These great quotes have flown by on my tweetstream recently:

”If you don’t like where you are, change it! You’re not a tree.”

“When looking at Switching Costs . . . don’t forget to consider Switching Gains (emotional, social, psychological, etc.)”

On a related note, I finished my second blog post for Seattle 2.0 this morning.  It should go live tomorrow morning at 6 AM.  The topic is the Endowment Effect and whether or not we can use this hypothesis to explain any resistance to making the leap and starting your own business.  On this blog, however, my interests for the moment lean more in a personal direction, and I wonder if the EE can explain resistance to change in general.  I think it can.  I think the EE makes sense and that we overvalue what we currently have and undervalue that which we might potentially have were we to make changes.

I was interested, but not surprised, to find that one of the primary experimental evidence sets in favor of the EE was developed by Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational.  I’m familiar with Dan from his writings on happiness and I think I’ve even blogged about him a couple times in these pages.

Speaking of change, I was talking to a friend this morning who has an interest in astrology and was told that “transformation” is a key concept for Scorpios and that we tend to seek out cycles of change, rebirth, reinvention…I’m not a believer in astrology as such, but since I’ve lately been thinking a lot about change and transformation, I was interested to hear her out.

Thought-experiment: If I had to pick ONE THING today to change about myself or my circumstances, what would it be, and why?  As I ponder this question, I will get back to work… Hope you all are having a great day today.

I had kid duty tonight while Janet is out with a friend, and I took them to two different parks – Ella Bailey first, then the Village park.  At Ella Bailey Audrey fell in love with a black Labrador that chased a tennis ball all over the infield.  Then at the Village park she fell in love with two Great Danes, both black and white but not littermates, that walked by. 300 pounds of slobbery, friendly dog licked her face and whapped her with their wiry tails.

It felt strange, however, to be with the kids and yet want to be somewhere else.  Not because of the kids – they are fabulous and my greatest joy – but just because of context, circumstances, my recent history, etc. Every puff of wind whispers “change!” Every growling motorcycle roars “CHANGE!”  I pretend, by describing it in this way, that it’s an external impulse, but really it comes from within.  I’ve previously described some things I can work on that will scratch these itches, and won’t go into them again.  But the dissonance between an otherwise idyllic evening at the park (parks!) and the tumult in my head and heart is still strange, and will likely remain strange for some time.

Still no news from my friend.  Not sure if I should reach out again or not; settling on not, to give some time and space where it’s probably needed.  But I’m still filled with concern and I hope that all is turning out as best as can be hoped, even while I fear the worst.  Distant consolation may yet find its way home.

I haven’t been journaling the past couple days – a sign of both an improved outlook as well as a lack of time at work to devote to non-work items.  “Improved outlook,” you ask?  What’s that about?  It’s all about my current attitude about Topic X – reduced anxiety, greater calm, perspective, and acceptance.  The future holds not only what it holds, but what I am able to make of it.  Sometimes – especially lately – I forget I have agency in the matters at hand.

But you know what bugs me? I feel like my recent blog posts have all been the same thoughts, reordered, repackaged, but essentially Xeroxes of each other.  I need to switch it up a bit, because if I’m tiring of writing the same thing over and over, you, careful reader, are almost guaranteed to be bored reading it.  Some of you might know that this is one of my greatest social fears – to be a bore.  So I’m on personal notice to branch out and deliver a spellbinding blogging performance tomorrow.   Suggest some topics, if something comes to mind that might interest you.  Healthcare?  The economy?  The war in Afghanistan?  The history of karaoke singing? Nothing’s off-limits, except authorial self-indulgence.  At least for one day

Last thought: home is where the heart is.  Talk with you all later.

I’m intending to try to bury myself in work in the upcoming months (years?), as a way to give myself something completely overwhelmingly time-consuming to focus on.  I’m working on side projects, looking for more, dusting off old plans for applications and features, talking to others about new ideas, and generally want to spend most of my waking moments at the keyboard, working on this, that or the other software project.

I need to focus on something other than the last four months.  My heart can not take any more (self-inflicted?) blows.  I sit here deflated, worn, tired, ground under the heel of life and life’s less-than-stellar outcomes, and another mixed, painful ride on an emotional roller-coaster will surely end in some unfortunate result for me personally.  I’ll look down on the shattered pieces of atria and ventricles, icy and black, and will find no further depths of numbness to experience.  I’m tapped out.

It’s apparent at some point that I’ll have to strike out on my own, career-wise – for a variety of reasons.  First and foremost, working for someone else is simply not the greatest way to ensure long-term financial security.  Second, there are always new challenges that one should actively seek out and embrace, purely for personal growth reasons.  Third – well, third will be obvious to careful readers.  For the moment, however, I continue to give my very best, and continue to excel in getting high-quality product in front of our clients.  Our team dynamic is excellent.  Our productivity relative to peers is excellent.  Our ability to adapt and adjust to changing circumstances is excellent (thank you, Agile!).  So I feel good, and will continue to feel good for a long time, about my contribution to the success of my team and my company.  But ultimately…it will be time for a change.

Change starts today.  I learned that putting off change is self-defeating, purposeless, a wary and conservative approach to a life that is as unpredictable as the Lottery.  You think you can predict the future?  Let me rattle off the list of times over the last four months that I thought I had it nailed, and then you go back and think to yourself whether you really have the prognosticating ability you thought you had.  If you still answer “yes”, you’re as foolish as I’ve been.

To summarize: looking for interesting projects.  Know of any?  Throw some love my way in the comments.