My mind is a whirlwind. The time has come to leave. To give notice on my house and move. The options are get the job and move to Arizona or not get the job and go back to Wyoming/Utah. I have fought against change or making a decision for three years. I am broke, tired and frustrated. I kicked the decision down the line month by month until now the decision is made for me. I have no money and no job prospects. My credit is shot.

Not getting the job would be a bitter defeat. Similar to when I applied for a Vice President job three years ago. The time I started to lose my edge.

With this situation there is fear and hope. I vacillated about leaving before. There are some benefits to leaving. I chose to stay because I believed it was best for my daughter. Now I do not have a say in the matter. Some decisions aren’t made until they are made for you.

There is no narrative. I lost my bearings. I don’t know what pressing on looks like. I don’t know what giving up/resetting looks like. moving to Phoenix is a reset but no guarantee it will happen and odds are it won’t end well. The only other reset possibilities are utah and/or chaplaincy. I worry I will never feel passion/love/joy or purpose again

Before falling asleep last night I read some magazine articles. When I woke up I laid in bed before getting up to go for a walk. Lying on my back I tried to recall what I read. I pictured the pages, the information, the feel of the magazine. I could recall two article headlines and three facts.

Interestingly on one level of my brain I can tell there is a complete image of the pages. A photographic memory if you will. I know it is is there. But I can’t retrieve the information. When I try to access the image to read from it like the magazine is in front of me the picture goes haywire or there are gaps I can’t focus on.

I have noticed since I started my experiment of limiting my interaction with the device my ability to retrieve information has improved. That is because I have the mnemonic of the visceral and tactile. I believe it is also because I am reading less. There are three books I am reading and some work material I have printed off. My mind is not as cluttered with information.

Also I am willfully looking to remember and recall. I have a purpose. When I was using the device the purpose was to distract me.

Last year I was gaining weight and losing muscle. I blamed it on aging. I figured I was losing muscle mass and my metabolism had slowed. While this is true in reality I had slipped into bad eating and exercise habits. I lost my edge. Slowly I have put together a better resistance training routine and my muscle tone has improved. I realize I need to eat less. I was eating more for entertainment.

I was lifting weights out of obligation. When I became more cognizant of building muscle my physique improved.

I was eating for entertainment. When I changed my eating schedule I realized I could still fill full and enjoy food without eating as much (that is a different post)

I was reading for distraction. When I became aware of the need to focus on retrieval my mind became sharper.

Yesterday I was slipping back into routine. The device is like a security blanket. When I was younger I sucked my thumb and had a blanket. When I felt stressed I was comforted by my thumb and blanket. THe phone hits the same neuro receptors as the blanket. When I was feeling stressed about the job interview I wanted to plop down and lose myself in the comfort it provides.

I want to just bury my face in my device this morning and time out. Read stupid news stories, watch videos, be completely devoid of thought.

I had some rough dreams last night. A sad one about the WIL and one about being fired.

I feel guilty if I am not being productive every second. I didn’t choose this! I would still be working if I had the choice

There is a lot of pressure in a sales career. No matter what you provide as far as numbers you are expected to do more.

“How can we improve our numbers, gain more market share. How can we get bigger, make more money, beat the competition?”

I came into sales after eleven years working as a chaplain. When I was a chaplain I wanted to be with people in a safe and welcoming spiritual environment. I sought to discover their journey, thoughts and experiences. Meet them where they were, find common ground and share our strengths.

Sales is about making people feel a need or a want and then filling that need with your product or service. It was the exact opposite of how I interacted with people or the world. I was young and brash. I wanted to test myself. See how many titles I could amass. Make the most money. Buy luxury goods. I do not regret my sales career. But I am tired. I bless it and release it and move on to the next phase of my life.

I started working in word documents. I am using the structure of Henri J.M. Nouwen’s book Here and Now, Living in the Spirit.

He has 12 sections with a average of 7 250-300 word essays in each section. I find using his style gives me a sense of authority to speak to others.

I also feel comfortable attaching the term “Secular Spiritual” to what I am and what I do.

Secular spirituality is the adherence to a spiritual philosophy without adherence to a religion. Secular spirituality emphasizes the personal growth and inner peace of the individual, rather than a relationship with the divine. Secular spirituality is made up of the search for meaning outside of a religious institution; it considers one’s relationship with the self, others, nature, and whatever else one considers to be the ultimate.^[1] Often, the goal of secular spirituality is living happily and/or helping others.^[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_spirituality

I am being too literal with the device restrictions. If I am using it to write or communicate then it is acceptable

My recall seems to have improved. I call the device the black hole now. It is just a slab of glass, metal and black plastic. Now I read books and write in a physical journal. My mind can much more easily remember what I read and saw because every book is different. Different story, different pages, different feel I. My hands, different SMS. Different stains, wear and tear, reading level etc

I am curious to see how the interviews go. I feel more eager to talk with people and share who I am.

Interesting experience… I talk out loud more and sing more since I stopped staring into the black hole so much. Just before noon yesterday I began reciting my life history out loud. I quickly went over, born in South Dakota, grew up in wyoming, went to collage in Nebraska and seminary in California before returning home for my first job, moving back to California briefly then to utah for the job I loved. That part of the telling covered the first three fourths of my life and went by breezily.

Then I started talking about the last nine years. And the last nine jobs. And it drained me. It was exhausting to talk about. To relive and examine.

