Anticipation

As school children, we anticipated the start of a new school year every year. We wondered who our teacher would be and who would be in our class. And every so often, we'd anticipate going to a new school, or if we were lucky, a new summer camp. And of course, we'd anticipate presents for our birthday or a favorite holiday. Anticipation added zest to our lives!

I'm not surprised that the older I get, the less I experience something exciting to look forward to. I've given up the idea of going to school. And I'm less than thrilled about my birthday and Christmas, which is the Square Peg gift-giving holiday. Instead anticipation usually comes to me in the form of worry: what outcome will the lab test have? Or how high will the price of oil rise this winter? Or what if I can't think of something interesting to blog about every day in November? (Hint, write about anticipation!)

But right now I am enjoying the anticipation of moving into a brand-new office on Monday. I've been cleaning out my drawers, which sounds more nasty than it actually is. And I've thrown out boxes of old papers and journals -- an exhilarating accomplishment!

If you're not a hoarder, you might not understand how liberating it feels to throw away lots of stuff. But if you can imagine hiking up a hill with a backpack that contains heavy electronic equipment -- devices that constantly remind you about unfinished work, devices that make loud embarrassing noises that disturb the serenity of your surroundings and keep people away from you, devices that interfere with your compass readings, so you're not sure if you're going in the right direction, devices that are so bulky they leave no room for other things to carry, like an interesting rock, a map or a rain poncho, and it's even hard to breathe because of how much they're pressing into you. Now imagine you're at the edge of a steep cliff. You remove the backpack, open it, and dump everything out over the edge. Now you have a very light backpack with ample room for stuff. You're finally at peace with your surroundings. You can breathe easy. That's how I feel now.

And, I'm looking forward to working in a new space, with new furniture, a new telephone system to learn, and new cubicle mates. (They put us older engineers together.) The network will be ten times faster. We'll have a library plus three conference rooms instead of one room serving as both a conference room and library. The cafeteria is spacious. It's like starting over at a new company!

Anticipation. I like it. How can I experience this more often?