Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
Sick
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2012 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
Just returned from San Francisco. I could feel the tickle in my throat start late Monday afternoon. With zinc, citrusy or chamomile herbal teas, Emergen'C, whiskey, Thai curries, and cough drops, I was able to delay the real misery of the cold until after I got off the plane last night. (A flight attendant issued me booze, forgot to charge me for it, then waved away my attempts to pay. Free as in beer -- still sometimes a novelty.)
It still surprises me how miserable I find it to be sick. My fine motor control goes away. My speech goes aphasic. I cannot meet my own standards of competence, so I have to take a day off work, but since my ambitions remain the same, it's just a frustrating day of the hamster wheel in my head fruitlessly spinning.
I am grumpy and bad company but Leonard is sweetness and light. I don't know how he does it. I am in my thirties and I need to recognize what I'm just not good at. Maybe I will always be dissatisfied and impatient.
Comments
Mel
http://blog.melchua.com
12 Dec 2012, 20:16 p.m.
Avram
http://grumer.org/
15 Dec 2012, 2:42 a.m.
Maybe some other people on the plane caught your cold. Then it'd be free-as-in-speech, too! Y'all could get your immune systems logged into a bug-testing database and collaborate on producing antibodies. With many throats, all coughs are shallow, or something like that.
Oh man. Feel better, Sumana -- apple cider vinegar, hot water, and honey is my favorite sickness remedy chug, but you probably have your own.
Re: dissatisfied and impatient -- I think low-pass filters and high-pass filters tend to balance each other out. :) There are times when quick action and a twitch that won't stop until the status quo is changed is an advantage.
Question: what are your standards of competence, and are they the metrics you want to judge yourself by as a person, or the goals you'd like to reach as a worker? (If not, what do you want those standards to be?)