A Plan in Action
I quit my job at Treyarch and start my new job at Superbot Entertainment tomorrow. I'm now a senior designer, which i'm told is exceptional given the time frame i've been doing it. That said, my portfolio of work has gotten pretty amazing and I got called a "genius" and "brilliant" by some pretty talented guys on the way out the door. I've got a secure career for life now, if that's what I want to do, and that level of security seems foreign to me. Maybe all those hours paying my dues just takes a while to unwind...or perhaps I enjoyed the high-wire act of it all. The jump from non-senior to senior is supposedly the hardest part as it qualifies you to manage and train, so I hear it's all up from here. Unless for some reason the video game industry stops growing, which I doubt.
I also bought a condo and am getting used to managing more money than I expected to have at this point in my life. It rubs against my anti-consumerist attitudes and it's been interesting trying to sort through it without letting it distract me.
I'm lucky. I've got a lot of talents, but so do a lot of people. Just because I meticulously planned every step of the last few years and executed it well hasn't convinced me at all that people make their own luck. Things could have easily run the other way. I find that people wander through life with a sense of optimism, where I plan the living fuck out of life with a sense of pessimism. My default assumption is that my plans will fail and I will have to re-plan. That life is conspiring against me to turn me into a mediocre consumer that thinks about my relationships, sports and celebrity news all day, so I better be twice as crafty and prepared.
I do feel validated, though. I scribbled down a damn specific plan when I was about ~22 and 7 years later I feel like i'm a few years ahead of the curve to the letter. I would barely change a damn thing. And I look at my supremely ambitious plan for my next ten years and wonder if what seems improbable is beginning to look likely.
I also bought a condo and am getting used to managing more money than I expected to have at this point in my life. It rubs against my anti-consumerist attitudes and it's been interesting trying to sort through it without letting it distract me.
I'm lucky. I've got a lot of talents, but so do a lot of people. Just because I meticulously planned every step of the last few years and executed it well hasn't convinced me at all that people make their own luck. Things could have easily run the other way. I find that people wander through life with a sense of optimism, where I plan the living fuck out of life with a sense of pessimism. My default assumption is that my plans will fail and I will have to re-plan. That life is conspiring against me to turn me into a mediocre consumer that thinks about my relationships, sports and celebrity news all day, so I better be twice as crafty and prepared.
I do feel validated, though. I scribbled down a damn specific plan when I was about ~22 and 7 years later I feel like i'm a few years ahead of the curve to the letter. I would barely change a damn thing. And I look at my supremely ambitious plan for my next ten years and wonder if what seems improbable is beginning to look likely.