Lessons from being made Redundant: Life is full of ORs not ANDs

I’ve been unemployed for ten weeks; it started with some complete downtime, but with a big hole where my job used to be, I went through a funk (see article one), and then Recharged (see article two), and had a few ups and downs. (see article three).?I looked at the challenge ahead. (see article four), realised that you don’t always get what you want (see article five), then found out that sometimes not getting what you want leads to something better and got a Job (see article six) and finally, I realise that life is full of ORs, not ANDs

Choices, choices.

Life is very easy when all the decisions you must make are ANDs; You can have the Tiramisu and the Crème Brule, the Steak, and the chicken. No one is stopping you. It’s a life without constraints. Dream it, and it’s yours, don’t compromise.

However, the compromise is implied, as you probably can’t have the washboard stomach too.

In the real world, constraints-based thinking, where you consider the opportunity cost (the value of what you have to give up in order to choose something else), is all that you really have, so make choices knowing that they are imperfect and that there are things you'll be saying NO to along the way.

As an aside, there is a brilliant book (that I think I lent to Chris Coutts about ten years ago and didn’t get back?) called Nudge. That introduces the concept of Choice Architecture, which is loosely designing the way choices are presented to people and provides the opportunity to determine a particular outcome, like the default web browser on your computer being the one most folks will use or the eye-level placement of a brand of toothpaste over another being the one most folks will buy.?In both cases, in the aggregate, the person defining the choice has put their thumb on the outcome.?The book then further goes on to examine the ethics of where you put your thumb, the best for your profit, or the best for the health and well-being of the person making a decision.

We live in a world dominated by constraints, and it’s very easy to make an unconstrained plan or strategy; in fact, it’s a good place to start.?Yet many people and businesses get stuck here (hello Te Pūkenga), with a lofty goal and no way on earth to achieve it.?Constraints are where the tactics and plans that move you towards your goals are.?

"Or" is important as to get something done, you must choose NOT to do something else.

The wonderful Poem, The road not taken, which I started my first article with, explores this. By deciding to go one way, you are forgoing the opportunity to down the other path. The poem further goes on to acknowledge that even though you could take the other path another time, chances are, you won’t be there again with the same choices, so that path will remain unexplored.

Work!

I start my new role with the Improvement Systems and Technology group at MSD on the 6th of June; as I write this, that is the other side of this long weekend.?Over the past two weeks, my time off work has been constrained by the fact that it has a finite end date.?While I am really looking forward to this new challenge, I’ve struggled with the fact that my time is coming to an end.

Did I make the most of the time? Did I do enough? What SHOULD I have done?????

Frankly, most of these thoughts came to me in the negative. No, I did not make the most of my time, and No, I didn’t do enough; list of things I COULD / SHOULD have done.?

The truth is that I had the break I needed, nothing more, nothing less.?In the film version of "Ten weeks off" I would have travelled the world, found myself in a monastery, had a training montage leading up to a marathon, fought a bear, rescued my buddy by sleeping in the guts of a Tonton and founded a tech startup.?That’s the unconstrainted world;

When those negative thoughts come up, I remind myself how burnt out I felt at the start of my redundancy and that the choices I made were good ones at the time.?Sure, I could have done more and made different choices; that is always true.

?I needed rest, and downtime can be time well spent, even if I did play a little too much 2048. I’m happy with my choices and the path I took, knowing that they were imperfect and unimproved by hindsight.

The last two weeks.

I was going to do three things and have a final adventure.

1, Stay on the track: Result 90% completed, feeling good, used to getting out of bed!, running 4-5 times a week, some meditation happening, eating the good food, limiting alcohol etc.

2, Read some books: Result 20% completed; the reality is that this is what my train rides are for next week and reading a paper book in the spa (it turns out) is hard - also, being a Dyslexic, committing to reading a book is its own mountain to climb

3, Do some study: Result 0% unrealistic.

4, Go on a final adventure in the bush: ?surprisingly not achieved!, although I am going on a long bush run on Sunday, up Mt Titi, down into Martins Valley, up the Devil’s Staircase, along to the summit of Maunganui and down team track back to the Maungakotukutuku valley

What did I do instead in these two weeks?

