2017 Summer July 5 Wednesday

74 degrees this morning, walk 34:53 minutes

Relatively nice walk this morning.  Felt a little sluggish, maybe the humidity.  (If nothing else you can always blew something  on the humidity!).  

Pace was 6 seconds slower than my goal, which basically means it took a full minute longer for the walk today than the walk Monday.  I have no idea why and I certainly don’t notice it while I’m walking.

It depends on how you look at it as to whether it is a lot or not.  30 seconds per mile is probably not really that much in the overall scheme of things.  It could easily take 30 seconds fro me to stop and retie my shoe or to look at something, except I didn’t stop to retie my shoe or to look at something!

Kind of like the car races where the difference between first place and 20th place might be 7 seconds!  Excellence takes commitment I guess.

Of course, I could always argue that, within reason, the pace of the walk is essentially meaningless, and 30 seconds per mile isn’t going to really matter when my overall goal is not to win any races, but to maintain health, control weight and just because I like to walk.   

I have to look at any “goals” in that manner.  I may set a “goal” for a certain pace, but that is hardly my overall goal..

I could actually apply that to a lot of activities and projects and reason that many of my “goals” are meaningless in any real way (but still important to me).

For example, my “goal” for continuing to work.  Money is a consideration, although hardly the major consideration.  If it was only money, quite frankly I would look for something else.  

My work goal could be to keep a structure in my life, but I find I can structure my own life well when I am not working.

I feel I need to examine my goals for any activity that takes a lot of time and obviously work takes up a lot of my time and thoughts and energy.  Not near as much as my previous jobs, but there are other considerations.  

The “freedom” of a home office and field days is counterbalanced by the need to account for time a lot more than in a normal office job and also the general fact that I basically sent my own actions for the day within a general realm of projects imposes a requirement that I am actually more accountable than if I worked in an office.  Certainly accountable to myself.

Another reason for working is to keep my brain active, which I could probably do on my own, although I think the type of work I do keeps you challenged and thinking.  

Dealing with a range of individuals during the day also is an aspect of my job I enjoy.  For the most part, I normally am helping  them, which also is a good reason for working.  

Probably the reason I keep working has a wide variety of goals.  I don’t think it is the fear of not working since, quite frankly, I could easily fill out my days if I didn’t work with reasonably satisfying activities.  I probably would do some  other activity.  

When I got my current job, as frequently happens, I had several other opportunities.  Since i had already committed to this job, it really wasn’t an option, but at least I knew I had other options if I didn’t like the job.

Obviously, I don’t know what my goals in continuing working are, except they are there!

That’s it for now, Wednesday, July 5, 2017.