Introduction—Redesigning My Life

For more than 10 years I’ve had two jobs dealing with money. I’ve worked steadily in the computer field—mostly programming—in my day job, and investing in the stock market in my side job. Add in unpaid jobs like parenting (since 1990) and general household finances, and I’ve gotten run down over the last few years. I don’t think these events are directly related, but as the stock market became more lucrative I started losing interest in computer programming. For the last couple of years, when people ask “What do you do?”, I’ve usually said my career is investing and my job is programming computers.

I’ve spent countless hours pondering what career to take up that would be more interesting and fulfilling than computers. For various reasons, no career has been so inspiring that I’m eager to jump into it like I jumped into programming over 20 years ago. Over the past several months I’ve had several inspiring epiphanies and done a little inspiring reading and came to the conclusion that I don’t need a new career per se, I need a new life, or more accurately a redesigned life. I decided to leave the job that’s sucking up too much time and energy and embrace the job I really care about: investing. Beyond that I want to figure out other ways of making money, and beyond that I want more than a job change: I want a richer life. I suppose Maslow would call it self-actualization. Add it all up, and I call it redesigning my life.

Getting back in writing form is one aspect of redesigning my life, which is the motive for this blog. The act of writing forces some order and clarity on my chaotic thoughts, and maybe I can help someone move along toward their own epiphanies. I hope you’ll drop in to see how my project is going.