Life and death

I went to Marcus' funeral this morning and it was very touching.  The rabbi spoke about Marcus' life in the UK and how he came to South Africa in the 1930s and met Sheila.  He also talked about how the tailor's mantra, measure twice, cut once is a lesson about being cautious and perhaps even living deliberately.  After the funeral service had ended I walked up to my Dad's grave and read the inscription again (I always read it when I visit his grave).  We picked a quote from his journal for the inscription on his stone which reads "Life is not anything: It is the opportunity for something".  

I actually think my sister suggested that quote for the stone when we were deciding which one to choose and it was a good choice.  I didn't know where he found that quote until a few minutes ago.  It turns out that quote was by the philosopher Goethe although I suspect my Dad came across it in Viktor Frankel's writings.

Wherever he found it, it is a powerful thought and it really fits into my thinking lately about my life and my work.  It feels a bit like I have been operating on autopilot for the last few years and now that my priorities are shifting towards caring for our baby when he arrives and providing for my family, especially when Gina is on maternity leave, I have found myself working harder and more deliberately and also shifting my work towards work that has more meaning for me.  I am doing some volunteer work for a non-profit called The African Commons Project which will hopefully help develop my career further and which also helps me achieve something meaningful in the "save the world" kind of way, even if it is on a smaller scale.  TACP runs the local Creative Commons efforts as well as facilitates the local iCommons presence so it is pivotal in the open culture and open society movements here in South Africa and even globally.

Another interesting direction I seem to be taking is not at all what I often hoped for.  For the last few years I have been working on some or other business intended to take me out of law and into something else and yet as I work towards something more meaningful and enjoyable (not to mention profitable), I find myself heading deeper into law.  This is obviously where I need to be for the time being.  Even my work for the TACP is based on law and policy.

So while the quantity and quality of my work improves (the last 2 months have been crazy) I find myself hitting another wall.  I am working so much I have less time too spend with Gina and our friends.  That is a tough situation for me.  I have been in favour of a real work-life balance for years now and it just seems that one of the advocates I brief was right when he said that balance is really relative.  He works crazy hours but his balance is working at home at night so at least he can see his family.  This is becoming a truth for me.  I work from home so I am here when Gina goes to work and when she comes home.  I am here with the puppies and if Gina comes home for lunch, I am usually here to have lunch with her.  What I really don't like is when I have to work on weekends or in the evening when I would rather spend time with her but I just don't think that can really be helped.  My work is still time dependent so if I am going to earn more to provide for all our expenses (at least the ones I am responsible for) then I have to work longer hours and that upsets Gina.  I don't blame her at all.  It must be really frustrating to see me sitting at my desk day in and day out and not be able to get much more than a few short sentences out of me.

At the same time I really don't want to turn into one of these lawyers who never sees their family and who is working from 7am to 9pm 5 days a week and half the weekend so I think I will at least work from home for the foreseeable future.  My goal is to earn enough to cover our expenses every month and then some more so we don't have to worry whether we can afford take out or even to eat out a couple times a month.  Earning big bucks is appealing but as Gina pointed out to me a little while ago, true wealth isn't always about money, it is perhaps more about my family, our home, the puppies driving us nuts sometimes.

In a way it all comes back to Marcus for me today.  He was a tailor and I don't think tailors earn huge amounts of money.  Their home isn't fancy but what they did have was each other.  Marcus also apparently had a fantastic work ethic and was really dedicated to his clients.  He also seems to have been really dedicated to his family and these are all things to aspire to.

I know this post is a rambling post.  It is just some stuff I have been thinking about the last few days ...