7 AM to 9 PM including weekends, that was my life five years ago. Meals at my desk. No socialising beyond work-related discussions, and only with senior executives, as it was a lower, non-executive role.
Despite being overqualified and in a low-income, non-executive job, the satisfaction was worth more than anything else. I got to see the results of my work being applied in real life. Work that helped thousands of people during a time of chaos and fear. Yes, it was the days of COVID.
This situation continued for a whole year, then gradually declined after COVID. Fast-forward five years. I am still in a lower, non-executive job and I do nothing. Yes, nothing, zilch, zero, nil, nada.
Was the hard work ever commended? I don’t know how to answer that question. I was transferred to a better place, but that place has no work. Nothing, zilch, zero, nil, nada. So now my only task is to arrive at 6:30 and clock in with the mighty Sir Fingerprint Scanner, my new executive. Three times, sometimes more, because it never works properly, especially for me.
Indeed, a “better” place, yet with no accomplishments, no mission, and no objective. The frustrating part is that this is probably a dream job for many people I personally know. Being fully paid for doing nothing? Yes. But I’m not that kind of a person. I get my daily dose of pleasure and satisfaction from working.
Because of various issues, which I will probably share in other posts, I dipped. I became lost. I lost the hard-working version of myself. I lost the thirst and passion for working hard, for helping people, and for expanding my knowledge.
I didn’t just lose my dreams. I lost the ability to dream, to transcend, to grow and improve in life.
Here I am. Making a resolution, but not a New Year’s one. I hate them because they don’t work. Nor a Sunday-I-will-Inshallah-start-promise-day. I am starting now.
I am doing it the way I know best: a social experiment. Every week, I will post a progress update where I publicly track six tasks:
- Complete 10 hours of an online course
- Read 50 pages of a book or research paper
- Solve 50 pages of exercises in a foreign language
- Exercise for 180 minutes
- Lose weight until I reach my target
- Produce research material or work on a project
These weekly updates won’t be the only thing on this blog. The blog will be my personal KPI page, but throughout the week, I may also post about things I find worth discussing, issues that I believe are rarely talked about in public, not because they don’t matter, but because people have stopped looking.
I hold a degree from a university that has consistently ranked among the world’s top eight according to major global ranking systems such as QS and THE. I am well-travelled, with various talents ranging from knowledge of K9s and cooking to more technical skills like using cognitive lab tools such as eye-tracking systems and EEGs.
For now, I will keep my anonymity as much as I can. But if you come across this blog and believe you know who I am, don’t tell me. Either keep following quietly or convince yourself it isn’t me.
So what you will be getting is a front-row seat to someone proving, mostly to himself, that the version he lost is still in there somewhere. And some thoughts that have been packed away for too long.