I am exhausted. And what I have noticed especially since 2014 is a change in how I relate to my experience. My experience has become something I have to massage and change to try and please an audience. Up until coming to Southern California nine years ago my past was something I was proud of and lived to share. Then it became something I had to, I won’t say lie about, but varnish the truth.

So many secrets, so many lies. I forgot who I am. And even the angle I take with one job interview is different than what I take with others. Having been a hiring manager I know what needs to be said and how. I want to believe forthright is the key but really it is being what they want you to be.

Case in point. I was honest with the first couple recruiters and jobs about my most recent job. But the moment I said I got laid off they shut down and disappeared. So for this current job in Phoenix I said I needed to leave because they don’t have benefits. Which is true. Another job I said they wanted me to move to Texas. They are moving the company to Texas and moving positions there but my position was eliminated. There is no lie but a lot better angle grounded in reality that would not trip up or raise red flags. It probably is unethical but so is going broke

My mom saw my emails and messages about job interviews. I felt very upset my secret was out. She didn’t say anything because she wouldn’t call me out on any secret but I was upset

My mom is staying with me. It is interesting to live with her again. She is independent but has some falls and hurt both her shoulders. She moved in shortly after my daughter and wife moved out. My mom is unobtrusive to a fault

I am passive at work. In every job there is a time when you have to stand your ground. I am passive to a fault. I avoid confrontation. When I was a chaplain that was a strength. As a leader it is a weakness.

I don’t want to be an executive director. I want to write books and speak publicly.

A job in Oregon is showing some interest. I have three interviews in the next theee days with the Phoenix people. It is moving quickly. Feels like a good fit. A large coma pu with benefits. I really liked talking with the woman who is hiring and would be my manager. I am interviewing with HR, compliance and my would be managers boss Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. If I am reading the situation correctly the hiring manager wants to hire me and these are just crossing t’s interviews.

“Sometimes its better to lie, than to say all the things I got on my mind…”

-Benny Blanco

There is an undercurrent of another life just below the surface. The reasons are complex. The simple answers are guilt, keeping the peace, embarrassment, shame. Fear of failure.

Eventually the feeling the real person is trapped inside. The outward shell becomes revolting and is rejected.

With the WIL the secret was empowering. As time passed it became frustrating. Now I don’t want to talk with her unless everyone knows I love her and would be her husband if she needed/wanted

Writing these posts. I keep them hidden. I am baring details about me I haven’t revealed to many people.

Growing up I found empowerment dreaming of being a professional musician, a rock star. But no one, even my closest friends would have known all through college and seminary I believed fervently I was going to achieve that goal. They would have told you that dream died when I left Wyoming at age 18 to go to college.

measurement of success for experiment to limit interaction with device (smartphone) beginning of day 3

area 1, Engagement: hard to tell if there is improvement because it was going to be measured at a job, which I don’t have. The interview went well yesterday. I printed off a file and reviewed that before the meeting and was able to articulate my standpoint

area 2, retention: This area appears to have improved. Interacting with the device makes me passive curious. An inquiry comes to mind, I look up the answer. The goal was to improve my ability to interact and articulate thoughts I had formed. Using the interview as a reference point the experiment went well. Using hand written notes and printed pages made me able to have a conversation on a deeper level than previous interactions. Again this is subjective and not in a controlled environment so I can only report how I feel the situation is going.

area 3, happiness: Yesterday was a rough day. I am encountering feelings of being unmoored. The concept of myself, passion for my narrative, values, my purpose. All of these things feel adrift. I am now more sure than ever I need to leave Southern California. I don’t know if the feelings stem from the experience of the last decade of life, the device situation, the pandemic,my age, cognitive deterioration. (Side note, one thing I have noticed using my computer for the posts is my reliance on spelling auto-correct has caused my ability to spell to deteriorate)

Not using the device makes me overthink. I spend a lot of time examining my life and purpose. Without distractions I am doing it more. This has made me anxious.

My writing and capturing thoughts have diminished. I am aware of every time I engage the device. I am trying to limit my interactions. Engaging the device and opening the app is the best way to quickly capture my observations in the moment. There must be a compromise. I need to interact with the device to be accurate. I used a pen and pad yesterday but it has been physically cumbersome. Using the pad is time consuming. Honesty, especially about my personal relationships, is compromised using the pad and pen.

I am dependent on these posts. This is how I communicate. I constantly wrestle with going back and changing past posts. The drive to control the narrative is overwhelming. I want to shave off, eradicate what I consider embarrassing.

Hiding, manipulating, silence are my defenses. They are my personality and my behavior. The most passionate part of myself is a woman who instead of marrying and celebrating I kept hidden and secret for years. Family and friends reach out to visit or talk and I ignore them. By not engaging I control the situation. I also live alone inside my head.

I was a chaplain for almost 11 years. Then the next four jobs were change and growth. It was three months into the fourth job that a new manager chased me off. The end of that job and the next eight were all about survival. Fighting to stay in Southern California. They had paychecks and paychecks paid the bills.

This is the first interview I am going into completely numb. The job is in Phoenix. I will pack up and leave Southern California if I get it.

Parts of me don’t want to leave but it is for the best. I am exhausted. I have lost passion for the narrative. I need to start over. If not Phoenix then someplace else.

Leaving is always hard but it is a serious situation. I am very lost. I am scared for my sanity if I stay