Time for a Reboot

Synopsis

A ‘mental reboot’ is the name I’m giving to an aspect of my personality that I have grown to understand and except over the years, and one that seems to occur almost every six weeks. Whilst I don’t find myself becoming depressed, I certainly feel down-heartened, inward looking and backward gazing, whilst to the outside world I become much quieter.

I have grown to see the benefits of this strange recurrence; it gives me a chance to re-assess my life, see situations from another angle and stops me from becoming too silly. This is important, because when I’m in such a mood, I find myself becoming big-headed and sometimes a little bit incentive, if I don’t forcibly control myself.

Anyway, as I enter this particular period of reflection, I thought I would note down some of the thoughts and concerns I’m having here on my blog. For my own protection, a lot of this is intentionally vague. I guess it depends on how well you know me as to how much you’ll know what I’m blathering on about.

Thought Number One

Given the fact that I can look back a whole year and draw direct comparisons to what I was doing here in the US a year ago, it causes me to recall some of my feelings from back then also. One of those developed over the following 8 or so months, before coming to a partially unforeseen and unsettling conclusion. Looking back to last March, and comparing then with how the lay of the land is today, I find myself swallowing the same bitter pill that I have had to swallow several times already.

Thought Number Two

Right now (and as I hope to be able to write about in a forthcoming post to this blog) I’m incredibly happy with how things have turned out at Ning, both in terms of our product, and it’s management. But this weekend I heard a more negative viewpoint. It’s one I don’t to agree with, but it’s making me question my own judgement. It makes me wonder whether my visible and verbal glee towards my job will come back to bite me in the arse, and end in embarrassment. I sure hope not.

Thought Number Three

Thankfully I can be less vague about the final thing on my mind, and one that is unsurprising at times like this, and that is the little amount of time I’m getting to speak with my friends back in the UK.

I’m sure I’ve said this before, but the single biggest annoyance living in California is the time difference with the UK - it’s timed exactly to be a bloody nuisance. The only times I am able to make calls realistically is during the weekends, when I’m usually involved doing something else.

When I do make calls, the conversations don’t seem able to flow as easily as they would, had I been face-to-face with that person. E-mails aren’t much better, especially when mine tend to be as long as this blog post! There is also one e-mail that I’ve sent that I never got a reply to, and that leads me to think about all sorts off things I’d rather not conjecture.

Anyway, most friends answer to my questions about what’s happening on the other side of the pond is either “not a lot” or “much of the same”. I’m sure it is, I just wish my they could capture the normality of it all for me every now and again and send it this way.

I guess the point of this post has been more for personal gain - the act of writing this stuff down allows gets it out of my head, and I actually feel much better for it. But hopefully it should also explain why I may be a bit quieter over the next few days.

I’m rebooting.