Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Freedom

'Pain can be your ticket to the most extraordinary life you ever imagined–  if you focus on all of the pain caused by your failure to act, your failure to go for it, your fear of failing–  if you focus on that pain and amplify it and wallow in it, and hold on to it and strengthen it every day.' Hobopoet

I stumbled on the webpage of a guy by the name of Hobopoet who changed his life to suit his values.  As he says, people who just can't cope with wageslavery are not as common as you would think (or maybe they don't know they have a choice).  He has had many jobs but found he was not living the life he really wanted, traveling, a high level of fitness, and lots of freedom to do what he chooses each day.  So he developed a website to teach english, really worked hard to promote it and also maintains his blog on his topic of living the life of personal choice.
I really am amazed at people like this, the drive for freedom is so strong that they just do it.  I, on the other hand, thought I'd better just do what is expected and get on with it.  I so admire people who know who they are early in life and just find a lifestyle that is soul nurturing.  I so wish I had done the same thing but as for many of us I found myself in a life that was soul crushing but didn't really know how to get out of it.  It's not easy to extricate yourself once you're in it. 


Freedom to do what your soul yearns for is not easy.  This guy had to work very hard to develop an income that gave him the life he wanted but as he says he was doing work when he wanted, where he wanted and had such great motivation with his goal in mind.  As he says, he used his pain.  Love it.


I'm not exactly as far along as he is, maybe never will be, but I'm certainly on the way.  I have discovered that people who live on islands are generally of this sort of people, I wonder why.  They even joke about 'island time' which means no one worries, it will get done eventually.  So unlike the city folks.  So it looks like the island life is my way of creating my soul nourishing existance.  Wish me luck.  Reading his blog and others like it that I will share with you, are giving me strength on my journey. 

Thursday, January 20, 2011

YMOYL

'The bottom line is that we think we work to pay the bills - but we spend more than we make on more than we need, which sends us back to work to get the money to spend to get more stuff to.....'
From Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez


This is just one of the gems from this amazing book, sometimes known as YMOYL by the many followers.  It literally changed my life.  Not because it said something I had never thought of before but because it perfectly articulated the reasons for my years of questioning what was expected of me and what was considered a normal successful life.  As I mentioned in yesterdays post I sometimes wondered if I was just not accepting the way life is, in other words I thought sometimes that it was just me not adapting well to things. Now I know that I was just one of many who questioned the status quo.  Not to be overdramatic but in the words of Martin Luther King:


"...there are certain things in our nation and in the world which I am proud to be maladjusted and which I hope all men of good-will will be maladjusted until the good societies realize."


He was talking about something of much bigger significance though wasn't he.  On the other hand maybe not. Although he was speaking about something as horrific as enslaving a race of people and the devastating effects of that, wasn't it the drive for money and achievement that fueled slavery in the first place.  If society valued our human existence on a deeper level, lived with reverence for the earth and each other instead of worshiping things and money, slavery would never have existed. 
This is deep shi*t!
Seriously, this personal unrest and my subsequent reading about other happily maladjusted people has led me to change my life considerably.  I'm on the journey anyway.  I'm in my 50's so I got a late start.  When I gave this book to a friend who is  my age and had just gone through a divorce (and made a lot of the same mistakes as I did living the way she thought was 'normal'), she said she cried.  It brought up the pain of realizing that her own instincts were right the whole time and she didn't listen.  I know the feeling.  A lot of times the people closest to you while meaning well, encourage you to just go along with it, the consumer life.  Thank goodness we are now 'out of the closet' and speaking up, quality of life is too important.
I look around at some of the young people in our city and elsewhere who have rejected the notion of climbing the ladder of success and I admire them so much.  They seem to live with respect for the environment, spend quality time with friends and family, reject the notion of a career advancement as a life goal and scale down their lifestyle so they can live this way on a modest salary.  We should all be learning from them.  They have witnessed first hand the effects of parents who are too busy to spend time with them, the divorces that result from all the stress.  They work in organic food stores, are musicians or artists.  They rent and don't own a car. 
The small blessings of a simple life.  It's time.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

office space

Bob Slydell: If you would, would you walk us through a typical day for you?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah.
Bob Slydell: Great.
Peter Gibbons:  Well, I generally come in at least 15 minutes late, ah, I use the side door-that way Lumberg can't see me, heh- after that I sort of space out for an hour.
Bob Porter: D'uh? Space out?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah, I just stare at my desk, but it looks like I'm working.  I do that for probably about another hour and after lunch too, I'd say in a given week I probably only do about 15 minutes of real actual work.
Bob Slydell:  I'd like to move us right to Peter Gibbons.  We had a chance to meet this young man, and boy that's just a straight shooter with upper management written all over him.
-from the movie 'Office Space' 1999

