Motivationless in Karlskrona
It's been almost two months since I became a "Master" of Strategic Leadership Toward Sustainability, and it feels like I have not accomplished anything in connection with a long-term goal over these past two months.
When I really think about it, I realize that I may have actually learned a great deal more in these two months than in the year at school. But two months of vacation is not "accredited". Nor did I save money for my future.
Why is it that unless an activity can be added to my formal resume, a part of me feels like it was just worthless play? I mean, it's not like I have just been sitting around on my ass for the past few weeks (although I did a great deal of that too). There are now chicken coops I have built, tables and benches I have built and repaired, walls I have painted, gardens I have planted and tended, wood I have chopped, people I have met, plants I have learned to identify, people I have fed in the cafe, photographs I have taken for other other people... even the times when I was just sitting around, I have been either learning new perspectives from people I would never have met in a job in Tokyo or classroom at the university, watching and noticing the world around me, and sometimes reading (although I have finished far fewer books than I had planned to).
Perhaps part of the anxiety I feel about "not having accomplished anything", is due to a perceived loss of motivation on my part... at least the kind of motivation I am used to, the kind that employers want, or the kind that makes entrepreneurs successful. I am afraid that if I start to feel OK with just sitting outside and watching birds, or looking closely at the leaf of a tree, I will never be able to accomplish anything that I can call my own. What happened to my drive? What happened to that voice that kept me on track, making sure that at least some of my daily activities were adding some value to my skills or knowledge in the job market? Is it possible that I have used it all up at the age of thirty? If so, what does this mean for my future? What will I do when I get back to Tokyo if I can't get back into "real life" mode? And what will I loose if I do?
Comments
Are you still contemplating life?
Archie's last email to the class motivated me to check your blogg. Its great! now I know where to go to read your thoughts and to be reminded of the good ol' times!
Kerly
Posted by: Kerly | July 18, 2005 12:16 PM
If you're happy where you are why move?
Posted by: lazarus | July 18, 2005 09:46 PM
Kerly, Yes, still contemplating, but I am feeling like I am soooo close to figuring it out. I just need about three more weeks.
lazarus, I had thought about staying longer but in the end feel that even if I stay another month or two or five, I will still be in the same situation where I am just putting off "getting on" with my life. It would be fun and interesting to be here, but I am already getting antsy about being able to *start* something. I don't like to start anything now because I will have to leave it in a two weeks. I don't think six more months would make a difference in that respect.
Of course, if Tomoe would agree to come here for an indefinate period of time, I might consider figuring out how we could stay, given that we are not EU citizens and have no visa.
Even then, I somehow feel that it would just be a novelty for us to live here for a while. I don't think this is where either one of us would want to "settle down". Japan on the other hand (so long as it is not Tokyo, Osaka, Hiroshima, Sapporo, etc...) is someplace that we have some connection to and, although we have not decided where to settle, it seems like a natural place, as does someplace in the US.
So, I guess the reason I am leaving is that I should get on with my life (make a life I like as much as this in Japan), and also because an important part of my vision of a great future for me includes Tomoe, and currently her job is less flexible than my non-existant job, hence I go where she is instead of the other way around.
Posted by: kevin | July 19, 2005 03:28 AM
I forgot to congradulate you on your "Master" of Stategic Leadership Toward Substainability some weeks ago.
Congradulations!!!!!!!!!!!
billy
Posted by: Billy | July 19, 2005 07:31 PM
from Google search on "action reflection balance", i did this search back in the depths of the Karlskrona winter, and it has been interesting to read Wheatley and others on this topic
"It has been said that “the unexamined life is not worth living”. Yet, in the current work and educational climate of increasing pressure to produce relentlessly, a key to success has been all but eliminated. This is the ability to create a space for collective reflection, learning, and ultimately personal, organizational, and potentially social, transformation. Our recent research (Laiken, 2001; Laiken, Edge, Friedman & West, forthcoming) has highlighted managing the paradox of task versus process, or action versus reflection, as a critical factor in blocking or conversely, facilitating, transformative learning."
www.ecu.edu.au/conferences/ herdsa/main/papers/ref/pdf/Laiken.pdf
>laura
Posted by: laura | July 20, 2005 02:32 AM