Ideas, Motivation, Goals and Fish

Lately, I’m finding it hard to get excited about work. What’s that I hear you cry? No one gets excited about work! I’m not just talking about work to get paid I’m talking about work for fun, work in your spare time. This may be just post-travelling wind down, but it feels deeper and I think I know what the problem is: I have no goal. Without a goal you’re just treading water and that doesn’t get you anywhere.

I have targets and deadlines of course: project deadline next Friday, got to find a new flat by next week, must spend less money. I think there’s a big difference between a goal and a target or deadline. Goals are funny things, they keep you directed and prevent you from stagnating in a pool of your own self loathing. Without a goal you just bumble around aimlessly achieving nothing, like a fish in an aquarium. Yes, you swim to the underwater castle, eat the food provided, take a loop around the pond weed and back to the damned castle. Always moving, never going anywhere. It is easy to fall into a rut and stay there.

When I was at university I had a goal, the goal was provided for me: achieve the best possible degree. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel but now? The tunnel seems endless and the light is so far along that it barely shows as a slightly different shade of dark against all the other dark. So I tried to think of goals and I came up with plenty. So I have a decision to make, now there’s lots of tunnels with their metaphorical lights but which one? Which will lead to my happiness and which is just another devilish trick to get me back in the aquarium?

To distract myself from this I tried to think of some ideas that I could work on and see if a goal emerged from any of these. I’m about to go to FoWA and they’re offering a five grand prize to someone who can design a kick ass AIR application. This grabbed me, I’d love a project like that. Something I can work on outside of work. However, I’ve a problem with AIR.

AIR sounds great on paper: “Get internet functionality on your desktop!” “Link in with your favourite web apps!”. The problem is I already have all this stuff! Digsby, links to Facebook and Twitter so why do I need Pownce? I’ve already got a music player that can link to the net too! I don’t know what’s so different about AIR. What the hell is wrong with the browser anyway? I like tabs, I like the customization, I like the interactive document feel of the web. It seems like a step backward and for some reason it reminds me of AOL back in the day, all those extra windows, but if I’m going to win five grand I’m going to have to overcome all these challenges!

So this is my short term goal… I’ve got a month to come up with an idea that will blow Monsieur Carson and his crones (read: some of the top people in the industry) out of the water.

Wish me luck and stay tuned!