Happy
I have noticed that I am much happier in general now then I can ever remember being. Two major contributions are obviously my enjoyment of work and my completion of my degree.
First work. I don’t love my job, but I don’t dread Mondays in the least, and when someone calls me in the evening to help them solve a production outage, I am happy to work with them. I feel that I am well respected by my peers as well as management, and adequately compensated for my time. If I could find a job where I loved what I did, that would be a step up, but I am happy to settle for just contentment.
Completion of school was not a goal that I accomplished that improved my spirits. It is the free time that completing my degree has provided me that has allowed me to enjoy my evenings and weekends without the pressure of deadlines, get adequate rest and nutrition, and part take in activities I enjoy. School is something that is behind me and a feather in my cap, but it didn’t change me so much as the process of completing my degrees in rapid succession while working gave me a new perspective on time.
Going forward, I am working to enjoy all my time. My brother suffered from life threatening Good Pastures with several rounds of complications that put him on the brink of death, a close co-worker has been diagnosed with cancer and is currently undergoing chemo and my Aunt has just been diagnosed with cancer and will be undergoing surgery soon. All these situations are life threatening, but death is the natural conclusion of life. When my time comes to be threatened with death, I want to face down death without regrets that if I lose the battle, I might have missed the better part of my life. I want the better part of my life always be the day that leads up to my death, not some future date that may never happen.
That said, I am not going out and buying a Porsche 