I decided that I was investing too much into my job, and not enough into myself. So, I quit my job, and now I am on a Spirit Quest.

Okay, fine. I’m just unemployed. But, telling people that I’m on a “Spirit Quest” sounds a lot more inspirational. Everybody immediately envisions glorious imagery such as the following:

And, that’s pretty much what it feels like, too!

So far during this first week, I have managed to:

1. Deep clean my apartment
2. Update my ancient LinkedIn profile
3. Reconnect with old friends
4. Setup a VPN for my apartment
5. Release a new version of my Dispatcher Library that leverages TypeScript
6. Make forward progress on my MUD Game Engine
7. Stream several live-coding sessions on my Twitch Channel.

Interestingly, I’ve found these live-coding sessions are a great way to overcome mental blocks. They effectively change the goal from “how do I design this?” to “let’s show the audience the thought process behind this.”. For whatever reason, this makes it a lot easier for me to put code in place and move on. I just explain to the audience that “this is a temporary solution that will allow us to focus on this other part of the problem instead”. BOOM — that mental block has been crushed!

(Yes, somehow a “mental block” no longer refers to “blockage”. It’s more like a “concrete block” now, which can be crushed. Sigh… just roll with it!)

Anyway, that’s all I have for now. I’m looking forward to week 2 of my Spirit Quest!