Being Present in the Moment

One of the things I've had to adjust over these past several months is to embrace the slow and steady pace of things. Not in World of Warcraft, per se, but in life as well.

For a guy who has been tinkering around with electronics since the late 80s*, I've had a reckoning while studying for my Technician's license. While I realize that for some people memorizing the questions in the potential question pool for the test is the way to go, that's not me. I prefer to learn how to do something so I can then figure it out every time. Sure, it'll slow me down on my test completion, but it's not like this is a timed test in the same vein as the SAT or GRE. 

But still... Holy crap have I forgotten a ton of stuff over the years.

Yeah, that. Wait, what was I talking about?
from Cheezburger.

This has been an exercise in humiliation. I can't tell you the number of times when a concept was presented in the study guide and my initial reaction was "Oh yeah, I remember this! It's... uh... It's..."

What's sad is that I've built a power supply and
antenna tuner before, so you'd think I'd remember this.
From The ARRL Ham Radio License
Manual (5th Edition), page 3-16.

I then have two directions I could take: tell myself that I know this and I'll be fine on the test, or admit that I don't really know it and that I have to study and review and practice more. 

While I really really want to take the former route -my ego wants me to go that way too- I've been forced into the realization that the latter is the better choice in the long run. Yeah, my ego drives me just like it drives everybody else, but even more than my ego is my fear of looking like an idiot in front of everybody else.**

Speaking of idiots, having this photo of Richard Garriott in the
book did not age well. And no, I'm not putting this here to try
to get a response from Wilhelm Arcturus, either. From
The ARRL Ham Radio License Manual (5th Edition), Page 1-7.

So I've been proceeding a lot slower than I hoped. 

***

If you play video games or are a fan of logic puzzles, you know that typically the best solution is to perform actions in a specific order. This kind of goes without saying for anything in life, from putting together IKEA furniture to cleaning out the garage to engaging in relationships.***

This includes figuring out my outside projects for this coming year.

The most critical part, replace the deck boards, was completed last year. Now I have to stain the deck once the overnight temperatures reach over 50 F (10 C) as according to the stain instructions. There's also the consideration that if I'm not careful, the stain will have a ton of pollen embedded in it as well. 

But there's the next phases to consider, and they involve replacing the stairs and the railings. And the skirting around the deck.

That's just the deck. I also want to paint the exterior of the porch, which involves me getting up on a ladder to paint the top portions of the porch. And that involves me clearing out enough of the garage so I can get to the ladder...

You get the idea. 

I have to figure out the order to attack all of these projects in the same way my Questing Buddy attacks her goals in WoW Classic, but I have to temper this with the knowledge that I don't have all the time in the world to do this, either. Some of these will get bumped to next year (or the year after), and I have to be willing to accept that.

(Yeah, right.)

***

Speaking of next year...

I reviewed the vacation days I've taken for this year so far, and all but two of them involved doctor's visits. And those two vacation days involved my travel for work, so they technically don't count.****

Admittedly, 3 of those doctors' visits involved me getting vaccines, so they're a once every several years event, but even then I'm starting to feel a bit run down by the constant drip of doctor visits, along with the knowledge that this is going to be my life going forward. 

All of these visits are starting to impact other things as well. For example, I'd like to take some time off to just rest and recharge, but the more time I take off for a doctor's visit means there's less time for other things. (See my projects above.)

The irony that I kind of need some time off to recharge but that my time off is already being taken up by health issues hasn't been lost on me. I've also had a nagging concern that the longer my life has gone on I've lost the ability to relax. Consider it an unfortunate byproduct of being on-call 24x7 for close to 30 years, but even when I have a couple of days off it takes an effort to not check work email. Or join a daily review session. Or... Well, you get the idea. 

I began to realize I might have a problem with relaxing when I sat down in a chair on the newly replaced deck surface and no more than five minutes later I got the urge to go work on another project.

This is not good, I thought, and got up and went back inside after trying to push those feelings away.

So yeah, I need to relearn how to relax. Be present in the moment. Maybe that's why I've been enjoying fishing this much lately.

Good luck with that one.
From Tumblr and Star Wars.

*Not to mention my bachelor's degree.

**I'm not talking about 'an idiot versus a know-it-all', but 'an idiot versus being actually competent'. If there's one thing I have learned over the years, being a know-it-all serves as a lightning rod for everybody who hates/bullies smart people, so blending into the background by not being a know-it-all is typically the smarter move.

***Figuring out what that order is in a relationship frequently is the hard part. Everybody is different and responds to things differently, although some general concepts are pretty universal. Otherwise, Psychology would be a crap shoot.

****And I ended up working while traveling anyway, because of course that's what happened.