(See Part One)
So I recognized in early 2016 that I needed to make some changes, because I wasn’t happy with my level of motivation, or the activities that I was spending most of my time on. The first change, and one of the biggest, was to stop volunteering for the local SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism – a medieval reenactment group) group that I have been a part of for the past eight years. I’d held the office of Webminister for nearly six years, doing the website for the local group, The Barony of Sternfeld. Likewise, I picked up the office of Chronicler, doing the newsletter for Sternfeld as well, about two years ago. I’d reached a point with both roles where it was no longer especially interesting or inspiring.
And of course it was holding me back from doing other things that I want to do. So I stepped down from both offices. Somewhere along the way, I also realized that I just really am not that passionate about the Middle Ages. It was my wife’s hobby from before we met, that I got roped into. That’s not to say I don’t have fun with it – I have a lot of fun with it. Although interestingly, I got involved in the administrative side of it, which is entirely modern, and really have never done anything all that medieval to begin with.
Further reflection led to the realization that what I care about in the SCA isn’t the SCA itself or the Middle Ages, or anything like that – it’s the people. Specific people in fact. One thing the SCA is good at is attracting geeky, intelligent, interesting people who I am apt to get along with. People with ideas, ambitions, and the ability to work with their hands. Getting along with people in the SCA is not universal by any means – as with any group, there’s people I don’t always agree with – or even like. I can be cordial, in any case. But there are a lot of people who I truly enjoy the company of, who I met via this group. It’s the people that drove me to do more with the SCA originally. In the shuffle of responsibilities that had to happen when we had kids, I lost sight of that to some degree. So one thing I am going to be making more of an effort on is spending time with people that I like. Especially people that my wife also likes and who have kids of their own.
Simultaneous to all of these changes, my wife’s business, Fabric Ninja, continued to grow and demand more and more of both of our time. I’ve been doing most of the business administration, accounting, and technical work of the business for her, playing to my strengths and also freeing her up to do the work that only she can do – sewing and drafting digital patterns for sale online. The rapid increase in sales meant that I had a lot more paperwork to do for her business – and we started to strategize about ways to improve her products, increase her sales, and automate portions of her business. All work that needs to be done to enable her to continue to grow, while maintaining our sanity.
Add to that a very large backlog of other projects, ideas, planned activities, etc. None of which I was really making any forward motion on. The extremely broad set of possible actions – all of which would help me make progress on one goal or another – made it very hard to pick specific actions to take. Which leads me to about two weeks ago, where I realized I was putting off compiling a proper to do list that I could use prioritize and work on things that matter to me. Why? Because I was terrified of how many things were on the list – I had a feeling it was an overwhelming number.
(Continued in Part Three…)