A Battle of Mice

[BattleOfMice]

Hello world!

I'm entering here today with an energy that is, if not rock bottom, at least dull, muffled and life-less.
This is something that's been lingering for years, of course with peaks of joy and enthusiasm, but the average tend to go below where I want it to be. This is a stressful feeling, seeing that life runs on, suddenly 10 years have passed and you look back at it asking - have I been happy? For me the answer is "I don't know! Sometimes I guess, isn't that how life is supposed to be? A battle? A struggle?". I don't want my answer to be the same in another 10 years, instead it should be "Oh it was a hell of a ride, yes there where battles and struggles but I enjoyed almost every bit of it."

In the past, I've found that keeping this kind of journal, sharing experiences and learn from what others go through, has been rewarding and if not a silver bullet to fix all challenges, at least something that can help setting direction and keep track of how the journey is going.

So, here I am:

• 38 years old
• A 3 month old son
• My fiancé
• A house under renovation with a garden that is screaming for some attention
• A "dream job" within the games-industry which is slowly suffocating me
• An introvert demeanor
• A handful of lazy and bad habits

The top of my mind is currently occupied with my work and career situation. It's always been important for me to "make it" in my career in one way or another. The drive for this probably comes from a less constructive motivation, such as: be seen as successful by friends and family, have status and respect within my business community, prove myself to be better than my origins - coming from a blue collar family and industry worker town, it has somehow become important to show it to them that I "made it". All of this is of course quite silly things to have as a drive, as none of them are achievable and are all are external - doing things to be accepted by others - instead of internal - doing things for myself.

Even though I still want to achieve something great within my line of work (more on this in a later post I think), I aim to reframe the drive so that it becomes something I do for my own sake and enjoyment. As I've been chasing promotions at my company for a while, something that just does not seem to happen anytime soon, I also want to find a better way to relate to my workplace. The bottom line there is that my success isn't important to them, they want to keep me happy and motivated of course, but my goals are not the same as their goals, and that is ok, they don't owe me a successful career in any way, but at the same time, I don't owe them all of my passion, drive and ambition either.

So.. where am I going with this?
I must stop chasing success within my company, not meaning that I'll start slacking off or stop caring, it's just that my self-esteem, self-value and creative drive can't be owned and defined by them, it needs to be defined by myself. I've been trying to drive forth a lot of creative ideas at this place, of which none has found any real traction and been brushed aside with explanations such as: we don't have the team to create that type of game and that I'm not trusted or experienced enough to drive those kind of projects.

My creative little soul is suffocating because of this, and I think the remedy is to start believing in myself that I can design and create a prototype of a game, that is convincing enough for a publisher to back up with some money for a proper production. I guess this means shaping a small company around myself, where I get to drive the creative side and reach out to the world with what I can create. My biggest challenge right now would be my own laziness and fear of doing all of the hard work it would take. Where the hell will that energy come from?

Whow, did you read it all to the end?
Thanks! Drop a hello, question or comment please, I'd love to hear about similar thoughts, experiences and challenges on this.

Edited November 26, 2020 by BattleOfMice

[BattleOfMice]

I'm bad at gratitude.
As a matter of fact, I'm turning more bitter and cynical for every year, somehow disappointed at how things have turned out. I've lost most of my interest in other human beings, as I often find it as a waste of energy to get along with everyone, I'm telling myself that I try to invest in a few quality relations instead, which may carry some truth.

It's hard to feel gratitude when the mindset already is that "the world owes me something". I have an intellectual awareness that this mindset is destructive for me of course, but it's one thing to understand something, another to truly change into a different belief that is also anchored on an emotional level. However, the "Fake it until you make it" approach is a way to start focusing on the positive aspects instead of the negative, so, without further ado, a small list of the things I'm grateful about.

1. My son - This little guy moved straight into my tarred hearth the moment I saw him look up at us with a little smile. I had some small worries during the pregnancy since I didn't start to feel the same strong connection I saw my fiancé have, but it all changed pretty quick as soon as I could see him and pick him up. It's enormous! I've never been someone who dreams about having a family or seen that as a life achievement. I still don't, but I truly love this new reality.

2. My pets - Got two little buggers that I take care off. I love caring for them, I love the affection they give back in their own odd little ways.

