Needle and the Damage Done(1)

Continued from 'A Half Full, or Half Empty, Glass?'….

What's the underlying motivation for the praise of the engineering profession, folks? I'd really like to know where your minds are on this….I've got some ideas, but I suspect many of you have motivations that I haven't considered. Are the lucrative (compared to many other professions) salaries (even after you consider that they're spread out over far more than a 40 hour workweek for most of us) and/or benefits packages the primary salve? Is it the opportunity to work on intellectually challenging projects, or to maintain academic competency in topics that you find fascinating?

Or more darkly, are you fundamentally motivated by fear….of losing your job to a younger, lower-salaried coworker and being unable to find another, of being outsourced, of being without managed healthcare? What are you giving up in order to satisfy your employer's expectations and your personal tech passions? And are you at peace with the tradeoff? Is your family? Are your friends? Do you even have adequate time and energy outside of work to cultivate meaningful relationships with others?

When I stepped away from the EDN day-to-day at the end of May, I was confident I'd be returning to work 3.5 months later. After nearly 10 years at EDN, and after more than 20 years as an engineer, I retain a deep passion for technology….a passion which the various aspects of my EDN job uniquely and profoundly satisfy. But ironically, that same passion was a key source of the overall burnout (both personal and professional) that drove me into sabbatical. Passion can subtly flip into addiction, and the unfortunate thing about addiction is that it's unquenchable….there's always one more article to peruse, one more interview to conduct, one more email to read, one more link to click on, one more conference to attend.

Stepping off the tech treadmill allowed me to see more clearly what I already suspected prior to going on sabbatical; just how deeply my tech 'addiction' had sunk its talons into me. And stepping away allowed me to reconnect with the various other activities that had slowly but surely faded away over the years in response to that addiction; running, backpacking, photography, pleasure reading, bicycling….heck, even just having unscheduled time to do 'nothing' or to do something spontaneous!

Balance and simplification are the tools by which I aspire to recalibrate my life going forward. Pragmatically, I realize that by returning to a full-time job, I won't be able to satisfy my other passions to the degree that I was able to this past summer, but I'm unwilling to allow those other interests to re-atrophy, either. Unlike many of you, my wife and I aren't staring at the looming specter of tuition and other bills for two-legged children far into the future (our dogs and cats are, in comparison, quite economical!), a fact that gives me financial flexibility as I periodically revisit and fine-tune my life.

I welcome your thoughts on the root motivations for your engineering activities, on whether or not you feel fulfilled both personally and professionally….and if not, what you plan to do about it. Thanks as always for reading my ramblings!

1. Come to think of it, I could have also titled this blog post Old Man