Day 268 - the last OMGIM in September

 Today is the 2nd day of the 39th week, the 25th day of the 9th month, the 268th day of 2023, and:

• Acne Scar Day
• Binge Day
• Family Day
• "If You See Something, Say Something" Awareness Day
• International Ataxia Awareness Day
• Math Storytelling Day
• National Comic Book Day
• National Crab Meat Newburg Day
• National Daughters' Day
• National Food Service Employees Day
• National Lobster Day
• National One-Hit Wonder Day
• National Open the Magic Day
• National Psychotherapy Day
• National Quesadilla Day
• National Research Administrator Day 
• National Tune-Up Day
• World Dream Day
• World Lung Day
• World Pharmacist Day
• Yom Kippur - which began at sundown yesterday
• and Voyager 1 is 22h 22m 14s of light travel time from Earth
• 
  

Quote of the day:

"What is normal? That's just a story that we tell ourselves.” 

 ~  Matthew Quick, The Silver Linings Playbook

Now the full quote that I found was:  "The problem with the stigma around mental health is really about the stories that we tell ourselves as a society. What is normal? That's just a story that we tell ourselves"  but I chose to post just the latter part of it.  Does changing the context of the quote change how it impacts you?  Of course it does!  Instead of effulgent statement of free thinking, the quote becomes a lament of how we label those who are mentally challenged.  But in another, broader sense,  the statement is still a defence of those who do not march to the same drum, for whatever the reason.  

I know there is a whole group of folks out there who feel Monday gets a bad rap.  I tried to think this morning when the last time was when I woke up and jumped out of bed, eager to go to work, and I came up with nothing.  I'm not sure I ever was exactly as eager to go to work as I was to go to school [well for the most part].  Mind you, I am grateful to have a job that enables me to live decently, if not quite as profligately as I might desire, while working with folks that I can get along with, and letting me work a hybrid schedule.  If I am a worker bee rather than on the forefront of management and organizational change, I am also only putting in eight hours a day.  

Back in the days of being an agent of change, we used to derisively dismiss people like me as "retired in place" and, little though I like the phrase, there is some truth to that.   I have always started that I work to live, that I do not live to work, and I see this as a natural extension of that philosophy.  I am productive, I add value to the company, I manage my direct report well [or at least she seems to think so], but I am just not as driven as I have been in the past.  

At least I don't actively dread going into the work week, and yes, there have been times in my life that going to work felt like the execution of a prison sentence.   Thankfully I didn't have to stay in those jobs permanently, but was able to move elsewhere in the company.  Usually at such times it wasn't the work itself, but a toxic environment that made me feel that way or a manager that actively disliked me personally.  Why?  because I  asked too many questions and had an extensive vocabulary ["making a parade of my college education"] was the feedback I was given.

Of course, being a nerd long before geekiness was considered cool, I was accustomed to being told I was not "normal" and rather reveled in it, which did not smooth my way throughout my work career.  Being different may be applauded in theory, but it is often stamped out in reality.

*sighs*

So, anyway, it's Monday again.