No bulleted list and nothing that originates in a bulleted list. A compound sentence. What fun!

Apparently there are some pitfalls. The FEMA RVs aren’t equipped like commercial ones and need some work to get them road-ready.

This is promising news, though!

How many of us are really passionate about, say, presenting a budget analysis to an auditor?

I’d argue that too many discrete ideas have been subsumed under the label “passion.”

First one: caring, which I define as being emotionally invested in an outcome. I care deeply about the well being of animals in our society. I am motivated to work for their welfare – and willing to do take on tasks I might not enjoy – because I care.

Second: interest, which I define as being intellectually curious about something. Most of the people I’ve encountered in high-tech companies are interested, excited, intrigued, and fascinated by their work. I’ve been in that heady space at numerous jobs and have been motivated to do some great work. Is this “passion”, though? Not really.

Passion is a term I reserve for an activity I can’t stop myself from doing or a goal I can’t stop myself from pursuing. There’s the rub. I can no more force myself to be “passionate” about work – even fascinating, exciting, intriguing work that I care deeply about – than I could force myself to believe in blue unicorns.

Who can?

I think there are many people who are passionate out there, and many more who are simply living a lie. The irony – all this fake passion does not make for more productive, engaged workplaces. Rather, fantasy-building and guilt become a distraction from what otherwise would be satisfying work.

I realized in my last endeavor that time freedom without attention freedom ain’t worth a hill of beans.

The assignment – a nightmare – was cutting text from one formatted document and pasting it into a template. In an application that carries with it all sorts of invisible code and byzantine formatting rules. (You know the one.) I could do the work at any time of day, sitting comfortably in my home.

The trouble was, there was no way to manage my attention to minimize the unpleasant parts. I could not, say, stage six paragraphs I needed to write, and then go take a break. Or write paragraphs and tackle clever headers later. Instead, I had to concentrate on one bug or breakdown after another for hours on end.

The whole concept made me reconsider the concept of time freedom and what I use it for … I concluded that I actually wouldn’t have much trouble with a regular schedule – provided there are mental ebbs and flows that are under my control.

What about you?

Queen Anne, Seattle, seemed more a bubble than San Francisco ever did.

How I see it: the words aren’t important; watch out for the terms of engagement.
- Will you be handed independent tasks to complete, or will you be expected to participate in team processes?
- Are you measured in terms of results or activities?
- Do you answer to someone who acts like your boss, or is your contact more like a customer/peer?

“Never take a job that requires you to do something you’d never do if you weren’t being paid.”

That leaves a lot of things you might do and not like.

My list:
“I would never sit in a chair for more than 3 or 4 hours a day.”
“I would never sit behind a computer screen for more than a couple of hours a day.”
“I would never choose my associates by what colleges they attended or what their job skills are.”

(The latter, I guess, is why I’ve always liked working with customers rather than on internal projects. Even in a corporate setting – the customers are often diverse, as they come at the very least from different industries.)

Note to self: even before achieving the 4-hour work week, the 40-hour-work week needs to include at least 4 or 5 hours, if not more, to embrace the random.

The social entrepreneurship movement has changed this mindset. Fighting the good fight, David and Goliath-style, against problems like “world hunger” once sounded exciting. Now it sounds defeatist. I most admire the people in the world who are determined to take on the problems they believe can be solved if we work diligently at them.

My personal cause – stopping the killing of savable animals in shelters.

Some resources:
No Kill Advocacy Center
The Shelter Pet Project
Maddie’s Fund

Of note: these leaders are not simply joining existing organizations and institutions. The no-kill movement is a coalition of people within the system, people putting pressure on the system and calling it to account, and ordinary people with no “professional” role.