Army of Priests

This blog is usually a bit preachy; this post is more like a diary entry (extroverted thought vs introverted thought perhaps). Chances are that only people who know me will read this because they are sticky beaks – or perhaps some faithful, long term readers from across the inter-web.

I’ve been a lot more introspective over the last month or so (as evidenced in a few recent blog posts) and learned a bit about myself in the process. For the last couple of months I have felt run off my feet, and like I wasn’t in control of my life due, in large part, to events at work. I have been focusing on urgent, short term tasks rather than on long term development. In the last week or two this has eased slightly and I have a two week holiday starting at the end of this week (yippie) so I have some breathing room to look at the use of my time and effort and figure out if it is the way I want to use them (I have a work mate who would point out that this is typical ENFP behaviour).

One thing that has been made obvious to me is that time is not my most precious resource, as I had been conditioned to believe. I can think of time, money, energy, focus, and social capital. There are probably others too (I know there are whole tribes of professionals who study this but I haven’t read any of their stuff, so let’s just pretend that I know what I am talking about). Money, energy, and social capital are resources of which I have seemingly endless supplies. Time has been a little strained when various work and non-work commitments compound (suffice to say I have worked a couple of 50 hour weeks in the last couple of months, but that’s not too bad).

However, my focus has been running pretty low. “Focus” to me is defined as the ability to think, and work has been stealing a lot of that lately. I get home and I have no brain matter left to use on the other things I want to use it on. I just keep thinking about the problems I am trying to solve at work and can’t put them aside in my mind. This is a common curse for a programmer.

I have learnt a few things about maintaining focus. I try to use my sub-conscious as much as possible – usually if I can’t solve a problem in 30 minutes I could spend the rest of the day on it and get nowhere. It is much better to put it aside for as long as possible. Later, if the answer hasn’t already mysteriously popped into my head whilst doing an unrelated activity, I will come back to it with a whole range of different perspectives that I wouldn’t have considered otherwise.

I am also learning the value of my environment (i.e. going to different places to do different types of thinking) and of information management. When new information comes in I am learning to just write it down and think about it at the appropriate time rather than right away. But I still have much to learn.

Still, these lessons may make me more effective at work, but they don’t deal with trying to manage different priorities fighting for my focus. On one hand I have work (which is very brain intensive); on the other I have my passions for social justice, theology, and my house church, et cetera. I wish that I could combine all these things together, but I know this isn’t always possible, and I feel kind of bad bitching about not reaching my “self-actualization” goals when poor people are starving to death (my thinking often comes back to people starving).

One last point on work: being run over with short term tasks has made my job generally less enjoyable. I got into programming initially because I would spend my afternoons after school teaching myself action script to make games in flash (yes, geeky – but this is the kind of behaviour you expect from the school dux). Later, university ended up being a bit of a drag. Nothing kills passion like making the learning process so painful. Then, when I got a job in the “real world” I got to sink my teeth into some code and I remembered again why I loved to program in the first place.

My job has changed a bit since then. The small company I am part of is going through growth pains and all the “fun” structural and people problems that accompany it. Part of that has involved a promotion-of-sorts for me, or at least a change in the type of work I do. My new roles are now much more focused on project management and turning our existing client base into a fan base. There are a lot of responsibilities and tasks that I enjoy in this. But the transition has been horrible, causing me to do several roles at once and sacrifice excellence for efficiency.

So one thing I have learned about myself: I like doing things well over just getting stuff done. I need to find a way to make this possible.

This has caused me to think about why I like programming in the first place, before it became a “job.” Programming is unique in that it combines both logic and creativity. It involves a lot of problem solving – but I don’t enjoy problem solving on its own (such as in silly Sudoku puzzles and brain teasers) – but problem solving in programming is used for the purpose of construction. Programmers build things (so programming is more like lego than Sudoku). It also has the characteristic in that you can get very quick feedback on what you are doing, which is rare in the engineering disciplines, and enables the whole agile development approach that has become a fad word these days. Programmers also (usually) get to do both design and implementation work, so they can participate in a large chunk of the development process.

Besides carrying over into different parts of my new roles at work, these tasks that I enjoy also cover many other activities in life. I shall pay more attention to them now that I recognise them.

I have also been thinking about what my values are. By these, I don’t mean “morals” like not stealing and killing. I mean attributes for which I am recognised. They are remarkable in so far as people make remarks on them. I think they are half-chosen and half-discovered.

One “value” of mine that I have frequently gotten comments on is my transparency. This is funny, because according to my own standards I am not transparent enough, but perhaps my standards are higher than most peoples. My transparency is probably going to get me in trouble sometime.

Also, I really, really enjoy learning. I don’t enjoy being taught; rather I love to discover new information. This is another trait that people have commented about. This blog exists simply because teaching is the surest way to learn. If you just happen to benefit than kudos to you. You can send me a nice email.

Then there are traits that I want to be known for, but aren’t yet.

I want to be known as someone who brazenly refuses to benefit from anything that is causing harm to the billions of people in poverty around the world. This is a big, hairy, audacious goal and I am nowhere close yet. One day I hope to get there and maybe the people who read this can hold me to it.

I also want to be known as someone who challenges Christians to cut the crap and get back to the grass-roots of what Christianity is actually meant to be about. It’s plainly obvious that the world is really screwed up and the only thing that can really change it – the church – is too preoccupied with the comfort level of the pews or formatting of the church newsletter to do anything. This is a real pity, because the upside-down way of life that Jesus advocated is about the most awesome thing that I can ponder. I’m half way to being known for this one.

This is it for now. Once my holidays come my putting-things-in-order will accelerate and we will probably see more posts like this. For the time being though, this is enough introspection for one day.