This is part of a series about my experience with a repetitive strain injury (RSI) during the COVID-19 pandemic. It talks about how this injury changed my life and what I think about now. If you want to know more about what happened, you can read part one here. I'm not going to give a lot of medical details. Instead, I want to look at how this injury changed what's important to me and how I live my life.
A comment on Twitter made me want to write this part of the series. I'm not trying to tell anyone how to live. I just want to think about the values that shape me and other men like me. This connects to some ideas I wrote about in my article on data literacy, where I talk about how we understand and use information in our lives.
This is the final entry (for now) of a series I wrote about my experience with tendonitis in both my wrists and thumbs during COVID-19. The injury occurred in 2020 due to overworking at my previous job, where I would put in excessive hours for weeks on end with minimal breaks. The debilitating pain prevented me from eating, dressing myself properly, and programming, leading to a significant disruption in my work and personal life. Ultimately, this experience led me to make three major changes:
Consulting full-time: Sometimes, you need to take a leap of faith; other times, you need a swift, firm shove in the back to overcome your limitations. The RSI was the latter that lead me down the path of higher leverage.
Revaluating my values: This doesn't necessarily mean discarding the traits that led to me getting an RSI, but it certainly made me rethink what is actually valuable and what I am trying to do with my life. Sorry to disappoint, but there has been no 'epiphany'. I am not discarding worldly possessions and pursuing a spirit quest to find 'my true self'. My hands are now a limited commodity, and I fear reinjuring myself. This means if I'm going to use my hands, it must be purposeful and deliberate.
Writing: Thankfully, we live in an era where you no longer need hands to express yourself through text. Writing helped me realize that I have spent my first three decades learning and absorbing knowledge and information. Now, in my thirties, my goal will be to share the thoughts and stories I've collected.