I’ve been enjoying my tumbling content on here ever since I switched to this design (which is built on a standalone install of WordPress) late last year. To be honest though, considering that I was situated alone on my own island, my tumblog content was never gonna have the same traction as it would have in a community like Tumblr.

So I’ve been considering switching this design over to Tumblr and then just keeping my longer written articles on here (eg. all of my Project 52 contributions) and in the past week I actually ported this design over to Tumblr (the design is too awesome to lose imo). But if you’re reading this, then you’re still reading it on WordPress and not Tumblr…

Before I get into the reasons for not switching to Tumblr, I’d just like to tell you why I was even considering switching:

• There’s a community on Tumblr, which makes the sharing & distribution of one’s content much, much easier. The re-blog functionality is especially awesome and it is also something that I can’t replicate on a standalone version of WordPress.
• Even though I’ve replicated most of Tumblr’s posting functionality in my WordPress environment (something that we’ll also be implementing at WooThemes soon), it is still not as easy and quick to update my tumblog as it would be on Tumblr.

So why didn’t I switch then? Basically I found that I was being limited in terms of porting this design over in its current state. Tumblr has some awesome template tags, but they’re not as flexible as WordPress is, which is a shame. For most people considering Tumblr though, this wouldn’t be an issue, because they could design around those apparent limitations. For me, it has meant that I will continue to tumble on my lonely island over here.

I’ve been looking at my life in the wrong way.

Everything I’ve been aiming to implement in terms of my workflow, productivity, emotional well-being, happiness, ambition etc. have been within the average context of the rest of the world.

Why haven’t I gone about this in a more unique way? Simple: it ain’t that easy.

I have however decided that whilst I may not know exactly how to go about this “revolution” in my life, I won’t settle for this constant feeling of unrest & uncertainty. Having also had a generally awesome January thus far (and I’ve been dedicated in hitting most of my goals for 2010), I can’t bash my existing day-to-day life too much, but there is nothing that is not optimized just yet; something that is not quite Adii.

I think I’m past the fact that I need to steer clear of the online world every now and again, need to exercise more and all the other “become a happier you”-stuff (I’m already doing pretty well in achieving all of these). The inherent problem with all of these theories are that they were conceptualized to be generic and once again: average with the context of the rest of the world. On a certain level, this doesn’t relate to personal happiness and instead it just perpetuates this rat-race towards achieving a personal zen of sorts (which is contradictory, since most of the measures should take you away from the rat-race).

Revolution is on its way. In one form or another (TBA).

Last week I was able to write a really long piece on being prepared to work hard. For my 3rd Project 52 post, I’d like to expand my thoughts on the matter of hard work and would like to explain why I don’t necessarily that I’m “working” in the average sense of the word. We’ve all heard the mantra “When you love your job, you’ll never work again.” and whilst there is incredible truth in that, I don’t think that it fully captures why it is seemingly true. If I could elaborate on that concept (my interpretation thereof), I’d like to believe that you’ll never feel as if you’re really “working” when the following is in place:

• Passion. It all starts with the passion you have for your job and the industry + marketplace + economy that it falls into. Without an almost addictive passion for your job, you will never be able to sustain your happiness or ambition in one job in the longer term.
• Love. For me, the love comes after the passion and the love should be for your actual work. In this sense the work is the actual stuff / tasks that you need to take care of on a daily, weekly & monthly basis, whilst your job is more of a holistic, “catch-all” description of what you do.
• Environment. There’s nothing like hating your job, because everything about it feels like a sucky, 9 - 5 corporate job. Having a workspace which allows you to exercise the above mentioned passion & love, will really take away all of the nitty-gritty involved with doing your job, as the crap stuff associated with it is kinda hidden behind a layer of awesomeness & tranquility around you.

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting alone in our offices on a Saturday morning and I really couldn’t be happier.** Nothing I’ve done this morning has felt like work, as I feel so inspired about everything that is happening in & around WooThemes, Radiiate & The Rockstar Foundation that it’s easy to get lost in my passion, love & the environment in which those two things really catch fire. If you can’t write a blog post like this about your job, you seriously need to consider changing it. I believe everybody deserves the right to love their job and I also believe that the real value for employers is having employees that truly love what they do.

** I could be doing many other things that would make me happier. I try not work on weekends on a regular basis (especially not on beautiful Saturday mornings), but I lost some work-time in the week due personal situations, which means I need to make a few sacrifices in order to catch up.