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Monday, September 27, 2004

All good things

One year ago I was saying my good-byes and packing up my desk at my previous job in Cambridge. At the time, I was looking back at my 5 1/2 years of experience with the company trying to recollect all that I had learned. Now, a year later, I continue to reflect and I see things in better perspective. Maybe it's the fact that a full year has passed, or maybe it's because I've moved out of state. But I feel like there's a deep contrast between what I did then vs. what I'm doing now. It's made me realize how important it is to shake things up once in a while.

My instinct was to immediately begin the full-time job search when I moved. Polishing the resume, contacting recruiters, posting to job sites... I did everything by the book hoping to catch a good break in a market that was just beginning to recover. But it didn't get me too far. I developed some solid contacts for further down the road. But in the short term, I wasn't making much progress.

Fast forward a couple months to late winter when I decided to try something new. I dove into consulting and began marketing myself differently. It wasn't an overnight change, but slowly I developed ways of presenting my experience in a new light. I knew what I wanted to do for work and the jobs seemed more suited for an independent contractor role than a full-time staff member.

This strategy apparently worked and I began three different projects in the same month. Since then, it's been almost non-stop. I appreciate the importance of time management much more now than ever before. But I also spend more money on gas now than ever before. You can say great things about working from home too, but it's also difficult sometimes to carve out personal time from work time. Taking it all in, though, I'm very happy with the path I chose.

I'm not really sure what I'm getting at with this post. Up until now, this website has chronicled parts of my life on an (almost) daily basis. I believe it's good to look back once in a while and see where I've been to figure out where I'm headed. Apparently where I've been most often is right here in the house taking silly photos of the cat.

The original point of this site was to keep in touch with family and friends after moving to Connecticut -- a state where we don't know many people. And I'd like to think I keep folks updated about our fun little adventures here.

I continue to plow ahead with work and now I'm back doing some projects remotely for my previous employer. It's funny how things can come full circle sometimes. As Kevin Nealon advised in "Happy Gilmore":

"You've gotta harness in the good energy, block out the bad. Harness - energy - block - bad. Feel the flow, feel it. It's circular, it's like a carousel, you pay the quarter you get on the horse. It goes up and down and around, circular, circle, with the music - the flow. All good things."