Running After 60

Anyone who reads this blog may have guessed that it is more about running miles than anything else. I frequently amaze myself that I am still in good shape physically at 60 years of age.

June was a great month for getting some miles done. In the past week, I've had 4 runs of 12.5 miles or longer. Two of these runs were at speed. And it is the speed that amazes me. When I was living on the Gulf Coast last year, I rarely ran fast because it was always so hot. Here in Missouri, it gets hot and humid but nothing like the Gulf Coast. So I am running faster this year than last.

I am actually "training." I have a marathon in 2 months which is very hilly and has a 6 hour time limit. So I have been working on hills and speed to prepare, and running in the heat.

On the FIRE front. I added up my assets at the end of June. I gained substantially in the past 2 months, so I am ahead of when I left my corporate job last September. The trade off is spending a part of every day outside in a park, spending more time with friends, part time work as a barista for fun, learning to be a writer.

On the writing front. I have been working on editing my spiritual writing. Last night I took two of the paragraphs to the writer's Critique Group. I got some very valuable feedback. I now  know that I don't really know how to edit my material so that others can understand it. I am enrolled in a class on that topic in August. I'll probably need to read some more books. But I also now have a friend who can steer me. I'll eventually hire an editor, but I need to get closer before I do that or I'll spend too much money.

I went to a talk by a professional blogger last week. Very interesting to learn what is necessary to be a professional blogger. But in the end, I noted that she makes most of her money from traditional publishing of books, and second from self publishing. And then she spend a bunch of time on social media, making speeches, blogging and going to book signings in order to sell her books. Traditional publishing houses now require authors to have a huge social media presence before they will consider publishing your book. So, yes you are doing most of the work selling, even if the traditional publishing house takes it on. So you might as well self publish. Most of what that blogger does is uninteresting to me.

I came away with this knowledge. I spent two years on spiritual writing. I believe the writing should make it out into the world, and I will support it after I publish it. But I'm not under financial pressure, so I don't need to worry about spending hours every day tagging things on twitter, instagram, fb or  other places. I am free to do the best job I possibly can at self publishing. I also deeply believe that my intuitive self will guide me and the little miracles I need to be successful will come. I'm also done trying to explain what I am doing to my social circle. To them, it is a pie in the sky project. They may humor me but they don't believe in me. My writing friends do believe because they are on the path with me and we are learning together.

If you do read this blog, thank you very much. If you haven't followed the blog, please do.

I love hills

One of the reasons I left Houston was because the place is flat as a pancake. For a runner, that is annoying. Kansas City has hills. Hills are awesome.

Surprising to me, I am improving at my running since leaving Houston, even after a snowy winter here when I had to cut back on the mileage.

This morning, it crossed my mind about how peaceful many people seem to be after they retire. Suddenly they are out walking everyday, playing with kids, going to Starbucks, hanging out with the dog.

I continue to try and figure out why my job had become so intolerable, even though it was easy and a good company. Well, there was the issue of creativity. I have creative projects now and I am the boss of the project. No one around to tell me I can't.

But the issue that struck me today regarded being in a cage. My life as a career woman was lived in a cage. A big cage, but still a cage. A corporate cage filled with attendance requirements and behavior requirements. And I wasn't myself while being in the cage. Now, I live outside of cages. I am free to be me, not a corporate-fitter-inner.

I totally "get" the FIRE movement. Here's all these really smart people hiring into corporations where they hate their corporate selves. But, the salary is great. So, just save like crazy and get the heck out as soon as possible. These FIRE people are not just sitting around with their millions. They are contributing to society and the world in creative ways, divorced from money. That contribution is incredibly valuable.

Man I Feel Good

This morning was another early morning at Starbucks. Today I worked the whole time on the front, which means I served the face to face walk in customers, made coffee and helped with food. After a 6.5 hour shift, driving home, man I felt so happy. I worked hard and feel happy. Incredible!

But before that, I got up at 3 am in order to have time to connect with my spirit before going to work. My spiritual reading was of my own writings. Well, actually editing my own writings. But also musing the spirituality of it, and talking to my higher self about it. I remembered a key point to my whole retirement. I wanted to be alive, that is, know I am alive while I am alive and experience the aliveness of it.

For some reason, I didn't feel this while I had a career.

Starbucks is a great place to feel alive.

Abraham Hicks (check it out on YouTube) has helped me to choose happiness. "I am happy because I want to be happy." I try to set an intention or a feeling of joy before I go to work. It is a very subtle feeling that I find before work. But after work, the happy feeling was 100 times more than my pre-paving. Obviously felt, and I still feel it now hours later.

