I've found lately that sometimes the hardest thing to understand is oneself. Today was punctuated by brief periods of unexplained jubilance. Was it too much caffeine? Perhaps something in the air? It's impossible to know for sure but I have the usual theories.
Over the years I've noticed that I tend to move the opposite direction emotionally from those around me. Just when my wife is about to go berserk with the kids screaming all around her, I slip into a calm and entertaining mood and take the kids off to play a game of "You're too little to push me over!!" When she's absolutely in a rage and ready to tear my head off because of some stupid thing I've done, I move effortlessly into the role of ruthless logician and explain to her why she shouldn't really be mad in a calm measured voice (this REALLY does not help, by the way). Similarly, when people at work are at their lowest ebb of doubt and pessimism I tend to move the other direction. Today was such a day; multiple people in my virtual vicinity were obviously frustrated and perhaps that was enough to push me towards more effervescent side. Pity I was not in the office for any of it to flake off on anyone else. [Side note: This can actually be a fun game if you play your cards right. When I see an obviously sad person I do some of the craziest shit that I'd never THINK of doing under any normal circumstances. For the most part it's utterly beyond my control but obviously I can't realize you're doing it or it breaks the spell. No explanation really; some visceral part of me wants to cheer people up. *shrug*]
Alternatively, maybe today I was just smart enough to take my own advice from yesterday. I'm unusually far ahead in my work hours for the week so I started work late after picking up the house a bit, cleaning the toilets and wrapping a few Christmas presents. In a word, I was relaxed. No panic. No huge queue of mega-important tasks. No thoughts of "I have to put in X hours today or I'll have to work over tomorrow." Just calm, measured performance of my job. We tend to get so wound up over metrics and hours and performance that we stress ourselves into crappy performance. We freak out and screw up that causes us to get behind which causes us to stress out which causes us to freak out and screw up that causes... well, you get the idea. Take a deep breath once in a while. If all else fails, do those LaMaze breaths from the Cosby Show... you know the ones. You can't deny it.
Lastly, and perhaps related to the first theory, I feel needed. I'm not really sure WHY; nothing whatsoever has changed to indicate I'm any more necessary than I was before. Perhaps it's some unfounded optimism about our impending structural changes. If pressed, I'd say there's a 75% chance my job gets significantly better in the next 90-120 days. That's not to say that the transition will be at all pleasant but most of the scenarios to which I assign non-zero probabilities do turn out to be real, tangible improvements over the status quo. I'm not sure what better reason one could have for jubilance... well, perhaps if I had some way to substantiate my 75% estimate.
But whatever the real reason I just felt I got my parking on this planet happily and properly validated today. From random comments from the field of my acquaintance to my wife's breathless, "You know, you really are just the best husband ever!" this afternoon on the phone all the lights of my life were green today. Almost makes a person want to go to bed early to see how tomorrow's going to turn out.
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