So you plan for months to go on some great vacation but the week before you depart is like hell on earth. Trying to finish up all your work. Trying to get people to watch the house, pick up the mail. Making sure you didn’t screw up the flight time, or the car rental. Worrying about the weather when you take off. And the big one, will the kids be healthy?
Ugh. Is it all worth it? We’re supposed to relax, recharge our batteries, return to work and life in general with a new lease on life.
How did our lives during the industrial age come to this? Work, work, work for months on end. Then, a tiny snippet of a vacation, a week, maybe ten days if you’re lucky. You have to get back. Who else is going to do your job? The world will cease to revolve without you.
Who came up with this formula? What was his or her name? What planet did they come from? Maybe they are aliens who came down to earth long ago and have actually imprisoned us in this 40-hour prison.
How come the work/vacation dynamic wasn’t set up to allow people to work half a year and take vacation the other half? It could work. With all the people in this country, many of them unemployed, we could all share jobs — work half, hang half.
It’s not totally crazy right? Maybe we’d have to scale back our lifestyles, but so would everyone else who’s working the half-year shift.
Imagine what incredible things we could do if our batteries actually got enough time to recharge.
Aren’t you all sick of drive-by leisure?
March 10th, 2007 at 9:48 am
Eve, sorry about the length
There are a few thoughts I would offer here.
First, this idea of work/life balance and leisure time is very much a western society perspective. We have it easy - in many ways - compared to our ancestors who, in an agricultural based society did very much a sunup to sundown type of day. Leisure activity was, for the most part, a one-day a week type of activity and everything else revolved around the family, its interaction and a very real struggle for survival.
Unfortunately/fortunately, we now have greater freedom - pervasive automobiles, relatively inexpensive world travel, education about options and lifestyle attainment, etc. It is very easy to become discontented with life and we often create an overemphasis on striving for vacation.
I, by the way, am in the same boat so I am not preaching. In some parts of the world, this discussion would be like speaking about flying dragons - it would seem fantastic. The idea of a 40 hour work week and 2 weeks off a year becomes academic when you are striving for survival and there is no distinction between your work and life - it is all intermeshed.
I realize, very acutely, that the possibility for a different lifestyle is available and therefore it is desirable. If I am not careful, my desire for that thing can produce discontent. On the other hand, I do not want to be ignorant of the possibility.
Additionally, as a homeschooling parent who homeschools to provide superior education, socialization, and well-rounded skills, I believe our current education system throws us and our kids under the bus.
They still talk about getting a degree, getting a job, and working toward retirement in a 40 hour per week, interspersed vacation model. For many homeschoolers, there is a distinctly entrepreneurial bent that says - your life can be different. It takes that preconceived model and throws it out.
In the U.S. and with the Internet as pervasive as it is - the actual possibility of creating a very different lifestyle is available. I, for instance, have worked out of my house for nearly 10 years - making a decent income and for the most part working about 30 hours per week. I set my schedule and when the opportunity arises, I work out of my motorhome and on the road.
This was a conscience decision and became more conscience 5 years ago when I wrote the phrase, “Geographically Untethered Income” and posted it above my desk.
I would, for those interested, take a look at Pam Slim - a friend and fellow blogger’s website, Escape From Cubicle Nation.
http://www.escapefromcubiclenation.com/get_a_life_blog/
I would (and have) gladly trade the corner office and scrambling up rungs to escape! But make no mistake, it is an intentional decision to change your life and it requires sacrifice - somewhere.
March 18th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Matt, you always have a unique perspective on the world!! I will share my latest vacation hurdles with you all soon.