Procrustes.

I saw this on Thursday and it got me thinking.

Hegarty's line isn't new--I'd seen it before. But just as Heraclitus said we can't step into the same river twice, the meaning of things changes depending on what's happening when we see them.

Of late, without even really thinking about the line above, I've been saying something similar. 

When people ask me how GeorgeCo., LLC, a Delaware Company gets its business, I usually answer like this:

"I get 50% from current clients, 50% from referrals and 50% from the ads I write for GeorgeCo. on LinkedIn."

People laugh. 

They get it.

Touch wood, I'm busy.

Just moments ago, I had a bit of a set-to with my wife. Though we have a fair-sized New York City apartment, husbands and wives aren't meant to share a living space and a working space with each other. Certainly, not for 140 out of 168 hours a week.

Like the continents were better off drifting apart and getting some distance from each other, I think that applies to couples too. Even though we spend the day working in separate rooms, we're still too proximate.

What's hard to fathom for many people is how all-consuming work and running your own business can be. 

The work of my business is a full-time job--writing ads, etc., for clients. Running my business is a full-time job--meetings, getting clients, setting my rates, getting paid. And promoting my business is a full-time job--writing GeorgeCo. ads. Writing this blog. Putting myself in front of people--to the head of the line.

50%. 50%. 50%.

It's hard, I think, for people to understand what it takes to make a career work--to make it last until you're ready to say 'I've had enough.'

Years ago I read something about a giant tech firm that classified its employees as finders, minders or grinders. 

Either they find business, they manage business, or they do the work that keeps the business.

I never bought into that demarcation because good people no matter what they're level are always a combination of all three. They're always finding. They're always minding. They're always grinding.

To push you into one slot alone is Procrustean. We need to find our own way. And build our jobs and our lives around that way. It's hard. But it's a damn sight better than conforming.

Procrustes, as I understand him, was a villain who lived in the mountains above Athens. If you were traveling in his neighborhood and needed a place to sleep, he'd offer what became known as the Procrustean bed.

Most jobs are Procrustean beds.

If you were too tall for Procrustes' bed, while you were asleep, he'd sidle over and cut off the parts of you that were hanging over. If you were too small, he'd stretch you until you fit.

Either way, you were tortured to death. 

And you think you have sleep issues.

That's it for today.

Except to wonder which holding company Procrustes was bought out by.