Dont Trust This Guy why not take my word for it? A blog by Jim Jeffers

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot about peak oil, our place in the world economy, and the harmful industrialization of our everyday food. Simply put, I haven’t been writing as a result of the information overload that I’m enjoying at the moment.

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For the past year and seven months I have been happily employed at Sitewire, an interactive marketing agency in Tempe. I spent my time there initially as their front end architect and flash developer but eventually fell into the role of lead designer. The experience has been great.

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All kinds of work including (but not limited to): paper work, actual work, side work, busy work, boring work. This year has blurred by me. I haven’t accomplished any important personal goals since the year began, nor have I had the time to. I’ve just made excuses - turned my face from reality - and let life go by me. It wasn’t until three weeks ago that I actually stopped to think about what realistically must happen.

I have debts to pay, bills to attend to, places to see, and goals to achieve. One of them is a new portfolio site show casing the work I’ve been doing over the last two years. Another has been to actually improve my writing and provide an insightful blog to the public. This I can say may very well happen in the next couple of days. I came up with a design three weeks ago, converted it into working code last weekend, and now this coming weekend I hope to implement it on this very site.

Still, my ‘killer’ application idea I wanted to launch in January is still festering in my mind and going nowhere as we speak. My little creative outlet Sumo Creations, likewise, is sitting around not doing much. Sure, I can attract work but I’m not attracting worth while work. Not doing cutting edge projects or anything innovative has left me feeling professionally stale and a little burnt out.

I have made it my personal goal the rest of this year to focus much more on mastering some of the design and development skills I’ve been practicing over the many years. I’ve been slinging code for over eight years but it was not until recently that I actually started to pay attention to and discover the theories behind programming. Design is just always something I’ve had a good eye for; it just came natural. But now, as of this year I’m actually actively studying and practicing design theories in my new work. Finally, being out of school for the last six months has given me much more time to think about my world I live in. I feel as though I’ve been caught up in a hectic tight bubble unexposed to the true world out there. In a constant haste from school to job I was not paying attention to what was happening around me. While I’m happy where I’m at now, I’ve gained an unsatisfiable appetite for travel. I hope to write about these things I’m doing and learning on this blog. It will not be focused - in fact it will hopefully feel as if each post belonged on a completely different website. My aim is not to be consistent but to be informative. I like many different things and become fascinated in different fields quite often. I hope this site will become interesting and insightful to some. I hope this site may become more helpful to me.

I recently came accross a this great little note on Signals vs. Noise about dropping out. The article summarizes three different stories where professionals in various careers simply dropped out to lead a less complicated life. The stories spoke bounds to me. I can’t express enough how much I question what it is I do and why. I look around me and wonder the same about others sometimes. So many of us aren’t doing what we want. There tends to be a lot of focus on getting by and making more. Often it won’t be out of the norm for me to hear one of my friends say, “I want to be making X amount of dollars by the time im X years old.”

Why? Why so focused on money? Who gives a shit really. Why not say things you’d like to be doing in the future. Why don’t we set more passionate goals than financial goals. Finance in general is just a shallow cold boring and crude aspect of life. Money is a means to an end at times but it never is that ‘end’ you are so desparately looking for. If you’ve ever watched television shows such as the Sopranos or Nip/Tuck you can see a fictitious example of people who seem to have it all but lead remarkably unhappy lives. It is my belief that money is nothing more than a tool. A tool that will get you straight to nowhere, no matter how much you have, if you are not pursuing the things that truly matter to you.

It is just merely a matter of your perception really. Who is the more ambitious of the two? Is it the poor cabbie who simply drives around the same streets, reflects on his life, has time to see his family, and leads a simple yet enrichening life? Or is it the professional athlete under constant demand for physical performances and social appearances, driving an expensive luxury car, wearing some of the finest clothing, rolling around with more money than they know what do with? I leave it up to you to decide. Maybe you’ll have to find your way to the top to find out it might not be what you wanted afterall. Heck even I don’t really know, but I do think about these things if you can’t tell.

I saw the latest cartoon posted by Sam from exploding dog on Signals vs. Noise. It’s called In the future I will get things done. So true…

Considering I’ve been sort of in a slump the last three weeks when it comes to work this really hits me because it’s what I’ve been saying to myself all along. Procrastination is killing my personality. My new goal for 2006 is to manage my time and money better than in 2005. Oh and no more motorcycle accidents. Let’s see how long I can keep this one going.