This year has been sort of an eye opener. In some ways, from the time of working at Bill Wilson Center, most of that time was very calm and not much changed for 7 years. I felt very safe and had a lot of stability. That changed when they hired a new CFO who tried to change things to, yes, make them better, but the way she interacted with people made it very difficult. I started working from home in April and my last day at the company was May 13th.

Because of the pandemic, I think people have been focusing more on mental health and whether their lives should revolve around work. Because I’ve been reading more about the FIRE movement, it doesn’t come as a surprise to me that work doesn’t complete a person. God even said that work will be hard and you may work the land all you want, but it doesn’t always result in producing fruit.

I was fun-employed for about three months (huh, it actually seemed longer). My second home was at Panera to do devos (with my free coffee subscription). My goal is to do 10,000 steps a day, so walking to Target, Walgreens, Safeway, or CVS has become commonplace. We also took up the pandemic hobby of gardening. We have about 40 green onion plants (most are dying though since these are from 2020), a couple chard plants, and a bunch of kale. It’s nice to see the fruits of your labor and is saving costs on organic veggies.

I’ve learned that there is much more than working full time…and we do not lack much and I feel like I should use my time to focus on others (something I should my remind myself every now and then when I am too inwardly focused). We are in a good financial position, so I was looking for a part time position, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work at CityTeam, a Christian nonprofit that did around the same kind of work as Bill Wilson Center. The position was as a full time Staff Accountant, but after a couple weeks, I could tell that I wasn’t happy. I gathered the courage to ask to become part time. Approved! It is still pretty busy, but I don’t think I should complain.

We went down the week before Thanksgiving (to go to Disneyland…more on that later) and for Christmas hanging out with family and friends. Hmm…come to think of it, I actually went down to LA a lot. I drove down by myself in July and flew…twice? Thrice? It helped to see family. I think I’ve been feeling a little down for not really any compelling reason. I know that I have so much more than I could hope for.

We have enough food, money, a roof over our head, etc. I have a pretty easy life and I don’t know much adversity. But the reason I think I’ve been feeling down is because I feel like I can’t relate to my peers anymore. It wasn’t as apparent until now. We are in different life stages compared to others in our small groups. We will probably not have kids when that is what all our friends’ paths will take. We want to retire in hopefully 9 years, and that is definitely not the norm. But I know that I am also scared of it since I do not know what I would retire “to”. Am I really using my time in the best way now? And if I am not, why would I think that I would know in the future? How do I practically glorify God in my life? Find ways to partner with nonprofits to give them resources that they need? Make them food? Find ways to help bless people in our church?