Finding Momentum

Man. Where to even start?

I started work­ing at Riverbed about three months ago. Three months! Time does fly.

What do you do? I’m a User Inter­face Devel­oper with them, where I design the man­age­ment inter­face to the Steel­head, their WAN accel­er­a­tion prod­uct. What this means in plain Eng­lish is that I design the look and feel of the con­trol panel to their prod­uct, a net­work device that speeds up data trans­fer over a network.

No, it’s not the sex­i­est thing to be doing, but hey it’s my first full-time job. My boss is really cool and my cowork­ers are really fun. I think I’m gonna learn a lot here.

I remem­ber start­ing work and mak­ing a list of priorities:

1. Rela­tion­ships > work.
2. Per­sonal life > work life (and learn how to sep­a­rate the two)
3. Work hard & work well.
4. Work to be generous.
5. Work as an act of worship.

Here’s what I’m learning:

1. The rhythm of work life is like noth­ing I antic­i­pated. It wasn’t that total screech­ing halt that I braced myself for, but rather a slower, grad­ual fade into a 9A-6P rhythm. It’s not pulling crazy demands on my per­sonal life right now, but I def­i­nitely under­stand that desire to come in after work, sit down and veg out in front of the TV.
2. It’s all about the rela­tion­ships, and that’s not easy. If I’m going to be spend­ing most of my life here at work, I really want to make it count. You know? I want these rela­tion­ships to really mean some­thing. Call me naive, but I think we can make real friends at work. And that requires a lot of effort.

   I’m dis­cov­er­ing that this effort doesn’t come easy. Because work life has greatly shrunk the scope of my out­side activ­i­ties, it means that there needs to be real effort to make room to chill with cowork­ers over a pitcher at the bar across the street, or attend my coworker’s daughter’s high school musi­cal (haven’t done that one yet!). And I’m find­ing that often­times it’s far eas­ier to block out my whole sched­ule with things I plan but never leave room for the sim­ple con­ver­sa­tions that come my way every day.

3. I thought that mak­ing money wasn’t going to make me mate­ri­al­is­tic (that’s quite a mouth­ful). I thought I knew how to live gen­er­ously and it would come easy. After all, I came from col­lege, right? I lived off food scraps and hor­ri­bly impro­vised recipes/abominations (see: spaghetti sauce sand­wich). I went to Inter­var­sity, right? I know what it’s like to inter­face with the poor.

   It’s not easy, guys.

   I’m find­ing it’s true that the more you make, the more you com­pare to those who have more. Oh, I make x dol­lars a year? Well my coworker makes y more than me, and he’s only z quan­tity more/less expe­ri­enced. And it’s true, when you never thought money would be an idol, you find your­self wish­ing that you had extra space in your wal­let for that extra purchase.

4. I’m learn­ing that the act of work itself is, well, wor­ship. I’m think­ing that sat­is­fac­tion you get when you fin­ish a big project hav­ing put your heart and mind and strength into it is, well, a reflec­tion of how God felt when he fin­ished us up on the 7th metaphor­i­cal (or lit­eral, depend­ing on your take) day.
5. I also thought that giv­ing would be more glam­orous than it really was. I’m not quite sure what I imag­ined. Maybe lav­ish praise from friends and acquain­tances. “Oh, he’s so kind.” “Oh, he’s a gen­er­ous fel­low (which nobody can deny)” At the very least, maybe a gold star in the books.

Maybe it’s true, what Jesus taught: “But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” (Matt. 6:3). That’s the ulti­mate suck-it-up unglam­orous thing to do. That’s zero recog­ni­tion, not even from your­self. I think Jesus had a point when he said that. Don’t look to the act of giv­ing to give you your full sat­is­fac­tion. Do it because your Father loves you; his Holy Spirit moves and breathes through you.

And so it is with the work­place as well; I’m learn­ing not to see it as my ulti­mate ends of sat­is­fac­tion. I’m try­ing hard not to let it dic­tate my mood for the day or my pace of life in gen­eral. I’m work­ing out what it means to have a career, to have skills, tal­ents, pas­sions, and to explore and expand them in the con­text of this new rhythm of life.

I think I make this tran­si­tion out to be a lot harder than it actu­ally is. I need to remem­ber that I do these things because the Spirit moves and breathes through me. And in light of that, I can chill.