The Bravohood

Hey BH,

I am posting this because I am curious if any of my brothers here have experienced something like this in their lives. I have entered a new phase of my life. I am managing one of the largest and most important projects of my life now. I was promoting to a level of management in the IT company and I have a pretty serious amount of responsibility now. This is something I take very seriously and it has really begun to dominate my life in a bizarre way.

I have been having a difficult time going out with friends and experiencing life the way I used to. I am in the planning phase of this operation and it will be an enterprise level deployment. It has been on my mind on weekends as well and there is so much to take control of I just have wanted to dedicate my weekends as well. Although this has granted me a deeper level of success than I have ever experienced before I am also experiencing a void of discontentment and unhappiness.

I miss the game and going out and talking to people. I miss meeting people regularly. I have a difficult time going from the programming mindset to the social one. Once I hire a couple more people (which I am working on now) I think it will get a lot easier and take some of the stress and responsibility away. I was wondering if anybody can relate to this in their lives and how they dealt with this.

I am 33 and worked a very long time to earn this and I absolutely am honored and love this new responsibility. I knew I was going to have to make sacrifices but I just wish I had a better formula for being able to get back into the game my one or 2 nights off. When I have gone out I have just had so much on my mind it has been hard to enjoy myself. I have the same 2 girls that are friends but not girlfriends that I see...but I would love to focus on meeting more women.

Does anybody have advice for going through a phase like this? You know would not sacrifice your new position but want to make some steps towards a more rounded life of happiness.

Thanks guys for your thoughts.

Farmer would be a great person to talk to about this so hopefully he'll chime in, probably after all the Halloween festivities are over.

My advice would be to force yourself to be more social in your everyday interactions. You don't necessarily have to be gaming, but be social with people and have conversations at the grocery store, when you eat out, when you get gas, etc. If an opportunity to game comes up, go for it.

Then when you are out on the weekends, it won't be so much of a transition. Being social will be part of who you are.

You could also join groups or start one where you live with other professionals. Host dinner parties, events, whatever.

And congratulations on doing so well. Remember to be appreciative of the many blessings in your life rather than dwelling on the sacrifice. I think you will be much happier if you do. And leave work at work as much as possible. Dwelling on it while you are out won't accomplish anything for work or fun, so stop doing it. Easier said than done, I'm sure, but try to catch yourself and consciously tell yourself to stop and embrace the moment.

Thanks Maestro for taking the time to write a sincere response like that. That was nice of you. I appreciate the compliments as well. I agree and I feel very blessed for such an amazing opportunity to have granted such position after 4 years of really hard work. I will try like you suggest and just forcing myself to be more social in my every day interactions. I think joining a group of some sort would be great of my life right now.

I think I just have been so overwhelmed and I am always trying to over plan and figure things out to be ahead. I am very appreciative of my new life and will try to get back out there with little steps after work.

Thanks Maestro for your sincere advice.

" Too often we make a separation in our lives- there is work and there is life outside work, where we find real pleasure and fulfillment. Work is often seen as a means for making money so we can enjoy that second life that we lead. Even if we derive some satisfaction from our careers, we still tend to compartmentalize our lives in this way. " (Mastery, Robert Greene page 27)

I have read this passage a few times this month alone, trying to understand the concept and the through process on how to change it. Now I just realized what Mr.Greene was referring to. He was implying that even though we spend so much time at work we still tend to view it as solely a place to either to solely gather money to do fun things or something that we focus on to build our careers we want. But, we can do both. We can make friends, we can interact, there is no stopping any of that besides our own mentality.

Thanks Snipes for posting this you cleared up some thoughts and ideas, I was trying to wrap my brain around! I don't know if I added any insight, but you helped me gain some.

Can't say I can relate to this man, but congratso n the good business life and taking the next step forward...