When I watched the movie Office Space back when it was fairly new, just out at the video rentals, I laughed my head off.  I recommended it to several friends and they said 'that was the stupidest movie I ever saw'.  I couldn't figure out why the big discrepancy in opinions but I was vindicated several years later when I discovered that the movie had become a cult classic.  Then I figured it out, it was a spot-on commentary of the hopelessness and disillusionment that many young people find in todays workplace.  I realized that I have always felt that way myself, whenever I was in a job that seemed to just shuffle papers etc (I've worked for the federal government....say no more) I had this horrible existential crisis everyday that I was wasting my life.  I looked around and other people didn't seem quite so bothered even though they agreed to a certain extent.  I was even told once that I had a 'bad attitude' about work.  I thought about that and wasn't sure if they were right or wrong. Do I?  I remember envying a guy I worked with who remained as a casual employee, kept expenses low and ran off to ski or have an adventure when work was short.  My money went for the house that was too expensive and a lifestyle I didn't even want (that's a whole other blog). I thought that this guy knows something about himself that I haven't quite accepted in myself.
I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to go back to school to pursue a graduate degree and found out that I totally enjoyed working my butt off, received several comments from professors about the quality of my work and got straight A's.  A first for me, believe me.  I know what the motivation was......to *NEVER* have to work in a meaningless job ever again.  I learned my lesson.  I now do have so much more flexibility, watch my money more than I ever used to.  I have actually taken that whole experience and done lots of reading and research about work/life balance issues, turns out I was just one of many many people who struggled with this.  I have also discovered that rather than having a bad attitude, I and many others just value every minute of life too much to do that to themselves.  Life is too short!!  I now contribute much more to society with my present job and actually enjoy everything about it.  We need to talk more about this. 
One of my favourite websites along these lines is:  http://www.soulshelter.com/
I'm taking a deep breath of gratitude right now that I am no longer in cubicle hell (smiling).

Monday, January 17, 2011

the beginning

" It is the simple things in life that make living worthwhile, the sweet fundamental things such as love and duty, work and rest, and living close to nature."  Laura Ingalls Wilder

Welcome.  I've been feeling the urge to document our journey ever since I discovered that so many people were interested in what we (me and my husband) were doing. Our plan is to move  out of the big city and move to our precious island off the west coast of Canada within a couple of years to make our lives simpler, more about nature and quiet walks than the business of everyday life in the city.So many people asked about progress and wanted pictures that I realized there was something going on here.  I think we've touched on our collective need to recreate ourselves and live a dream, maybe our curiousity about if others can really achieve what we all want to do but maybe can't for practical reasons.   When we started this plan the interest was huge among our friends and colleagues.  It seems we tapped into everyone's secret dream of running off, getting away from all the craziness of traffic, jobs, stress, consumerism and making our lives about long walks on the beach, hikes in the mountains, a less is more kind of existence where there is more home time and less work time, the kind of life where soul is more important than money. 
It's no coincidence that this all began with a death in the family, there's nothing like death to shake us into reality and make us look at our lives, to question our existence and to remind us that our time on earth is limited.  We thought about what we wanted in life, how we wanted to spend the rest of our time in this world.  Thank goodness we are both into the pace of life that we envision, it would be impossible if both weren't on the same page. 
A couple of years after our loved one passed on, we took the leap and bought a simple island property, one that could be used for weekends while we planned the escape.  Turned out to be a good thing, even though it stretched us to the limit at the time ( even beyond that!) property values increased dramatically and we soon realized that we wouldn't have been able to do this if we hadn't acted when we did.  A bit of serendipity. 
So now... here we are still in the city, working and living life, running off every second weekend or so to enjoy island life and slowly renovating the cabin so it becomes a house we can live in full time.  My initial impatience has been replaced with a sense of gratitude of having the best of both worlds.  All the advantages of city life as well as the experience of peace and tranquility on our island.  This blog will be about the transition and lots of other things that are coming to the forefront of my life ie:  retirement planning, financial stuff, island/rural living and most importantly work/life balance because I think that's what interested people about our actions more than anything...that we are all questioning our values about how we are living our lives.  Are we living the life we really want to be living...noone gets out of here alive!
Welcome to my journey.