3. My fiancé - Just like me, she's had a bit of a bumpy road for a few years being burned out, depression, cancer operation, loosing her job and going into a bit of a life crisis. I'm amazed by how she trucks through it, even if there's been some periods with close to no energy or engagement from her. She's on her way back, and seeing her growing into the role as a mother is inspiring. I'm lucky to have this one in my life.

That's all for today
Peace out.

[Michael569]

Hey there and welcome to the forum! 

On 26/11/2020 at 10:59 PM, BattleOfMice said:

I must stop chasing success within my company, not meaning that I'll start slacking off or stop caring, it's just that my self-esteem, self-value and creative drive can't be owned and defined by them, it needs to be defined by myse

This is a powerful realisation. I've had one such couple years back. Make sure to stay openminded to the unorthodox solution and listen to your intuition, perhaps deep down you already have all the answers and only need to tune in

Anyways, I hope you'll find the answers you are looking for 

[Loving Radiance]

7 hours ago, BattleOfMice said:

gratitude

Something to consider:

Daily writing down 3 little or big things you are grateful for is life changing.

As a starter:

Take a look at the dreamboard. Maybe go through my bookmarks.

 

A warm welcome btw

Edited November 28, 2020 by Loving Radiance

[BattleOfMice]

17 hours ago, Michael569 said:

Hey there and welcome to the forum! 

This is a powerful realisation. I've had one such couple years back. Make sure to stay openminded to the unorthodox solution and listen to your intuition, perhaps deep down you already have all the answers and only need to tune in

Anyways, I hope you'll find the answers you are looking for 

Thanks for the welcome Michael  And yeah, this realization feels quite fantastic. I really enjoy working at my company, but it's so easy to fall into the notion of being defined and building an identity around a job-title and career, starting to exist mostly within their framework. Doing it the other way around is better, having a job and spending energy on that is one of the things I have within my own framework. Ah, going a bit fluffy and abstract here, but anyways, thanks again for the welcome.

17 hours ago, Loving Radiance said:

Something to consider:

Daily writing down 3 little or big things you are grateful for is life changing.
As a starter:

Take a look at the dreamboard. Maybe go through my bookmarks.

A warm welcome btw

Thanks for the welcome Radiance! Yeah that practice of acknowledging and writing down things I'm grateful about is absolutely what I'm going for here, maybe it comes of as sounding a bit negative explaining it like "fake it until you make it" but I think it is a good way of forcing the mind into paying attention on the positive aspects.

And thanks for the links, I've been looking for that kind of material here, looks like a collection of really good reads

[BattleOfMice]

So, let's see, time for a bit of a mind-dump on an area I want to get moving on.
This will mostly just be a train of thoughts that I want to get out from my head here.

TL;DR:

• At some point I want to start a company around me and one of my game ideas
• I feel like a dictator when I say that I want people to work towards my vision instead of being included in the fundamental vision setting
• I need to check some legal stuff with my company to clear the way for this type of side project

 

As mentioned, I work as a game-designer in the corporate machine. This means that I'm doing games that comes from someone else's vision - at best - most of the time it's just making game-design for a business case.  This is all good and dandy, but I want to reach out with my own ideas.

The pickle here is that I'm not prepared to risk my financial stability just yet, my family comes first and right now we're heavily dependent on my income. Otherwise this would be quite straight forward, just quit my job, find a publisher to back me up with some finances, assemble a team and get going. Not necessarily in that order and definitely not as easy as I made that sound, but that would be the gist of it.

So what I want to do is to develop the core of my idea while continuing my day-job. What I want to reach is a prototype that proves the game-play, fun-factor and which gives an idea of the content-scope required, then reach out to a publisher. This also comes from that I want a very strong ownership of the creative direction, then have a team create the product from that vision, but without any creative input on the larger picture from them. 

When I write this I realize how dictatory I sound, there's this notion inside of me that says that "hey everybody should be included and be able to be creative", but well.. no. If I would make a prototype and pitch around an idea that comes from me, find funding for it and hire people to work on it, then well.. they would of course be my employees just in the same way as I'm the employee at my current company and work at realizing their vision or business-case. 

