Wellbeing

photograph courtesy Philip Greenspun from Travels with Samantha.
Click photo for LARGE size.

I'm wiped out.

Been working 12+ hour days for almost four weeks, solving a very complicated problem with much at stake for the company I work for, one of the largest in the State of Washington.

Part of what we stand for here at Group News Blog is wellbeing. That people should be well.

1) Family comes first, right along with taking care of your body. 2) Next is whatever you do to earn a living -- otherwise, you're typically not positioned to take care of your family and your health. 3) Third comes those additional obligations one takes on -- in my case, blogging and publishing GNB, friends, chores, cycling, reading, watching the new DVD release of My So-Called Life and so on.

About ten days in to the problem at work, it became clear I couldn't work 12 to 16 hours a day, and also blog 6 to 8 hours a night. I was sleeping maybe 2 to 3 hours and was starting to really lose it.

I'm the guy at GNB who nags everyone else to take whatever time they need to have a life, then works himself into the ground posting like crazy. This has not gone unnoticed. Heh. I've been pretty brutally clobbered by my colleagues for overworking (*waves to Hubris Sonic*) especially around the end of September when I hadn't yet figured out how to divide up my life such that I could both work and blog (3 posts per weekday, 2 per weekend day) and still be healthy, be well, all at the same time, along with getting in some cycling, reading, taking time for my children, and so on.

I was just starting to nail that down in October, by being very very rigorous with my time, and also with what kind of posts I made. Not every post had to be a three hour labor of love; it was enough for some to be 45 minute quickies.

But then this work issue fell on me. And it mattered. Big-time. Not just to my company (which would be enough; they pay me well and I'm someone who has a strong sense of duty), but in this case it also mattered to me. The problem was a true challenge at multiple levels; it engaged me deeply.

Which is why y'all haven't seen much of me the last few weeks. By at the most, ten days in, I had to stop blogging so I could focus on my work and all I've managed since then is to throw a (very) few posts up.

The work problem got solved late this past Friday. I spent the weekend almost completely sleeping. However I've still got three entire weeks of work to catch up on, so my blogging will be very light for a while. No way can I get back to my normal three a day weekday posting for at least a fortnight.

What I'm saying I guess is, everyone has their limits, even me. And besides telling you why I'm not blogging much at the moment, I just want to say to everyone, as Sara, Lower Manhattanite & Hubris Sonic have said before... wellbeing always comes first -- and that ain't always easy to admit, especially when it's you who has to cut back on the stuff you love.

Here at Group News Blog we are fucking-A committed to people's wellbeing. Yours, ours, everyones.

Tonight, I was just going to post this one post. Then some stuff happened and I ended up with three posts. That's not going to happen often. It's now almost 2 am and I can't afford to do this right now. But there was stuff needed to get said, and the rest of the gang is speaking up on other stuff, so I pushed hard for tonight to say this. You probably won't see me for a few days.

I'll post when I can. Some days maybe one, if I'm lucky two or three but don't count on that. Or as I just said, maybe nothing at all for two or even three or four days. It's going to be that way for at least a few weeks till I get caught up and am breathing cleanly, deeply, and normally.

Take care of yourselves. Be well.

*hugs to all*