Parental leave makes the cadence and timing of these missives iffy. It is the evening as I sit down here at the keyboard. Flyswatter next to me, a swedish whiskey of all things in a glass and full of thoughts about swedish midsummer celebrations. As I’m writing this it is midsummer night’s eve which is one of the most aggressively celebrated swedish traditions.

I think that fervor is to a large extent because you have to make the best of swedish summer, even if it rains, even in the shittiest of weather, you go for it. Because it is short, gives no guarantess and can be utterly fantastic. Midsummer celebrations is the formal framing reminding us of how precious summer is here.

For me, this particular time. It made me think of things I’m thankful for and excited about.

I can’t wait

We just had our second child. I think he just turned 15 days old. He could not be more peaceful of an infant. An absolute treasure that just sleeps and eats. Of course his impact is still immense on the family. His big sister, 2 years old, is adapting a lot. She is an intense and lively (utterly fantastic) child which with managing the new baby keeps us plenty busy.

I get almost none of my ”maybe” or ”hopefully” things done. Only musts make it. I do get some reading, listening and thinking done. And every light lit by those inputs are just buffered somewhere hoping I’ll find a chance to do something with it. Any moment now. I’m in a situation which requires restraint, waiting, patience and these are a few of my least favorite things. Or at least things I’m quite bad at.

Family gets priority, I’m on parental leave. The right thing right now is diapers, talking about sharks and falling over in funny ways. My mind doesn’t turn off but I try not to be distracted with my family and let the ideas wait and hopefully mature.

I’m building up a lot of intent and desire. There are many things I want to do and very few things that can currently get my attention.

Work aside there are simply a ton of things I want to do around the house and property. We want to shift our bed room to another room. There are paper cuts to resolve, storage to figure out. Tons of things that also have to wait. That’s not what this time is.

Me and my wife are very fortunate. We’ve had good upbringings, stable families, some education and a strong safety net. We had a good foundation to build on. What we’ve built we’ve worked pretty hard to do. Primarily we’ve worked hard at figuring out a life we want to live. We’re hardly done there and it is bound to evolve as we go but I’m thrilled about where we are. It is not what I want it to be but it has so many paths I look forward to following.

We share the house, the garden, the life with the children, the business. We have different favorite parts and certain things that we’d rather the other person do. I see so many things to explore and I’m very thankful that we’ve set ourselves up with a life where there is so much left to try, figure out and live through.

I have a fairly strong work/life separation when it comes to working hours. I have a separate office, I don’t tend to spend time on client work in my office hours much. What I don’t really care to separate is work and life in general. I want my work to be a meaningful part of my life. I want it to enable our lives financially but also be good in itself.

Regardless of income you’d find me going out into that office and working on something.

That sense hit me today, under a blue sky, fantastic sunshine and an unreasonable wind in the middle of midsummer. I really like the quirky and particular bespoke life we’re building. As we can do more things with the baby we can build more of it. As I go back to work in August I’m thrilled to do more with it. As we plan to get a green house we’re building more of our particular life. I’m just thrilled to keep building everything this can be. I like what we have and see tons of potential.

I think we as humans often pattern match on existing molds. More than we need to. It leads to a lot of bad fits. It gives us ideas such as that it is normal to work a job you hate. That you shouldn’t work with friends, family or the people you love. Or that we should be happy because we’ve achieved some cultural milestones.

In my small way I like to encourage developers to take the tentative, or even bold, first steps on their journeys to other roads. We are a professional group with exceptional leverage and independence in the world currently. This is one thing I hope to do more of going forward with both the recruitment help I offer companies and devs, the way I run my consulting team and the way I share things in public. I also have a few more things I’m considering.

Essentially I want people who’s situation I grok (thus devs) to actively strive for what can make them more satisfied. Satisfaction typically doesn’t just land in your lap. There is some work there. I’m still working at it. I’m enjoying the process.

Any notes from your midsummer? Share them or other thoughts at lars@underjord.io or on Twitter where I'm @lawik.

I appreciate you reading this. Thank you for yo

- Lars Wikman