20 days to go...

A quiet day of writing.

I picked up Maxwell’s book The 360˚ Leader that I bought last week at Changi airport. It was written for people who are located anywhere except at the top of their organization, and wish to develop their influence all around to bosses, peers, and subordinates. This concept certainly applies to me, and I look forward to learning from the book. Until now, I used to think of this as horizonal leadership, that is, how to be a leader without having authority over others.

As Jakarta struggled to resolve its flooding problems today, including outages of television and some telephone services, I wrote, and wrote, and kept writing. The stories were for my work, but cast in the form of articles that would hopefully attract a readership in this world of information overload. I have decided in these past months to devote much more attention to writing, of any sort. So I relish any writing assignment, even though I still suffer from writer’s block and procrastination.

Now I wonder what to write about… I didn’t experience much today outside my writing. I had nice chats over breakfast and cocktails with my friends / colleagues. Other than that, it was a solitary day except for talking over Skype with my daughters. I’m getting sleepy now, as I write, which is not surprising as it is already almost midnight.

My chat over drinks this evening touched upon future plans. My friend left the organization I work for about eight years ago, and we agreed that transitioning to a new job well before retirement is a healthy thing to do. We both observed that many people who stay in my organization until retirement at 60 are getting stressed and cynical in their final five years before retirement. We agreed it is better to leave before that and follow our passion for work we enjoy.

My Australian friend who returned home yesterday also did this, and he commented how nice it is to devote all his working time to tasks he enjoys doing, without suffering from stress induced by the organization. He has the freedom to choose work he likes, and to manage his own time.

However, I am not yet looking for a quick change. I like the work I do, and I know that I can influence people all around me. And I have enough freedom so far to shift work priorities to allow myself to keep growing. I am truly lucky in this. And at the same time, I am also developing plans for future work outside the organization, and I intend to develop and hone my talents to be able to make a transition in the coming years. It’s nice to keep in touch with positive minded people who have already made a major transition in their midlife period. There’s lots to exchange and encourage each other about. And to laugh at all the self-induced stresses in large organizations like the one I work for.

Photograph: The Chinese new year is coming, and my rebirth at 50 – a celebration of golden bamboo on a bright red background (department store decoration, Plaza Senayan)