Dreamy Friday

I am writing this as things have gone all quiet in the office (what, you thought I had time to write this stuff at home?). My work is done, the internet is saying “error message” and my manager says there is nothing else to do. Her manager is sitting a few feet away from so we are all pretending to be intensely busy. I have two hours to go. I am resorting to using my common sense for ideas on how to entertain myself, it’s a bit rusty.

I had thought that a change of job would do me good. In my last job I managed 21 staff and had to balance an account with £40 million (sounds like a big deal, but civil servants play around with this kind of stuff like its buttons). I still kept finding myself with nothing to do and was bored almost literally to tears. It’s true what they say: the higher up you go, the less work there is to do (oh there was the excitement of having to tell one member of staff that he smelled and would have to improve his hygiene – very nice). Changing to this new job has meant starting all over in a field I am more interested in (local government and community) and doing a lot of the things I didn’t have to do even at the start of my career – typing peoples letters and stuff. Has dented the ego a bit and is making me restless. I keep telling myself I should stay in this job at least six months before I apply for the CEO’s job. It certainly doesn’t help that I am just starting to get the slightest bit broody again…

The whole situation is forcing me to think about what I want from my work and life and how hard I find it to stick in my mind to one thing. It made me think about what I wanted as a child, what I day-dream about, what I want to be remembered for and how this would fit in with my intention to live in a way that would please Allah and that definitely has been a good thing.

Its encouraged me to write honestly and to be more honest with myself and with my better half and this in turn has been good for my confidence at a deeper level. Its sent me scurrying back to me colour pencils, my journal and my boxes of beads and buttons and also this blog which is becoming the realisation of a dream to write something that perhaps others would want to read.

"There is a part of me that wants to write, a part that wants to theorize, a part that wants to sculpt, a part that wants to teach.... To force myself into a single role, to decide to be just one thing in life, would kill off large parts of me." - H. Prather