Clarity

Saw this post in the NYT blogs. I absolutely loved this part:

My role is just to be a bad influence, the kid standing outside the classroom window making faces at you at your desk, urging you to just this once make some excuse and get out of there, come outside and play. My own resolute idleness has mostly been a luxury rather than a virtue, but I did make a conscious decision, a long time ago, to choose time over money, since I’ve always understood that the best investment of my limited time on earth was to spend it with people I love.

I feel ya, dog...

Three years ago this month, while showering off the shame of a boozy (Sunday) night, I came to a decision to step off the treadmill. I had been downsized "due to current market conditions" the previous December. From the time of the layoff until that July, I sent out CV after CV, resume after resume.

I knew very little about life outside of working. Of course, 'working' to me meant fieldwork: 12-16 hour days, seven days a week, four to six weeks at a time, seven to ten months of the year. It didn't really do anything to encourage learning anything about life outside of work. But I didn't seem to mind, and there I was actively trying to jump right back into it.

A life well wasted is a good life indeed.

It took a minor shame-spiral while showering to have the same clarity as the writer above:

Time > Money

This provided a foundation of a few basic ideas for my navigation of the 21st century:

1. The idea of a job for life is dead & gone. Loyalty to a corporation does not get reciprocated.
2. There's a big difference between what you need to live and what you want/think you need to live.
3. Working for yourself, with multiple sources of income, is far more secure than relying on one and only one income stream.
4. Being busy for the sake of being busy is ridiculous.
5. Cable TV: sucks donkey balls, insults my intelligence, a huge money-suck.
6. Catching fish (and traveling) is more enjoyable than sitting in an office.

I still don't have everything figured out, but those six concepts have guided me well over the past few years.

If only I had the same clarity before buying the Aluminum Bastard...

Mat
- July 1st, 2012


Note: since July, 2009, I have worked as a bartender, geologist, carpenter, bouncer, social media consultant, copywriter, logistician, project manager, music promoter, fly shop employee, Cuppow salesman, fly tyer, guide, t-shirt seller, and writer.

I'm busy when I choose to be busy, and I have yet to starve to death...but if I relied exclusively on promoting music or selling Cuppows or T-shirts, I surely would have...

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