I work about one day a week, sometimes less: enough to keep interesting things on the go at my consulting client, and with plenty of space for other things in my life.

It's been a little tricky working once a week, since the communication gaps are much wider than they were with a twice-a-week schedule. I could probably not work, but I like the team and the work we do. My client would be happy to have me work more hours, but I like the rest of my week, too.

Still, it's not quite like the extra-long weekend that W- sometimes jokes about. At home, I'm not sure if I'm using my day the best I could, but I'm also not keen on cramming it just because I can. There's something to be said about being patient and working through my mediocrity as I learn the skills for self-direction. Exploring is not as clear-cut as working, but I hope it will still be useful.

It's hard to want anything too different from what I have now. My quiet, flexible life is more tempting than, say, entrepreneurial success.

I know that I hadn't always wanted this, but I think that was mostly because I hadn't even considered it a possibility. In university and grad school, I wanted to teach, catalyzing students' enthusiasm and learning. As a consultant, I enjoyed working with great people on awesome things. Work-life balance and happiness was already on my radar, though. And now that this is here, and this is a possibility… I like it. I would like it to continue. I would like to figure out how to get really good at it, although I'm not quite sure what "good" and "it" and "really" are in this case.

But there's still a little bit of restlessness, especially when I feel fuzzy. There's still that urge to check something off a list, the desire to feel momentum, that feeling of wanting validation, even after three years of trying to get used to self-direction. I think it would be good for me to keep getting used to this, relaxing into it. There might be something interesting there, in between ambition and a narrowly-circumscribed life…