A vision for myself

Much to my surprise :-), my thoughts about long-term work are converging. The below is what might work for me. Since I have the tendency to change my mind 5 times a day, this may not go anywhere, but I think it will.

I would like to work as an outside consultant or on contractual basis for short term assignments. This fits my 'short attention span' kind of personality. I also am energized by working on clear and meaningful deliverables in short timespans (though I also get stressed out due to the same). Consulting kind of work seems to fit my personality in other ways. I have usually felt underqualified, overqualified and frustrated (all at the same time) at most of the jobs I have done :-). I think this kind of work will keep me happy rather than a corporate job. I will get to meet lot of different people and different work environments, which stimulates me.

I have several things that I can do in this kind of a consulting role. One is 'project management'. The job I am doing at Arghyam is a perfect example of that. They have a very clear deliverable (putting up the water portal), very clear deadline and timeframe (the PM is scheduled to be launching it in January). They have done a lot of work already but they needed a central person to pull it together and keep the project on track and keep people on the same page. This kind of thing seems to fire me up and get me going. I also helped Timbaktu to put together their Annual Report (read it!) and enjoyed that. I would love to be able to do this for more organizations. There is an organization called the Project Management Institute and I can join them and get some qualifications to make myself sound more impressive.
One thing that I found on the sabbatical is that 'ordinary people' (ie. non IT, non big city people) are tremendously appreciative if someone of that background tries to contribute something to them. It feels very good. I would love to work some of the time in those kind of environments instead of always following the money to the big cities and IT companies.
Another is the kind of thing I did at Bijapur. I would love to travel to different colleges and interact with the students and raise their awareness and capabilities. On the Vizag trip I interacted very briefly with a Physics teacher at Timpany school. She was really happy that I took the time to talk to her, and I have been interested in curriculum development and teacher development kind of things. So if I can do some stuff like that too, it would be great.

Like Arghyam and Timbaktu I can continue to work with social work organizations. This is criticall important to the vision. I can multiplex working for corporates and working for non-profits in a ratio that works for me and keep me really happy and fulfilled. Of course working for non-profits would be much less renumerative, and I might do things for free too.

Doing consulting means that after x months I can take a break, theoritically for as long as I want. This is *great* and something that I critically seem to need.

I would love to continue writing when I get the time, either through blogging or some other avenue. If I can get paid for it too, it would be really fulfilling and fit in perfectly with the overall picture. In the ideal dream picture I would have multiple income streams coming from doing multiple things that I like and at any given time I could be concentrating on any one of them.
I also want to spend a decent amount of time on personal development kind of things. I did a Landmark refresher course recently by the way but it didn't do much for me unfortunately. I want to take a Vipassana course and do more such things.
To complete the picture: I have to see how this fits with family life (in principal looks okay). Also would like to give more attention to keeping physically healthy.

Drawbacks:
There would have to be a degree of marketing involved which I am not so hot at. However I think I can manage as I have a decent network and as the job market is hot and I would need just a few projects a year to keep me occupied. Also in many roles, companies would love to have a consultant come in if they don't think there is a long term role, and since I want to do things short-term too, it would be an excellent match. I think I won't make a lot of money given my laid back style, but something I have learnt during the sabbatical is how much I am willing to sacrifice on the money side to keep the current lifestyle going :-)

I think while doing odd projects for social work groups is very nice, it might get frustrating after a while. One cannot see real impact of ones work in this way. So I might have to get more serious about social work at some next stage (or give it up altogether, rather than do it in a half-half way).

I am very kicked by how much the tech industry is achieving in India. Every day there are new reports of new chips or softwares coming out of India. I do wish I could be a part of a core team that can deliver on a complex, useful product. The above vision can't make this happen.

This vision does not fulfil occasional strong longings to do entrepreneurial stuff like biodiesel. That is something I should live with. I'm basically not very entrepreneurial and going that way would in any case come with a good possibility of failure. I also don't have any money to invest myself so that makes things harder.

I also desperately want to travel, and that may not work that great in this scheme of things. I think it will give me the chance to travel to places (esp. smaller places in India), but not much scope to travel abroad. However if I make some money, I can travel on my own, since my time is in my control. (I have a vague plan to do a long trip to the US and park in all the friends' places in turn :-) ).

So ???!!!!
Whatcha think. Give me your feedback.