Mesa Musings:

My problem is that I’m undisciplined.

In elementary school, I was the kid who spent much of the day looking out the window daydreaming.

In high school — in the days before Xbox 360 and “Madden NFL 10” — I spent my time in algebra class conducting my own fantasy football, baseball and basketball leagues on the back pages of my notebook.

Is it any wonder I have little understanding of variables, coefficients or constants?

During my first year of college, I spent most of my time in the student union drinking coffee, playing cards and gabbing with friends.

See a pattern here?

As a 19-year-old college goof-off, I elected to dramatically alter my life. I joined Uncle Sam’s Army. Of course, I had no idea that within a matter of months we’d be at war (timing has never been my forte). But the Army developed in me a sense of discipline — at least for a while.

Three years later, I returned to college, stayed away from the student union and holed up in a study carrel in the library. It was like having a desk in a closet, but it forced me to focus. I recorded my best grades ever.

Later, I spent nearly 37 years as an administrator at Orange Coast College. During my first four years at OCC I had an office — complete with windows — in the old administration building. I fell in love with my wife-to-be by watching her daily from my office window. She would exit her car at 8:05 a.m. and walk briskly from the parking lot into the building.

Then, the college did something wise. It tore down the building and exiled me to a windowless room in a new administration building. I occupied that office for nearly 33 years.

No windows. No distractions. No subsequent marriages.

I would walk into my Spartan surroundings each morning, and there’d be nothing to entice or sidetrack me. I envied campus friends who had windows overlooking a sunny quad. They could watch students tossing Frisbees, playing Hacky Sack, or expressing themselves romantically. Secretly, however, I was glad I didn’t have such a burden. I was aware of my deficiencies.

I’m now retired, but still very much like the little boy at Lindberg School, the one who stared out the window. Where’s my basic-training sergeant when I need him? (Replaced by my wife, Hedy, who actually plays the role quite well!)

Hedy and I periodically eat breakfast at a new Costa Mesa restaurant and bakery, where the service is cafeteria-style.

Many patrons are retirees like us, but there’s also a coterie of young professionals who conduct business at the bakery. The well-dressed workers — most of whom are in their 30s and 40s — sit at tables behind recycled-fiber coffee cups with plastic tops and cardboard sleeves, earnestly talking business on cell phones or nimbly keying dollops of spotless prose onto laptop hard drives.

Don’t they have offices to go to?

I listened as one young man, at a table and working at his laptop, responded to an attractive woman who hailed him as she made her way to the counter to score a bran muffin and latte.

“Whatcha doin’ here?” she asked.

“I flee the office Friday mornings and come here to work on marketing stuff,” the preoccupied chap replied, taking scant notice of her.

I observed that all other young professionals in the room were similarly transfixed by their screens, or having animated discussions on cell phones.

I could never have done that when I was a young professional. No way! Were I in a public setting tasked with cranking out some work product, I’d have gone down in flames.

Sorry, but those athletic young women at the corner table, or that sophisticated older couple across from me, or the guy in the Los Angeles Fire Department hoodie by the window, would have drawn my attention. My head would have been on a swivel.

I’m an incurable people-watcher!

Thank God for my austere, sterile, unadorned OCC office. It served me well! Colleagues thought I was magnificently industrious. Little did they know!

My productivity was the result of a windowless work space.

JIM CARNETT lives in Costa Mesa. His column runs Wednesdays.