I even got to teach it today. One of the guys likes to say he is only plastering on his happy face and doesn't really feel happy. I told him it was up to him and didn't buy into the culture of not being happy or not wanting to be at work.

I like feeling happy. I have decided to feel happy. And so I feel happy.

I also love myself now. Growing up in an alcoholic home, there was no chance of being taught how to love yourself, regardless of the other people. Abraham Hicks helped with this also.

Most humans, talking the first worlders now, aren't happy. I wasn't happy for most of my life even with an engineering career. I wasn't really alive either. I mainly survived each workday, could hardly wait to leave. I didn't know how to be alive and didn't know how to choose how I feel. Is there something about today's white collar corporate or financial jobs that makes this very difficult? While working at Starbucks makes this very easy?

It could have something to do with sitting at a desk for eight hours staring at a computer. That could be why there is a FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) movement. These FIRE  people know they hate their white collar jobs, but these are the jobs that pay alot. So, save your money and get out as soon as you can.

In other news:
Monday I ran very fast for 13.25 miles.
Tuesday I did a slow 13 miles.
Wednesday rode the elliptical for 35 minutes. And worked.
Thursday I hill walked for 7 miles. And worked
Friday I ran medium speed 10 miles.
Saturday I rode the elliptical for 50 minutes and lifted weights. And worked.

Why FIRE? – An Engineer’s Existential Angst

FIRE, financial independence retire early, is a thing nowadays. Technical professionals saving money and then quitting their corporate jobs in order to be free in life. Many of these people seek a more creative or energizing way to spend their time.

My proposal is that many smart people become engineers and believe in a creative and exciting and lucrative career. But they find, once they have worked for a few years in a famous corporation, that their job becomes somewhat boring, possibly meaningless. Some engineers, find that their engineering is actually inflicting moral harm on their existence. Many engineers feel, consciously or unconsciously, an existential angst created by their disillusionment over actual engineering careers versus the idealism generate by their professors in school.

An example would be that your brilliant coding is actually for the purpose of addicting and harming other human beings, and you secretly know it is wrong. But the money is good so you decide to take the money, save it and get out as soon as possible. Another example would be a chemical engineer in a manufacturing plant. After a few years, you realize you are replacing the same pump and are bored with it, or your job is focused on clicking meaningless buttons for tracking systems.

In my own case, I spent most of my career in environmental and safety engineering. The last ten years in process safety engineering. I was proud and it felt good to tell others I was a process safety engineer and my job was to keep the nasty stuff in the pipes and not in the city. Secretly, I knew that corporations were far more likely to implement a safety solution if it was also a production improvement. And that some of the safety suggestions were implemented with human interventions, training and procedures, instead of hardware changes, if fixing the problem did not have a return on capital.

Engineers become bored in a manufacturing environment because the physical surroundings change very little day to day. They do their job making sure that production goes on, but then find activities outside of work to gain meaning to their existence. Frequently, the meaning of life is associated with family, and a tension develops between the boring lucrative job and time away from the family supported by the job. The irritation changes the person who can’t stand the irritation. Either they go dead in order to tolerate the irritation, or plan a way out. The FIRE people are finding a way out.

Are FIRE professionals just selfish assholes who game a system and get out? Or are they the really sensitive types who want to find a better way? A little of both, with the over whelming drive to find something more for their lives.

FIRE Update

Here is my success video:

(watch it on YouTube to get a bigger picture)

I am very happy with myself today because I had a break through in the writing world. I've been a little stuck since the publishing workshop last weekend with a literary agent. I almost quit because I didn't really have the plot for my novel nailed down. So, why would anyone else want to read it? I had almost decided that I would just proceed with my app writing project because it pleases me and has no goals.

I didn't have much goal for any of my writing when I retired, just maybe a few thousand dollars a year. But working at Starbucks is definitely the easier path of least resistance if my only goal is a few thousand dollars. But if the plan is also to produce something creative, then writing should stay on the table. And writing feels like something I am called to do, like my life needs to get a story onto paper in order for my life to be complete.

So unexpectedly, I had a writing victory this morning. I was sitting at my table looking at someone else's book when I spied a piece of paper which I had printed, a mini-part of my novel plan. I thought it was about one topic, but when I read it, it was about the plot for my novel. And I was surprised.
This one page, written a few days ago, very clearly described what the book was about and what was to be gripping for readers. After reading it, I realized how easy it would be to tie each scene to one of the gripping subplots. Easy peasy. Just get to work. I did. I wrote two scenes directly onto the computer.

So life goes on. I am very stable. Some mornings I work at Starbucks. Other mornings I work on writing. Frequently, I do both. In the afternoon, I am most often found in a park, running.

Such a great life. I am living for free. My assets are the same as when I quit my job.