about outward success. Blah blah blah.

Now that the flurry of social activity, post firing, has diminished. I have a painting sitting out in my backyard (the one I wrote about like two months ago) which is in rough now, but I just realized I better get that uncompleted thing out of the yard because it looks like it is going to rain. I have taken one in a series of voice artist classes which were a balls, but in hiatus until the beginning of next month, I am wondering where that is going (although I said, and I meant it, I just wanted to have fun and IF it went somewhere gravy on the mashed potatoes).  I am working on two charity projects, one that is new and the other established, and I am not exactly making earthshaking contributions to either, although both have taken a measure of time. I have six story ideas for treatments and scripts and I have begun one (there are actually multiple pages). I have read several books and am in the middle of several more. I have been to the Getty Villa.  I have planned a small trip. And intend others. Will I stay an active lawyer? Well, I'm all paid up for 2011, and a lawyer I remain, but who knows what 2012 will bring.

But today, a gloomy Saturday (weather wise) I haven't done much and it makes me fear that I will become a couch potato 

Being free is not as easy as it seems. Just look at Adam and Eve. They were free. Look what a mess they made! I digress.

What's my point? Heck, I am not sure. Oh, yeah. One might be that "the grass is greener on the other side". Yeah, it's a cliche. But they are out there for a reason. One's happiness or fulfillment is not merely about having the time or freedom to do what you will. And given the cosmic realities, there is no such thing as doing as you will; in fact, maybe it is not a good thing. We are free to do what we ought. I am digressing into philosophical stuff again. The other is that adaptation is key. Things change. You have to accept it, like it or not (I don't like it) and deal with it. The good side is that there is an adventure to be had in the change. Whenever I have simply allowed the adventure to unfold (admittedly rare for me) it has been golden. Advice if you are in my situation, which really, when you think about it is unique (not rich, but having enough, I think), grab it with gusto. Stop trying to make it fit into some pre-conceived notion of a proper outcome. And that old adage, "Be in the present moment". It's really true. When you have had the experience, hasn't it been wonderful?

?Now THIS is free!? --Persephone the Cat.

It is worth that moment to have it be a little challenging on the way. It's kind of like learning a new language or to play an instrument; when you don't know how to, it is really hard, but it does get easier.

Let me end this admittedly rambled entry with some of my "successes" at living in the moment. I think they are worth the struggle that consist of "being free". Watching a mourning dove figure out that a bag held the seed it wanted and, while eyeballing me suspiciously, hopping up to it and plunging its head inside in triumph. Attending Mass more and discovering the richness of my faith, while "resting in the Lord" (ok, holy roller stuff over now). Sitting at the Dialog Cafe with a friend for two or more hours discussing a million different things (This has happened more than once, with different friends). Getting a lovely donation from a young friend for one of the charities I mentioned, just because he trusts and respects me. Getting closer to his family, and his lovely little daughter. Giving her one of my childhood books (The House at Pooh Corner)--kind of keeping the generational thread attached to people I care about, however long or however short that acquaintance may be. Being able to drive my uncle home from the hospital in the middle of what would otherwise have been a work day, seeing so much of my own father in him (the last of the boys of a family of 7) and appreciating as I did not before, what I see, in some look or expression. Writing not only for my own blog, but for someone else's. Making one or two new non-lawyer friends. Being able to take showers in the middle of the day, something I am about to do.

Life is, as one of my best friends says, unfolding just as it should.