Most of us feel like we’re swamped, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of things on our plate: work, family, commuting, finances, personal and professional commitments. The list goes on. It seems like we’re all scheduled out and there’s no spare time left in our calendar. If we’re being real honest with ourselves, we already know, deep down inside, that it’s not good to run wide-open 24/7. Keep that type of routine up for too long, and our body will eventually shut things down for us.
But it’s really hard for most of us to be able to take a break. Ironically, we have to put in more work to make the time to do less. For most people, it can take a good bit of logistical gymnastics, twisting and turning things around just to clear up some space on the schedule for us to relax.
It’s not often, in our busy lives, that we have free time; the space to just sit and decompress, without having to worry about anything. A place for it all to stop, if only for a little while.
Even when we do get some of that elusive free time, we often spend it worrying about all the things we’ll need to catch back up on when we do get back to the grind. Or worse, we don’t even try to stop, instead spending every waking minute staring at our screens, never taking time to really savor the moment.
We find ourselves not really paying attention to what’s happening now, and “now” is really the only time we can influence. We’re always lost in some other moment, worrying about things that are over and done with, or fretting about something in the future that may never even come to pass.
If we could only stop for a moment and smell the proverbial flowers, we’d be in a much better state. We need to recognize the fact that it’s important to carve out some “me time,” and we need to act upon that knowledge. We need time for ourselves, if for nothing more than to take a momentary break from all the chaos of our daily lives. How we end up spending that time is much less important than simply taking the break in the first place. As the Nike tagline says, just do it.
Worrying about things that are over and done with, or fretting about something in the future that may never even come to pass.
When I’m in the middle of “me time,” I enjoy sitting quietly and thinking. Recently I was reflecting on how fortunate I’ve been to have had such a long inspection career. I’ve been doing this since 2000 and have seen a whole lot of things come to pass. I can definitely say that I’ve learned a few things over those years, but, alas, every lesson carries a price. Most of the lessons I’ve learned have caused me pain —financial, emotional, and/or physical— in some form or fashion.
While it often hurts (in the moment) to have these experiences, most of us wouldn’t have it any other way. The current incarnation of ourselves is a combination of our education and experience. We became the inspectors we are today by learning things, and hopefully we never become stagnant in that quest for more knowledge.
One of the things that I’ve enjoyed about having such a long career is that I’m often given the opportunity to share my painful stories with other inspectors. My hope is that learning about my problems and how I handled each one of them may help other inspectors better recognize potential problems before they happen in their careers.
I mean, think about it. When it comes down to basics, we’re all doing the same thing (inspecting properties) with our own little spin added. More often than not, that similarity means that we’re all experiencing very similar problems. Yes, every situation is unique, but when you see enough of them, you start to recognize patterns, parallels between these seemingly random problem events in our lives. Used appropriately, these patterns can serve to guide us through the minefield of a career as a professional home inspector.
The attitude we should adopt is to use our heads and learn those things that suit our conditions, absorbing whatever experience is useful to us.
Mao Zedong (paraphrased)
If we’re able to learn from someone else’s negative experiences, educating ourselves about the typical problems faced by people in our industry, we’ll be more skilled, better able to see problems coming and adjust our path accordingly.
In an effort to share my experiences, I’ve chronicled my recent adventures into hosting streaming classes on Zoom. For info on what I’ve done, and what’s coming up, CLICK HERE.
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Thanks, Joe
