Late nighter... professional reflections

Man, I love my job!!

Okay, it's one of those jobs people always say "Wow!! I wish I had your job!!" and then I say "It's a lot of waiting in airports, flying in airplanes and then getting to do really cool stuff." Even I have a hard time trying not to giggle when I realize how much I like it.

But tonight, or this morning, I find myself, on one of those late night highs that only comes from hours and days of writing and working and struggling. One thing I will never say is that my job is easy. I wake up and I'm on line almost before I leave the bed - I have to try to catch the folks who are 9 + time zones away, and whose days are just ending. I often say my commutes are either 20+ hours, or across the hall in my flannel pajamas.

Just because I don't always get dressed does not mean I'm lounging around the house. Rather it means I'm so frigging busy I don't have time to change clothes. And when I say I've been struggling - honestly, that's what it's been like. There is nothing easy about this work. Sure, I say "If it were easy then EVERYONE would do it!", but honestly the 15 day writing binge where I have to figure out what's going on in countries all over the world, untangle laws, economic conditions, cultures, social indicators, and then add a few layers of bureaucratic evolutionary confusion, with a document to produce that will outline how to start to solve these problems, and I'm glad to get a shower.

And then nights like this - when it's after 4:00 am and I'm at the dining room table listening to Gnarls Barkley and enjoying a few deep breaths because I've finally sent things over to Tim before he polishes it off and shoots it out to folks waiting on it's (timely) delivery, that I really feel amazingly blessed to be able to do this work, and to do it with the people I work with.

It is hard. There are times I think I'll never get it figured out, and there are times I feel utterly incapable of thinking one more constructive thought ever again in my life. But at the same time, I've learned if I just bear with it, and push on through really good things can happen. And then it feels wonderful.

It's not easy. It's damn hard. But I like the dogged determination it takes. It's always challenging and it's always such a rush to get it figured out. I really love figuring things out. And I love my job.

OKay, speaking of other things to figure out, I found this blog today. I mentioned it to Regan and Edwige who swung by tonight. (Great fun!! must remember to do again!!) It's a very very cool experiment in no impact living and I've got to give it to these folks, it's a great thing to be doing - no impact living in NYC!! Inspirational stuff:

http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/

I plan to spend some time reading up on this... but not tonight. Tonight I'm going to turn off the lights, crawl into bed, and hope to be sound asleep before the birds start chirping in another hour or so.

It's fun to feel like a grad student who just finally finished that paper, and will sleep a few hours before printing it out and turning it in to the professor... it's a soft catharsis.

Wishing you all well! and Green Dreams!