• Choice, Jobs at home or adventures.?I choose Jobs at home

I had been saving planks of Macrocarpa timber for a while to replace the top of our outdoor table, which is slowly rotting away – I replaced the tabletop this time; I’ve named the table ‘ The Table of Theseus’ as I know in future the legs then the structure will need replacing, at which stage the same table will exist, it just will not retain any of its original parts.

• I choose utility over hoarding.

I cleared out the garage and sold, donated, recycled or tipped a whole bunch of things that I had held onto but didn’t need. Installed shelves, finally put the screwdrivers back in the case in the right over. Setup a bike storage area, made our home gym area usable and installed a ping pong table. ?

• I choose order over chaos.

I painted, bought a bigger desk from an office furniture recycling centre in Porirua (All Hearts Store) and reorganised my home office.

• I choose a dinner with my direct reports from my last job over slipping off into the bush at the weekend.

During our dinner, it was lovely to recollect stories from our three years together and the amazing journey that all three are on with their own careers.??We celebrated the time we had together; I hope I get to work with them again at some stage. Matt Crighton , Fraser Kennedy , Madalin Ciubotaru .?It was also about time I bought them a beer for all they had to put up with ??

• Oh, and I had the best day!

Some days are good, but occasionally you get a near-perfect one. Last Tuesday was near perfect.

I started the day with a 12k run on a beautiful sunny day; I bumped into two cousins of mine on the way and had a chat; I love bumping into people I know near home – It brings a sense of community to me that I belong.

I did a meditation on embracing vulnerability and discomfort and realised that my need to be vulnerable is about embracing my fears to allow me to get into uncomfortable places with the support of those around me.

I had a healthy lunch in the good company of two colleagues whom I used to work with at Whitireia Polytechnic, Niall Connolly and Christine (Chris) Temke .

We talked about the changes of the past few years and how they’ve affected us, both positively and negatively, while chewing the fat about Te Pūkenga.

?Then spent a couple of hours on the Table of Theseus and the garage projects and made visible progress that felt like an achievement.

That evening I watched the film The World’s Fastest Indian, which, once you get past Antony Hopkins’s awful Kiwi accent, is a beautiful film about a man, his passion for fast motorbikes and Kiwi ingenuity in the constrained world of 1960’s Invercargill.?

?I wrote to an old friend I’d not spoken to in far too long, then helped my son Kea with his maths homework (simultaneous equations) which capped off this perfect day by making me feel closer to my son and relevant in his life.

It was a special day all right.

Conclusion.

Publishing my musing on LinkedIn, and seeing your responses has helped me through a challenging time in my life.

I was burned out, and in a funk, I needed time to rest, reflect and give myself space just to be me.?Choosing to do some adventures gave me some purpose, and writing the story helped me see an arc to my own story.

I had good and bad days, productive and non-productive, but things trended towards balance and happiness.

Doing chores, cooking family dinners, doing school /college runs, increased my belonging and self-worth and finding a job turned out to be painless.

I've been incredibly fortunate in my career and privileged to experience such luck. I don’t know exactly where I am heading; I never have. I've just had a general direction and some ORs to decide. ?I just keep putting one foot in front of another, taking the path less travelled.

I know they’ll be some great adventures in the future, and some near-perfect days amongst the occasional rain and steep climbs where short-term goals will keep my keep going.?It's only round the next corner, after all.

We must make choices in our lives. Our time is finite, and we can’t do everything we want; there are not enough ANDS, and we rarely get a do-over. We must be mindful that ORs mean sacrificing one thing for another.

It’s never too early to leave an unhealthy workplace or take a break if we need it.?The opportunity cost of keeping the status quo might be enormous.

We've got this.

My greatest takeaway personally is that, in times of great stress, it’s too easy to imagine the downsides, want might be lost, and the worst-case scenarios. We need to catch ourselves when this happens and remind ourselves of the limitless best cases too, what we might gain.?

I’ll also remember to take time to whistle to the birds, as one day, they’ll whistle back.

Thanks for being part of my journey.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

?Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.

-Robert Frost

Finally, thank you to my good friend Ali Ali for introducing this poem to me.

Future Paul here! these are the links to the rest of the blogs I made on redundancy.

• The Post that started me writing about normalising redundancy..
• Article One: Overcoming a funk..
• Article Two: using Adventure to Recharge..
• Article Three: Adventure bound..
• Article Four: The Challenge Ahead..
• Article Five: you don't always get what you want..
• Article Six: sometimes you get something better..
• Article Seven: Life is full of OR's not And's..