Conviction & Drive

I had 2 impromtu visitors in the office today. Amidst the mess of all the stuff on my table - documents from 2 work trips, files to type out report, 2 laptops (1 due to return but the IT guy not around), goodies supposed to be in the pantry (but then another colleague forgot to bring his share, so decided to wait another day so that can leave the stuff as a set)..ok.you get the picture..we manage to hang around for a quick cup of coffee + 2 teh ci-s.



As usual, ex-colleagues first question was to ask how was things at the new place. Somehow or another, we drifted back to the reason why I had moved on. Push factors aside, there was also the big question of what I wanted to do, if I had stayed. I could have moved on to the next most logical and plausible position, which may have involved putting in more after work hours and weekends. Which didn't interest me. But at the expense of throwing away very tangible benefit. Like 1/3 of my original leave quantum.



"Yeah..a lot right? But I donno..I think maybe as you grow older,you tend to value your personal time more" I quipped.



Then again, I worked late and reached home only about 9pm. It seemed like I would have been in the same circumstances if I had stayed at my old workplace, I thought as I was driving home.



But it felt different. I was tossing the thought around in my mind, and I could only conclude that I no longer find meaning in my old job. It could have been a life long career, it could have been fulfilling serving the larger good. But I had lost conviction, seeing some of the things happening around me, to me. And I hate to do things that I don't believe in, going through the motions, finishing the work, but no satisfaction.



That will be the reason why, when I could sacrifice weekends and late nights for jobs of much lower stations, but yet when I was supposed to be in a key department, I hated leaving the office later than if I had to.


For now, I think I savour the little personal time slots that I have ;)