Free Time
I’m in Bishop, California. Yesterday, I woke up at 6:30, made breakfast in my van, worked on my computer for two hours, and then went climbing. I came back by 4:00 for more work. My hands were covered in dust from the Owen’s River Gorge and I clanged away at my keyboard regardless. At 6:20 I set my computer to charge and snapped up my toiletries to grab a shower at the local pool. I’m a fast walker. I passed fifteen people at slower paces on the one block route to the pool. They were all families with girls of four to six years old heading to the park. The girls had pink baseball gloves and spangly hair ties and oversized jerseys. I finished my shower in under ten minutes and got back to work. I made phone calls, wrote stories, and went grocery shopping almost all at once. At night, before bed, I stopped. Finally. And all I could see were those little girls.
There is no way I could have caught their game. I didn’t have time for it. I was living my FULL life. My full life that often has no time for anything but going, because going is the only way to get THERE.
It’s a mania that is delicious and intoxicating. It’s living the dream, right? Self-employment, freedom to travel, time to climb? What’s wrong if this suddenly does not feel like the right path? I tell my friends that I might chuck it all and go to law school yet. I might get a desk job. They laugh. They don’t believe me. They should.
I spent my academic career being told I could do anything. I could incorporate photography, woodworking, independent studies in Nepal--even climbing--into my education. This is the ultimate drug of alternative and progressive schooling: “What do you want?” they asked us. “Go and get it,” they told us.
And we did, and now we still do. People all around me are trying to claim what they want and go and get it. Except I’m not sure this is always the best path. I’m not saying we should all go pick up a Brooks Brothers suit and head to the office—but maybe we should consider the power of stability.
We all say we are living these alternative lives for the lifestyle. But what’s so great about the scramble? About not being sure what is supposed to come next? Or how to get it? Or how to know once you have it? Free time, that’s what we tell each other. We work for ourselves and thus govern our time, creating more free time.
What if what we’re spending to get there is our selves? “Oh, Carla?” we say, “She bowed to the man and got a real job.” We say this as if we are superior. We say this and then fight not to notice Carla is the one at the park watching a young girl round the bases on her first home run.
Majka Burhardt
in climbing, Work, Writing
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7 Comments
Reader Comments (7)
from a small card posted in the bathroom of my friend shelley (an awesome massage therapist)and attributed, if memory serves correctly, to the dalai lama :
there is no road to happiness
happiness is the road
with love,
bonnie
I am beginning to wonder if the grass is always greener. I've been on "the journey" career-wise for the last six years. My first career path was successful but not satisfying; six years ago I decided to go to law school -- not because I wanted to be an attorney, but because law was what I wanted to study. I've been trying different attorney gigs now for the last two and a half years... huge firm, small firm, now self-employed solo... and it's not an easy way to make a living. Depends largely on your metro area, possibly; but for me, it's not been an easy path. On the other hand, I am thankful every day for getting out of the meaningless rat race that lead to law school, and despite the challenges of being an attorney I am thankful that I went to law school (and discovered climbing as a survival mechanism during that time).
Your world is very full, but if you would like to talk to another writer/climbergirl who chose law school, please don't hesitate to email. I'm contemplating a little bit of stability myself, at the moment...
Thats so ironic. I just sent an email to a person we both know asking them if you had the perfect job? Then to read your post, maybe irony? Maybe not. Im at the jumping off point myself, wanting to trade security and stability for time in the van punching keys with white dust caked fingers. Maybe the grass isnt always greener, but is all the grass brown? Or maybe the souls that share this mind have to spend time hopping from grassy lawn to grassy lawn, sometimes over the barb wire fence and into a cow patty, until they decide to stop and find there own piece of land. Maybe I havent seen enough grass, have you?
I think the idea that none of us have seen enough grass is likely the best way to think of the mentality that drives the obsession to keep finding out what all is available. Two questions: Are you happy? Are you balanced? These are what I have chosen to ask myself every day to check where I am at with things. One of my best friends Sara always tells me to make sure I answer for myself and not for the self that I envision myself being. Whatever that means. I'm working on it
Ok, you are right, none of us have ever seen enough grass. Not to answer for the self you envision yourself being? Or does that mean dont answer as you think you are, meaning be honest about who you are currently being? Maybe we should answer as we wish we were? Shouldnt we be answering as how we want to be?
Maybe if we can answer for all of those selves at once we know we are in business. Or maybe we take an average of the answers. That way decisions would take even longer than they already do. I'm in Miami right now so I'm more inclined to say, whatever dude. But then the real OCD personality comes back into play.
As one who joined the rat race back in the mid 90s to have some stability and retirement potential I gave myself 10 years for the man. It has been almost 13 now and I'm missing the nomadic life of less responsibilities and back then much less money. I think about it every day and seriously question the value I add to the world--to my Fortune 500 company I'm just another worker bee getting off the train every morning to stream into the corporate hive to be shackled in a cubicle for another day.
I try to believe it is what makes you happy in the moment that counts and not how green the grass looks on the other side of the fence that I left. I am always busy doing something--training, planning an expedition, etc. But I do wonder if all this busy work is an attempt to fill a void?
To me you have the 'perfect' life.