Can't have it both ways...

SO, I'm something of a person of extremes. Oh, I'm open minded about most things, not inclined to polarized rants much....but in lifestyle and pattern, I tend to run hot or cold. I am one to be all out, in deep, 100% into something.

I suppose that sounds good, as if it suggested a degree of focus, a mindset of discipline, a forthrightness that is all-Kansas.

On the other hand, the ugly misshapen hand of truth, here's what happens to me: I get so far to an extreme it's hard to switch it up, to regroup, to reconfigure, to clock out. If, for instance, I were a mercenary, I would not know my bounds, and I might knock some one off in expression of my road rage. If I were a person of the cloth, I would not be able to reach the level of purity and intimacy with my deity that seemed The Right Place to be.

And so it is with work. I can run white hot for work, burning the proverbial candle in a blast furnace frenzy of focused labor. OR, I can be unplugged at home, not even checking email for days at a time, just building stuff, playing with kids, loving home (this extreme has only recently been learned and appreciated, say, in the last 5 years).

Unfortunately, it is VERY HARD for me to switch gears. When the new semester starts, I am now finding myself like a bear coming out of hibernation (at least in the winter) or like one of those groggy people who are just not morning people (I still cannot understand them!). I go through motions, but it takes me days and days to get my game on, to charge up my workforce engines.

And, alas, now that I'm fully engaged, I'm finding it VERY HARD to go home at night. Oh, I know it's where I'd rather be, that all this work is just what I do so that I can have a home and pay the bills....but it's extremely difficult for me to disconnect, to let it go, to leave work at work.

Why is that?
Used to be, I had a job that was something of a calling, a Mission. I was leading people out of apathy, helping to do my little part to save the world through service, to burn as purely altruistic as I could. That job, of course, was impossible to leave at work, for it was a lifestyle.

But now? grading papers and designing course content? I have a hard time pulling back from it, for I know that if I do, it's just going to be that much harder tomorrow to get back up in the saddle again. I will lose hours to ramping up, when I could otherwise just stay at it a few more hours...

...but I'd rather be home (in my heart of hearts) regardless of the lost time and inefficiency of retooling and warming up to it again. The reward of home and hearth and loved ones is much more powerful.

So, I go.