The Simple Life, A Better Life
Are the two terms interchangeable? I'm beginning to think that they are. They also happen to be the titles to two country songs, which you will probably find appropriate when I get to the end of this entry.
Lately I've been longing for a different kind of life. I go to work in the mornings, fight traffic, and sit down in my boring little cube to do the same thing over and over again. I deal with office politics and the injustices of the system, try to do my best and stay motivated through it all, and then fight traffic again on my way home each night. I'm constantly worrying about "where do I go from here," trying to plan out my next move, find my next job opportunity and climb my way up the ladder. And I hate that.
Then when I'm at home every night I listen to country music and watch TV, and both activities keep putting this crazy little idea into my head. Leave it all behind. Go find a simpler life. Country music often glorifies the country life, and while I'm sure it is being embellished a bit it still seems like a good deal. Recently I rented the PBS mini-series "Frontier House" from the library and it gave me even more ideas. If you can fight through the annoying personalities that took part in the project, it is really an awesome look at what it was like to live on the frontier more than a century ago and how different our lives are now. Each family that went out there had a hard time at first, but by the time the project was over each had come to love that simple life, and I think that I would love it too. Working all day for the good of your family, working with your hands, enjoying a state of exhaustion at the end of each day knowing that you've accomplished something and that you can be proud of it.
I wish I could go back to that time or find a similar situation in the present day. I wish I could find a job that didn't have any opportunities to move up, a career without a ladder. I wish I could find a place where I could work hard and come home every day tired physically, not mentally and emotionally like I am now. I wish I could find a place where my only ambition was to take care of my family and try to raise my children right. I wish I could find a life with less distractions, with less options, where more often than not my evening entertainment would be good book and where I could better appreciate the important things in life. Hopefully a place like that is out there somewhere. I know it will be a lot harder to live that life than just looking for it, I know it will require a lot of difficult decisions on my part, I know it will be just as much an internal thing as external, I know I have to really want it. I hope that I can make that choice.
Lately I've been longing for a different kind of life. I go to work in the mornings, fight traffic, and sit down in my boring little cube to do the same thing over and over again. I deal with office politics and the injustices of the system, try to do my best and stay motivated through it all, and then fight traffic again on my way home each night. I'm constantly worrying about "where do I go from here," trying to plan out my next move, find my next job opportunity and climb my way up the ladder. And I hate that.
Then when I'm at home every night I listen to country music and watch TV, and both activities keep putting this crazy little idea into my head. Leave it all behind. Go find a simpler life. Country music often glorifies the country life, and while I'm sure it is being embellished a bit it still seems like a good deal. Recently I rented the PBS mini-series "Frontier House" from the library and it gave me even more ideas. If you can fight through the annoying personalities that took part in the project, it is really an awesome look at what it was like to live on the frontier more than a century ago and how different our lives are now. Each family that went out there had a hard time at first, but by the time the project was over each had come to love that simple life, and I think that I would love it too. Working all day for the good of your family, working with your hands, enjoying a state of exhaustion at the end of each day knowing that you've accomplished something and that you can be proud of it.
I wish I could go back to that time or find a similar situation in the present day. I wish I could find a job that didn't have any opportunities to move up, a career without a ladder. I wish I could find a place where I could work hard and come home every day tired physically, not mentally and emotionally like I am now. I wish I could find a place where my only ambition was to take care of my family and try to raise my children right. I wish I could find a life with less distractions, with less options, where more often than not my evening entertainment would be good book and where I could better appreciate the important things in life. Hopefully a place like that is out there somewhere. I know it will be a lot harder to live that life than just looking for it, I know it will require a lot of difficult decisions on my part, I know it will be just as much an internal thing as external, I know I have to really want it. I hope that I can make that choice.