Operation Jailbreak

I've worked in the company for long enough and the project I am working on has gotten delayed for some technical difficulties. Some management level people are giving it about 6 months for a redesign and testing. From my perspective it will take 9 months if we are lucky, easily 1 year if we don't have any problems and possibly longer if something bad happens. After that the technology needs to be commercialized, brought to mass production and etc, which will probably take another year or 2. Meaning that it is going to be at least 3 years until a product gets out the door.

It would be nice to have a notch on the belt if this project succeeds, but I don't have forever to wait for things to work. Given market timing sensitivities, other project challenges and even the risk of the project failing, I don't have time to waste for something like that. I want success and I want it now.

There are something that are worth waiting for, but when it comes to putting your life on hold for something that may or may not materialize, what's the point, seriously? You only live once and I'd rather put my time into something more worth while and thus I have decided to start "operation jailbreak."

I think I am done with the 9-5 work life (which actually is more towards the 9-7 pm) , I can do the job and I am properly equipped for the job but the job isn't inspiring or rewarding enough and I don't think that I am producing something that is tangible to me. It's a nice to have but I really don't care about the thing that we are developing, putting in 3 more years of my life into this project isn't worth it, it means that I need an out.

Moving on, new plans:

A job is like being in a relationship, a friend of mine once mentioned to me that when you start to think that it's over, it probably was... 2 months ago. The job makes me money, but it doesn't bring me a sense of accomplishment, pride or joy. It doesn't add additional tangible value to my life other than money, I want a to be free and happy. If being rich ends up being a side of affect of attaining these goals, so be it... but I am not going to sacrifice being "free and happy" for a secondary objective.

Fortunately for me I've been keeping good track of my finances and I know what I need to be making to survive and generally how much I need to make to meet long term goals. What I have not added to the my life plans is an image of what exactly the kind of life that I want to live. The most important thing to me is to reduce the number of hours and be able to take time off whenever I want instead of being at the whim of some company.

There are other lifestyles out there that are more free and open allowing me to spend time more thinking and studying instead of working at an office all day. To be honest, I don't want to think of "work" as "work" anymore, but rather as "something worth doing, well." For me, (and I do not know for others) when I do something worth doing, I will spend the long hours laboring to do something well. I used to do this when I taught classes while at university, I did find some of the practical applications of what I was learning to be genuinely fascinating and I wanted to bring the same level of interest to inspire my peers. I was usually quite well known for my seminars when I was a graduate student. I miss those, as I haven't had the right kind of environment or people to do these kinds of things to do with anyone anymore, hence forth I've gotten a little rusty with my presentation skills. I've also been slacking with writing on the blog, which has been impacting my writing skills. But I digress...

The new long term goals:

The new goals are to work less and remain financially stable. The idea of working in a company is incongruent with my first goal and thus I will be looking to quit and go my own way in the future. Instead of an abrupt change out from my current working situation, I will be looking to pull a fade out by looking to generate "passive income". The goal will be to start by generating $50/weekday, then move up to $100/day and then to $200/day. I think these are realistic goals. Passive income at about $200/day over a year should equate to about $48k/year. If I can pull something like this off, then I am going to be pretty damn happy.

There are several avenues that I want to explore for this so I'll be dedicating my off hours to cultivating skills to make this a reality.