Some obstacles in my way here is the obvious conflict of interest to my employer, luckily I live in a country where companies can't legally take ownership over everything their employees do, and I even think that there's a clause that can be added to my contract that would allow me to work on a side project, release it and earn money on it, as long as it isn't directly competing with the company's own products.

However, this is an area I really need to investigate, I need to sort this out early on so that I don't work on something for months or years, just to find out that the company see it as a competing product. It's also scary to reach out and investigate this, because it can mean that my current idea becomes a no-go. But hey, that's an early fail in that case which is a win, as I can refocus to something that can move forward.

 

Also.. gratitude list

1. Health! Me and my family have our health intact. We had a bit of a scare a few weeks back with one of our pets and the verdict was that she had a few months left to live at tops. Since then I've been caring for her, giving support feeding to bring her weight back up, created a new habitat and kept a daily cleaning schedule. We're not in the safe-zone yet and I dread the next visit to the veterinarian in case it shows that there's no actual improvement. But she seems happier, have regained some of her curiosity and started to eat a bit on her own again, so I'm hopeful. Beyond that, the rest of us are more or less as healthy as we can be. In some way, I'm also grateful of the negative experience of seeing one of my pets fall into illness, it gives such a huge perspective and realization on how fundamental health is and how much my family means to me.
2. I live in a country where I get taken care of if I fall into serious illness, without risking my private economy or going bankrupt in the process. There's of course different perspectives on if this socialist solution is good or not, but I'm trying to make a political statement or anything here, just acknowledging that for me, this solution is the best one and I'm grateful for it.
3. I'm grateful for the materialistic well-being I have, me and my family lack nothing and can live a comfortable life by all means. This without living in any relative luxury or fancy home compared to the norm in our part of the world, it's just that we have everything we really need and then some, and I'm happy we have that.

[BattleOfMice]

A day building up with self-doubt today.
Hard to snap out of, maybe organizing some thoughts help.

As usual, it's work related, as my identity and self-value is tightly connected to what I work with, what status I have at my workplace and how I perform. This is of course all insane when looking at it with some perspective - still, these notions tend to creep up on me, something to be ever vigilant about.

Right now I'm between projects in a sense, doing things that are a few steps below my pay grade until there is a project that needs whatever it is that I'm supposedly good at again. There's also a strong vagueness about what my next assignment will be, combined with some a starter that where recruited into a role I wanted to step up to. Long story short, this leaves me with a strong feeling that I'm not trusted by my manager and fear that my role will be something towards the mundane side moving forward. I tend to overthink things to much of course, creating speculative ideas about how the future will look, but being left without decisions or answers that is where my mind tends to go.

Then again, being left in this feeling of insecurity speaks in its own way. Not sure it is comparable, but when flirting with girls for example, it's easy to tell if she's interested or not. If she's interested, you'll know, if not interested you'll feel confused. This may be a little bit of the same, if I DID have a bright future here with growing responsibilities and challenged, then I'd know because people would be willing to invest in me, I would be put in front of the next assignment. As I walk around feeling confused and not knowing, of course it doesn't mean that my days are counted and that I wont have a more fitting assignment than I have now, but it could mean that I'm not on the upwards trajectory that I would like to have, rather a quite flat trajectory.

Speculations of course, but if nothing else it confirms yet again that I don't feel great when my destiny is someone else's hands. The real remedy here is to get going on that own project, eyes on that prize, that is where I want to go. Working at a company that gives me a flat-line career is just means to an end for the time being and it shouldn't even feel important. It's laughable really. A more professional manager would put his personal feeling aside and use the skills he has on his team to their full extent, but as he don't trust me (there's some background to that statement), maybe he's not able to see further than his trust.

That's another whole area, the importance of building up trust. It can take ages to build up, seconds to ruin, double the time to build up from ruins, which is sort of what happened between me and this manager of mine. Once more, I'm not here to "make it" within his narrow framework, I'm here to make it within my own framework, where my manager, job, project, roles and flat career curve is just puzzle pieces of a way larger picture.

Gratitude

1. Todays one and a half hour nap with my son sleeping on my chest.
2. Flexible work hours, allowing me to take care of the rest of my life-puzzle and everyday business without bending over backwards
3. My girlfriend making our home ready for the holidays with all the lights and decorations. Even my Grinch-soul has to enjoy it.