While I typically think profanity shows a lack of vocabulary this is a nice article about forgetting what society thinks you should be doing and just doing what works for you.
What if you dropped out of school and walked across the country? What if you decided grades were sort of silly, and instead read all the interesting things you could find?
I used to be really nomadic. Couch surfing for 6 months on $1000 was no problem. Heading off in to Algonquin Park for weeks with little plan outside of enjoying creation, totally normal. My wife (then girlfriend) remembers having lunch with me then stopping by my cabin (yes I was living in a cabin with no power) around dinner to find me gone. It was 3 weeks till she heard from me.
Even now I feel that we live a life contrary to what ‘normal’ society thinks is proper. We have one car, I rarely drive. We watch little television, never been a party house. We want to be comfortable but the wife and I try to work just enough so that the bills are paid and the rest of the time we spend doing what we love (this means pretty short work weeks compared to the norm). There is no rush to get ahead, the life I’m living now is what is important.
Part of me really misses just getting out and not having any real commitments but a bigger part of me loves to hear my daughter laugh. Some days I may wish that I could still take off, but then the kid’s laugh reminds me that I made the right decision.
2 responses to “Living Life Outside of What is Considered Normal”
Unfortunately, this is a lesson I only recently learned. I spent most of my life living to others’ expectations. I have to admit, I’m a bit envious of where you’re at and still working to get to a similar place myself 🙂
I’m working towards being able to hire a few people and intend to make it easy to strike a real work/life balance. Most employers totally miss that in favour of trying to get as many hours out of you as possible. Really a 40 hour week is a full week of work because society decided it was (or someone), not because it’s the maximum number of hours someone can work and be productive.
I would think that the goal of anyone (employer or self employed) is to make sure employees are getting the work life balance they need. It’s a marathon not a sprint. Sadly few get it.