"Complacency is a state of mind that exists only in retrospective: it has to be shattered before being ascertained."

~ Vladimir Nabokov

~~~

"I might take an art workshop while I'm off", I said as we looked over the lunch menu on the wall.

Miss K.'s head whipped around and she shot me a look. "Not while you're off", she said, "but during your transition. This is your TRAN-SI-TION, this is NOT time off."

She was right and I was shocked, shocked at how quickly - not to mention easily - complacency had settled in while I worked so hard for it not to!

I knew I'd have a mind game on my hands when I chose to take a one-year leave of absence from the office instead of quitting outright to pursue other options. I mean, there's nothing quite like leaving a full-time job with benefits and a pension to light that bring-home-the-bacon fire under your a$$ right?

Nope. Because it's a built-in safety net, a leave of absence just doesn't have the same effect. It leaves more room to get lazy. But for various (and thought out) reasons it's what I chose and it comes with its consequences.

Awareness is key, but it seems sometimes even that isn't enough.

So between now and the end of the month, the official starting point of my transitional work journey, I'll pick my flabbergasted bottom jaw up from the floor, heed my new-found respect for Complacency and come up with strategies to circumvent it.

No doubt one of them will be more lunches with Miss K.