My Greatest Investments of Time and Resources Over Two Years

Unlucky #13, My Butt.

By Scott Mason

It has been a wild two years for me. A hand and arm injury in 2020. A lengthy run of occupational and physical therapy. A few dead ends for socializing in NYC. Not too mention a pandemic that has practically upended the natural order. Still, I think I’ve made some pretty awesome decisions, purchases and investments of my time. Here’s a few now.

1. Coursera’s NY State Department of Labor Arrangement

For the time being, online learning platform Coursera is offering free access to professional development and training classes to NY state job seekers and career changers. These have all been a huge boost to my morale, sense of accomplishment and marketability as a new hire. They are associated with universities world wide and companies and firms like: Meta, Salesforce, Google, SoFi and Goldman Sachs. Some highlights I have taken include specializations in:

• Salesforce CRM
• University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Specialization
• University of Michigan’s Web Design Specialization
• UC Davis’s Nonprofit Fundraising Specialization
• University of Colorado, Boulder’s Fandom Specialization

2. No More Mr. Nice Guy

Not the song by Alice Cooper. The book. I’ve been drilled into the notion that authenticity is at odds with the rest of humanity and is best avoided for the sake of personal advancement. It hasn’t worked that well yet. People don’t trust you when you are attentive to others, can’t speak your mind or try to defuse conflict. Loss of energy and resources isn’t the only problem that selflessness can cause. It’s repellent if done without any kind of clear expedience, even if that expedience is just a convincing case that it felt good to help someone and was no major sweat off your back. Especially, no major sweat off your back. When you see a paper bag blowing in the wind or watch a Charlie Chaplin movie, it makes you feel powerless, sad and without the capacity to have any control over your own destiny. No one wants that in a world loaded with setbacks. This book was my first step away from my counter-productive conditioning.

3. Getting Over My Meetup Burn

In 2013, I was fresh out of college. I was planning to move from the suburbs to NYC and had allowed nearly all of my higher education bridges to crumble, burn or go up in napalm flames. I went to two or three Meetup events and immediately panned it as a pointless dead end rather than an enormous piece of digital real estate for countless organizers. Fast-forward just after Christmas of 2020. I had spent three month recovering from surgery on my ulnar nerve. Now that I was able to take a shower without getting a scar half the length of my right arm infected, I really wanted to get out there again. Remote meetups are the new job fair experience. I gained more connections and job interviews with it than I ever have sending my resume into one black hole jobboard after another.

4. Whitewater Rafting

This goes more into the broad category of “cross things off of your bucket list, for crying out loud!” I signed on with a company that does events like this. If transit is trouble, I suggest getting someone else to run it. I am pumped for next weekend. It’s going to be a day of firsts.

5. Dictation

After going through ulnar nerve surgery, learning how to voice type on my Macbook Pro was a godsend. From someone who doesn’t practice anything, that’s certainly a statement. My productivity skyrocketed. If torturing your fingers and wrists with your keyboard is starting to take a toll on your body, get your vocal cords to handle the rest.

6. Optix 55 Eye Compression Hot Pack

While I’m on the subject of office productivity, beware the evil computer eye. Online learning and desk jobs have their risks. Being on a roll is most likely going to end up biting you in one of the worst places. With computer eye, everything gets tired. Thinking gets harder. Your work marathons become sprints. Hot compression has helped and it’s even more convenient when it’s hands-free and without bowls of water.

7. Medium Membership

This is a community. Not just a publishing platform. Having an unlimited chance to view other posts here is a huge benefit to anyone who writes on Medium. It opens chances for showing empathy, building trust and networking. As long as your attempts are earnest ones.

8. Taking a Hike (Or Several)

My 2006 Toyota Rav4 bit the dust a few years after moving to NYC. Much like my upcoming whitewater rafting trip, I decided to leave the burden of planning the drive to the trail on someone else. It was a good choice. Even if you don’t have people to connect with, you still have a good workout.

9. Surfset Class

There are times when you benefit from starting easy. There are also times when you benefit from starting harder while supervised. Imagine your first time doing a mountain climber or a burpee, for example. Was the surface you were doing it on perfectly stable? Or did it resemble a simulated surfboard over water? The first time I did either of those, balance difficulty was scaled up unusually high because I was at a fitness studio that mixed surf school with cardio, stretches and strength training. This challenge during my first dip into these moves made it a lot easier to do them on my own time while standing or kneeling on a level surface.

10. Rumble Fitness Class

I’m an ex-college radio DJ. Each week I came up with concepts. I think in medleys. Despite the ability to mix up a workout before hand, it’s a lot harder to find a way to do it on a more instinctual level. One class going loco on the punching bag and I have one bit of cardio and strength training that I can throw in for a couple minutes where I can get a bit less methodical with my workouts.

11. Hand Surgery and PT

If there’s a punchline to my ulnar nerve compressions in mid 2020, it’s that I’m in better shape now than I was before. With surgery and some occupational and physical therapy, I actually improved my health in other ways. You can use these situations as a chance to lose weight. If your injury was not life changing you will build muscle. Lastly, if you do your work as a patient, you will get better at training on your own time.

12. Desert Fest NYC Tickets

The name of this item sounds ridiculous. A desert in NYC? Are you stoned, Scott? Well, no but the genre is also called stoner rock. Way back in the late 80s and early 90s, a bunch of kids from Southern California would get into their dune buggies, drive into the Mojave Desert and use their car batteries to play fuzzed out concerts. As time went on, the desert rock genre expanded it’s geography. From New Jersey to London to Norway all the way to Ukraine (my heart goes out to Kyiv-born band Stoned Jesus who can’t make it do to their volunteer efforts). This particular purchase for the upcoming festival serves as a greater lesson for finite human experience. Several of the bands I intend to see have been at it for years. Others almost never come to the United States. Orange Goblin is both and given that they’ve been around since the late 80s, I spend my concert planning time dreading the possibility that they will announce on stage that they are calling it quits, or worse, never crossing the Atlantic to the states again. Take the bull by the horns before it dies of old age. Don’t wait for bad news and missed opportunities.

13. Trader Joe’s Shredded Organic Mozzerlla, Grilled Chicken Shreds, The Chicken Burrito Bowl, Whole Wheat Tortillas and Too Many Spicy Sauces.

Viva Gorditas! Well, sort of. The Taco Bell Gordita had lettuce and tomato in it. Instead, I use peppers from other Trader Joe’s dishes and combine the above listed ingredients into a microwaveable wrap with healthier ingredients. I’m not a cook, but this really was a gentle stretch. I’d love to find a kind of pepper that won’t explode when I try grating it. Bell peppers are highly unstable.

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Final Thoughts

You only live once. Chances open and close at a moments notice. People find love every few seconds somewhere out there. Your heroes sometimes decide that they’ve gotten what they wanted or are sick of what they’ve been doing and hang up their laurels. Lastly, lets face it, people really do look at you differently for reasons that can go beyond looks, good nature or confidence even when observers have good intentions. Everything requires sacrifice. Either by trade or loss. However, it can certainly be worth it.