Karim’s posterous

It's been a week or two since I've been back from a new years break to Italy where I was significantly more Offline than I usually am.

The problem is, I still haven't recovered from this break. I still find myself falling offline. I haven't read the blogs I usually read for weeks, and I haven't really been paying that much attention to my twitter stream. Stepping away from it, I kinda realised 'what's the point of this stuff' I mean it's great fun and interesting and crucial to keep up to date with the new happenings and fads and technologies online. But is it somewhere I want to be? Somewhere I want to live? I don't think so. I'm happy to dip in and out at this stage, and who knows, I might get addicted again sometime soon. But I'm happy I've fallen offline for the most part.

My friend Simon introduced me to Krishnamurti and specifically his book 'Think On These Things'. There's one passage in it that beautifully describes how to find what you love to do in life, something I've grown a lot more curious about since I quit my 9-5 job last October. I wanna make sure I keep this passage in mind, so I'm gonna type it out here:

To find out what you love to do demands a great deal of intelligence; because, if you are afraid of not being able to earn a livelehood, or not fitting into this rotten society, then you will never find out. But, if you are not frightened, if you refuse to be pushed into the groove of tradition by your parents, by your teachers, by the superficial demands of society, then there is a possiblity of descovering what it is your really love to do. So to discover, there must be no fear of not surviving.

I've just come back from a 10 day trip to Italy, unfortunately, I lost my precious little iPhone the first day I was out there.

The immediate impact of being completely disconnected from family and friends back home in London, and not having access to all the goodies on my iPhone took me very much by surprised. I was literally in anguish, I kept instinctively reaching for my iPhone to check email/text messages/the internet and in its place only an empty space remained.

Anyhows, after a couple of days, I started to feel a bit better and I gradually got accustomed to not having this constant distraction tool in my pocket. Now that I'm back from my vacation, I've got the option to plug myself back in, but I'm not jumping at the chance just yet. I want to seriously consider if the set up I had before was productive or necessary. In a way, I'd rather spend a couple of hours a day online, making them productive, interesting and enjoyable rather than having the constant nag of checking for 'just one more new email'.

I'll see how it goes, I'm curious to see what my decision will be.....

- K

It's been about two months now since I quit my job as an office worker. For the past six years, I'd known nothing but the life of the 9-5 in a bustling metropolis (London). Now I'm trying to set myself up as an online marketing consultant, with the conviction to focus on the 'get to do' rather than the 'have to do'. Picking projects I want to work on, rather than spending my day fighting fires.

I've felt a range of emotions over the past few weeks, ecstasy, fear, anxiety, boredom, relaxation, confusion and a few others. Strangely enough, I'm also feeling some noticeable withdrawal symptoms.

In my previous life, I was used to being bombarded all day long with emails, they'd drop into my in-box and I'd peck at them with my mouse. No sooner had I cleared my inbox, than another email would drop in. As tedious as this may have been, it was comforting, it made it easier to go through the day, my tasks and responsibilities were organised for me, delivered by an invisible messenger from the higher power of electronic mail.

Now that I'm out on my own, I don't get as many emails, no where near as many. I'm happy, because a lot of the emails I got before were pretty trivial. But at the same time, I do kinda miss that constant electronic stimulus. Maybe, like pavlovs dogs, I was so well conditioned by that 'new email' alert, that to be living without it leaves me with an uneasy but optimistic feeling.

The real challenge now is to fill that time up with useful activities. I can't blame inaction on a pile of emails I have to go through anymore.

I've been doing a lot of thinking recently on quality of life. It seems to me when you boil everything down, this is the barometer you need to measure your life against. Take any one element in isolation, money, success, possessions and you're life will probably be ok, but not great.

For the past 6 years, I'd say my life has been ok. I've been working in online marketing in the financial services sector here in London, England. I've met a lot of interesting people and I've enjoyed my job. But somehow, ok just wasn't good enough for me anymore. So, about 2 months ago, I quit my job, with no real alternative to go. This was probably the most risky thing I've done in my life, especially considering the economic crisis the world is currently going through. But that's not exactly how I saw it, and that's not how I justified making the decision to quit.

The way I saw it, it was time to put myself in a position where I could re-invent myself, and fundamentally change my life for the better. My goal was and is to create a great life for myself. A life where I feel that I'm playing the game to its fullest. It's not about money, fame or prestige, it's about challenging myself, and pushing myself to accomplish new challenges and do something I can be fully engaged in and passionate about.

So what am I doing? Well, the main thing I've been doing over the past few weeks is looking. Taking a step back, putting all the pieces of my life on a big table and seeing the bigger picture. Seeing how the pieces fit together and seeing which pieces may be missing. I have a lot of ideas and a lot of new-found energy. I'm looking at the best paths to channel this energy into. I'm trying to build my own online marketing shop, build up my own online profile, and interact and connect with other people in similar positions to me around the globe.

More recently I'm looking at a pretty interesting opportunity from one of my online marketing heroes, Seth Godin. Maybe you should check it out too, maybe it's a chance for you to shift your life from 'ok' to great. Maybe you should be looking at other opportunities of investing some time, learning, doing, travelling, things that will enrich you and help you shift your life from ok to great. Think about it, as cliche as it sounds, we only get one shot at this, don't wasting stuck in 'ok'.

- K

- K