He who curtails his ambitions does so because they are curtailable

William Blake said something along the lines of this blog post title. I try to suppress my love for what I do but it’s just impossible. 

I have been thinking a lot on my break about finding a work life balance.

I maintain that a work life balance is good. I need to meditate.

I need to find time to go out into nature and cook (or at least make smoothies) and you know take care of the flat I share and stuff. But nothing can ever stop me from caring like I do.

As a student of non dual traditions and still to some extent of Buddhist traditions on the surface it might sound as if attachment is bad. But it’s the opposite. 

Caring about what you do is a great thing. And today that care came from an unexpected thing.

Once again, it was from Taylor Swift 

Taylor Swift, one of the greatest artists on the planet, inspires us all to dream fearlessly.

It was listening to her singing “seven” live the other day that made me remember my love of utilities. 

How much I love hydroelectric dams in the mountain. How great my love for these things is. I love them more than anything else in the world. I am so grateful for the people who came before me who actually put these things there. 

But today it was “so long London”. I was playing it on the piano and I almost began to cry.

Her melodies, chords and lyrics are so perfect. They sync up so perfectly. They are so unexpected. They are so perfect. Playing them on the piano can make me cry.

But today they made me care.

I cannot stop caring about my dream of the utilities

And I cannot stop caring about my dream of continuing to be a software engineer

And I absolutely most of all cannot stop caring about my dream to combine them both but especially the utilities bit

That’s funny cos I had been planning to say the software engineering bit

I especially love the software engineering bit but maybe it’s both.

I cannot do what I want to do for utilities without becoming a properly fledged engineer. And I need to grow as an engineer I lot. I have three goals:

• To continue to care deeply about my work
• To continue to do my job to the best of my ability
• To continue to learn Python on the side

After that I have to focus. 

I need a work life balance.

I will be a better software engineer and a better person for having a balance in my life. I want to go out into nature and meditate. 

I want to play the piano. 

I want to go for long walks again.

But most of all I want to continue to care passionately about what I do.