Tests failed, Tests passed.

 The last months the bulk of my energy has gone into my new day job that i started in the second week of June. The job has been tough. It has taken a lot of my willpower to keep doing it. I have felt at times like I am hanging on my fingernails.

I am a very spiritual attitude towards it.  I have this conviction that everything about this job is a test. In fact it has felt weirdly like a reprise of all the tests I have failed over the last twenty years in various jobs. The little bit of grace I have gotten in this job seems to be from the few tests. I actually passed. For this reason I must see it through, or else I will get these same tests again, only harder. That's the way it works. if you kick the can down the road, it only gets more difficult.

My job entails being in charge of a team of four engineers. The fact that it is management is important to me. But it is difficult in part because the engineers live on the other side of the world. Even keeping weird hours, they do most of their work during the night here. So to get a jump on things, and not look like an idiot on the management call in the morning here, I have been getting up at 2:30 AM. It lets me do some work in uninterrupted concentration, because once the day starts, it is impossible to devote any time to concentration. My time may be borrowed at any time. I hate it. 

The hour between 3 AM and 4 Am belongs to me. I make coffee and drink it. I linger in prayer, and read a Bible passage that I find in the Bible I got for my confirmation, which remained pristine for years, and then grew very ragged during 2011-2012 while I drove around the country in a spiritual crisis. The worn cover reminds me of those times.  Among the prayers I pray is to be able to do my job well.

How my life would have been different had I been so conscientious all this time, I think. 

The job tires me out so that by Friday afternoon I am exhausted, in a good way, the way working people are. This despite the fact that it is optional for me to go into the office most days (part of the grace granted to me by passing previous tests, by being responsible while working remotely).