This falls under the umbrella of "addictive work"
Last year I established how much I would need to make to achieve spending limits/debt-reduction goals. As a goal-oriented person, I typed up that Big Number and taped it to my window sill, where I could see it every day.
Every year for some reason I always book 20 projects. So, as of last week, I had booked 19, but those 19 projects enabled me to meet my dollar goal--that alone was exciting to me!
Today, I was asked to take on a qualitative project that involved interviewing 48 patients and caregivers, but they all had to be done in December. Well, I've already committed to interview 30 patients on another project in December. So I got out my calendar and my calculator and I saw that I could feasibly do both.
Committing to the project was against my prior commitment to myself that after #19 was booked that I would not accept any other project so I could enjoy Christmas.
Goodbye Christmas.
When I got the offer for the #20 project, I asked DH if he would be OK with me giving up all of December to 78 interviews, even if it means a few interviews on Saturdays and between Christmas and New Years. He said he would. I needed his commitment, so that when I can't go for drives to look at houses lit up, or don't have time to clean the house for company, he can't complain.
I also got him to agree that I would take all of this money and apply it 100% toward debt.
This is going to be hard work. So I ask myself, Why did I do it??
So, it falls under "Daily Rave" because I have to be grateful, right?? I'm almost 70 years old, and I don't have to downsize to a van and head towards Nomadland. It's a "rave" for the power of goal-setting (I reached my dollar goal and my project # goal). It's a "rave" for the support of DH.
I could have put it in the "rant" section because I truly am so ambivalent about working hard at my age. But then I think about the Presidents who are working at 78 years old; the actors who are working at 80-90 years old. What makes me so special?
I speak about how much of my work is distasteful because it's all about the money. I'm not bringing about World Peace. I'm not curing people, or teaching people, or helping the environment. Face it: I'm a drug dealer. But the fact that I have skills that people want at my age is a bit of a good thing.
It's up to me when I give it all up, but I expect I'll have at least 2 more years of this, so if I can shorten it by a month or two by taking on this job in December, I guess that makes it all a "Daily Rave."
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Originally Posted by Yppej
