{"id":2012,"date":"2014-05-13T10:43:39","date_gmt":"2014-05-13T14:43:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/?p=2012"},"modified":"2014-05-13T10:43:39","modified_gmt":"2014-05-13T14:43:39","slug":"voting-with-your-two-feet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wrote-about\/voting-with-your-two-feet\/","title":{"rendered":"Voting with your two feet"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>\n  If your time is being wasted, ignore sunk costs and change your situation by voting with your two feet.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I was initially skeptical of these bite-sized chunks of advice, seemingly for the self-employed followers of bliss. Though as I make my way through <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B000SEOWBG?tag=arctpala-20\">Twyla Tharp&#8217;s The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life<\/a> I awoke this morning with a different perspective. I thought, this is advice I could apply to my life as well. So I gave it a shot.<\/p>\n<p>At first read, I thought this was telling me to quit my job and walk away. That&#8217;s not feasible for a life constructed around the stable income. One that gives my wife the freedom to experiment. I am the rock. She is the stone.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>If your time is being wasted, ignore sunk costs and change your situation by voting with your two feet.&mdash; Garrick van Buren (@garrickvanburen) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/garrickvanburen\/statuses\/465840261327618048\">May 12, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>At second read, I took it to mean <em>get up and take a walk.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>When I have a problem I can&#8217;t solve, I hit my head against it until I was exhausted. Frustrated and no closer to a solution, I&#8217;m slowly learning to step away. To <em>change my situation by voting with my two feet.<\/em> To take a walk. Think about something else. Do <strong>anything<\/strong> else.<\/p>\n<p>Even getting up to get a cold drink resets my mind. At a former job, we had a soda fountain in the building. When I hit a problem I couldn&#8217;t see my way past, I would walk by my co-worker&#8217;s desk and utter a single word. &#8220;Drink?&#8221; And with that, we&#8217;d head upstairs to the fountain. With icy cold Cokes in hand, we&#8217;d chat about life, work, writing, whatever weird Internet thing we&#8217;d come across that day.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes we&#8217;d ride the elevator all the way up, or all the way down. Just for a few extra moments of conversation. Sometimes with others, but often alone, we&#8217;d chat and laugh. Then, when I got back to my desk, fueled by good cheer, cold carbonation and a few moments of joy, I would stare down the problem. And more often than not, a solution would come to me.<\/p>\n<p>So next time I come upon a seemingly insurmountable problem, or one I just can&#8217;t seem to think through, I&#8217;m going for a walk. And maybe a drink.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If your time is being wasted, ignore sunk costs and change your situation by voting with your two feet. I was initially skeptical of these bite-sized chunks of advice, seemingly for the self-employed followers of bliss. Though as I make my way through Twyla Tharp&#8217;s The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"New Post: Voting with your two feet","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[610,609,319],"class_list":["post-2012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wrote-about","tag-advice","tag-garrickvanburen","tag-walk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2012"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2050,"href":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012\/revisions\/2050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peroty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}