When you set an intention to achieve something, sometimes you feel like the whole universe is pulling force around you to help get you succeed, or at least … inspired.
After a dentist appointment at 8am this morning, I suddenly wanted to get some muesli rounds I’ve been OBSESSED with lately from Whole Foods. I know there’s one near the metro station, but just as I was pulling up my phone, the screen went black. The phone died. AT. EIGHT. AM. IN.THE.MORNING.
I quickly made a mental note to myself — never play with my phone before bed because one should charge it instead — then decided to try my luck. As I was stopping at a red light at the crosswalk, I saw a woman standing besides me so asked if she knew where Whole Foods was. She said, “yes, its just two blocks away. In fact I’m headed that way so I can show you when we get there.” She had a soft-spoken, caring voice that comforted me like my thick scarf against the chilly wind. I liked her immediately.
“So do you work or live around here?” I asked.
“Oh, I live around here. I’m a mom of a ten-year-old and an eight-year-old, so I haven’t worked for eight years.”
“wow, that’s such a nice luxury! I wish I could have a flexible lifestyle like that.”
“Yeah it’s pretty nice. Although it can be hard sometimes. Like right now I’m trying to work 10 hrs a week, and I feel I have to get used to sitting in front of a desk all over again!”
I told her that my goal is to have a flexible work schedule — being able to work anytime, anywhere. I also told her that vision also led me to learn programming recently. She said — “yeah, it’s pretty interesting. When in school, we are only thinking about getting a job. We never think of the kind of lifestyle we want that comes with a job.”
I agreed with her adamantly, as I reached Whole Foods and waved her goodbye. I love the idea about lifestyle design, that maybe we should design our lifestyle first, then choose our profession based off of it.
That also makes me wonder — how fluid can our lifestyle be? how fluid can our professions be?
Fast forward, as I got home tonight from a colleague’s bday happy hour, it’s already pretty late. My mind numb with alcohol, I didn’t feel particularly inspired to learn coding … But after some procrastination I opened the bookmarked link at 10:30pm anyway, and spent about 40 min coding. As I looked at the course navigation, it surprised me that I was almost at the end of the 5hr HTML/CSS course.
I’m looking forward to another muesli round tomorrow morning, and another round of coding.
