One of my good friends from Virginia, Paul Jeon, is a pastor of a new church plant. He has a blog and recently wrote a post on his framework for decision making as it pertains to job stuff. His framework builds off of Tim Keller's (Affinity, Ability, Opportunity) but includes two additional factors (Community and Responsibility).
You can read his post here:
http://pastorpauljeon.blogspot.com/2012/04/gods-will-for-my-life-part-deux.html
Keller implicitly mentions community when he talks about discerning abilities. But I liked how Paul explicitly mentions the role that community has in helping you make decisions. Also he explicitly mentions responsibility. I think this is a very reasonable and sometimes neglected factor, but also difficult to determine. When I was working in banking, I felt like I was somewhat neglecting my wife, my friends, and myself. Quitting my job genuinely felt like a responsible thing to do, even though on the face of it, it could appear like a selfish thing to do. Now the pendulum has swung the other way. Now, with me not working - the responsible thing to do would be to find a job, sooner rather than later. But a responsible thing to do could be also to make the best use of this time to not make a hasty decision also. May God examine my heart.
Responsibility is an interesting thing because it can be interpreted in many ways and the outcomes will be different for different people. More on this another time...
Sidebar: I am not seriously considering being a stay-at-home dad for a long time, but I am becoming a stay-at-home dad by default at the moment because my wife is working. Proponents for stay-at-home parenting would argue that a responsible thing to do would be to stay at home and nurture your child. Or, if appropriate, others would argue that the responsible thing to do is for both parents to work to provide for your family. I've had a lot of random thoughts about gender roles in the past few months - some I've shared with my wife. It's interesting that as a man, I feel a responsibility to "bring home the bacon", but I don't feel a strong responsibility to be a stay-at-home dad, though certainly I have a responsibility to be a good father. Similarly, some women may feel conflicted about going back to work because they feel a responsibility to stay at home and may feel that is an important part of being a good mother, and they have to deal with a sense of guilt of going back to work - a guilt that I, as a man, do not feel even for a second.
Sidebar continued: Albeit for a temporary time, I'm going to be a SAHD (Stay-at-home-dad). I never sought this out - it just sort of happened. It's interesting because I'm sure there's this whole culture of SAHDs that I know nothing about. I'm somewhat curious to learn about other SAHDs. Who are they? Why? Are they mostly like me? Was it a financial decision - she makes more than I do. Was it a role decision - I like being at home more than she does. Combination of a variety of factors? If stay-at-home mom's go out on lunch dates and walks in the park, I wonder what the male equivalent of that is. I think it'd be really really awesome (not really) if I could find some sub-culture of SAHDs that just watches and plays sports all the time. Like imagine if 5-6 guys and their kids all met up yesterday afternoon to watch Man City vs. Man United. (Actually, that's exactly what I did - watched it with my son this afternoon along with hundreds of millions of others around the world while Americans were at work). I assume that SAHD's feel like they need to preserve/assert a sense of masculinity, particularly because they are performing a traditionally female role. Perhaps more on this topic another time...
Monday, April 30, 2012
Monday, April 23, 2012
Restarting the Blog
I got a little lazy and haven't posted anything in over a month. This is partly due to significant travel and family commitments in recent weeks. But also, I think I hit a mini-wall. A few things:
1. I'm back now from my long trip(s), so now it's just me and my brainstorming sessions. Time to keep the ball rolling and stay productive.
2. I can see how easy it could be for me to just stay unemployed for a long time, like months or years. Two months just flew by. That's a little scary. I want to strike a good balance of staying methodical and deliberate with my job search but still making daily / weekly progress.
3. I think I'm putting too much pressure on myself to write something deep and thoughtful. I think I need to focus more on keeping the process going. I should try to post more frequently, even if it's a short posts, or even if it's short spurts of thoughts like this post. I need to stay focused on the goal here, which is to find a job, not write nice blog posts.
4. A friend who also went through a time of unemployment gave me good advice which I plan to take to heart. It's really easy to get stuck in the house - watch TV, take a nap, surf the web, etc. So, my plan is to go to the library every week day for several hours. The change in environment, hopefully, will be good for me. Hence, I'm writing this post from a public library.
5. I have a child and staying at home and taking care of a child is actually really tiring - it's mentally and physically challenging. I've only been alone with my child for 2-4 hours at a time so far, but soon, when my wife starts working, it'll be 8-10 hours at a time, maybe more. I'm developing a deeper respect for stay-at-home moms and dads. Our current plan is to put our child in daycare for 3 days a week starting in June, so that I have time to meet people, do interviews, etc. when that time comes.
6. I think one of the important next steps are to begin just talking to people and learning about what they do and how they got into it. I need to reach out to my network of friends and colleagues from school, church, previous jobs, family, friends, etc. One future activity is to create a list of people I want to talk to. Networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook should help here.
7. A friend forwarded me this HBS blog article:
To Find Happiness, Forget about Passion http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/01/to_find_happiness_forget_about.html
Given my last post, I thought it was a good reminder not to be too focused on being inward looking, but to look out into the world and consider the problems you want to solve in your life. I think that'll help as I brainstorm.
8. On a slightly related topic, I'm also hoping to get in better shape during my time off - exercising regularly. First, just for the pure physical benefit of being healthy, energized, and feeling good, but also for the mental / emotional benefit of keeping a routine, being disciplined, etc. I hope this will lead to me eating healthier as well. Again - contributing to me being disciplined and regimented.
1. I'm back now from my long trip(s), so now it's just me and my brainstorming sessions. Time to keep the ball rolling and stay productive.
2. I can see how easy it could be for me to just stay unemployed for a long time, like months or years. Two months just flew by. That's a little scary. I want to strike a good balance of staying methodical and deliberate with my job search but still making daily / weekly progress.
3. I think I'm putting too much pressure on myself to write something deep and thoughtful. I think I need to focus more on keeping the process going. I should try to post more frequently, even if it's a short posts, or even if it's short spurts of thoughts like this post. I need to stay focused on the goal here, which is to find a job, not write nice blog posts.
4. A friend who also went through a time of unemployment gave me good advice which I plan to take to heart. It's really easy to get stuck in the house - watch TV, take a nap, surf the web, etc. So, my plan is to go to the library every week day for several hours. The change in environment, hopefully, will be good for me. Hence, I'm writing this post from a public library.
5. I have a child and staying at home and taking care of a child is actually really tiring - it's mentally and physically challenging. I've only been alone with my child for 2-4 hours at a time so far, but soon, when my wife starts working, it'll be 8-10 hours at a time, maybe more. I'm developing a deeper respect for stay-at-home moms and dads. Our current plan is to put our child in daycare for 3 days a week starting in June, so that I have time to meet people, do interviews, etc. when that time comes.
6. I think one of the important next steps are to begin just talking to people and learning about what they do and how they got into it. I need to reach out to my network of friends and colleagues from school, church, previous jobs, family, friends, etc. One future activity is to create a list of people I want to talk to. Networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook should help here.
7. A friend forwarded me this HBS blog article:
To Find Happiness, Forget about Passion http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/01/to_find_happiness_forget_about.html
Given my last post, I thought it was a good reminder not to be too focused on being inward looking, but to look out into the world and consider the problems you want to solve in your life. I think that'll help as I brainstorm.
8. On a slightly related topic, I'm also hoping to get in better shape during my time off - exercising regularly. First, just for the pure physical benefit of being healthy, energized, and feeling good, but also for the mental / emotional benefit of keeping a routine, being disciplined, etc. I hope this will lead to me eating healthier as well. Again - contributing to me being disciplined and regimented.
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