the dot connection in new mexico

Yesterday I left VanDyke Software for the last time as an employee on the payroll. Jobs tend to be a large part of how we identify ourselves. In our culture, it is a common thing to be introduced to someone for the first time and have the first thing out of their mouth be something along the lines of..."nice to meet you, what do you do?" and without much thought we politely respond..."i'm a product director at a software company" (or a any such and such title at any such company). which does not at all answer the question what you do. sometimes people respond with a knowing..."oh, i see, how interesting". others respond with a disguised EWE! that sounds like..."owe...(big pause)"...

owe! precisely. i owed a fair bit of money which really is what i do, and to a large extent why i've done what i've done for so many years. not completely, but almost. i have enjoyed what i do immensely and i'm pretty good at it. i love the people i work with, but when it comes right down to it, i have done what i have done because i owed money. the money i owed went to other things that i do and enjoy...like drive a nice car...live in a funky house in a funky part of town...fund expensive high-tech hobbies like making short movies and vidoes... but, how much has debt influenced what it is i've really done from day-to-day? and how much is debt the "master's tool" to keep us all toiling away, not questioning if what we're doing is what we really want to be doing in a given minute of a given day?

a certain amount of one's day and actions throughout a day are bereft of the responsibility of figuring out what to do with ourselves. it is to some degree already defined by our employers. luckily i was passionate about much of what i did for VanDyke and i found much joy in it. but...it's funny how getting out of debt has changed my perspective a great deal. i am much more free to "do" more of what i want to be doing each minute and have more choice to either keep funding my hobbies, car, and house, or do otherwise.