Connecting the Dots

There was a time when the scariest thing I could think of doing was quitting my job and taking off overseas with just a laptop and a vague plan of becoming a writer. Now I’m maybe 6 weeks away (maybe more, depends on which due date you believe) from meeting this baby and changing everything all over again. I don’t know which was scarier… maybe it’s reassuring to know that everyone has kids, and that there’s a well-worn path to motherhood. On the other hand, you can never really know how it’ll be for you, and I feel much the same way as I did preparing for that fateful flight to Madrid two years ago. Excited, nervous, hopeful but utterly unsure of what my life is about to change into.

It’s brought me closer to my work, in a way. After a bit, most people accept your traveling lifestyle, or at least you become adept at answering questions and deflecting negativity. Someone would write me, asking “How do I deal with this person?” and I found myself struggling to connect to what that felt like. My answer now (tell them the truth and move on) isn’t particularly helpful to someone who is carving a new life but still hasn’t blown through all those roadblocks. Yet as a Mom-to-be, I’m instantly reminded of the “right-way folks” and the “well-aren’t-you-lucky snarks” and everyone else who seemingly has some agenda about how you live. I’m battling all over again, this time on different ground.

It’s through this process, that I’ve come to suspect that there is a growing wave of folks wanting to “do something different”. It’s not just the would-be-travelers but the natural parenting movement too. It’s not just the digital nomads working remotely, but also the unschoolers and their creative tykes. There’s something that doesn’t work about modern life–for some of us and instead of dropping out, we’re building up.

I recently read an article stating that 50% of Americans don’t like their jobs. I’ve never been someone who assumed that everyone who worked a 9-5 was unhappy. Nor do I believe that corporations are inherently evil (in fact, after working in one, I think most silo-structured companies do harm out of ignorance, not greed). But there is something to a number as high as 50%. If you went to college, do you remember what it felt like to pick your major? There was an excitement, an unknown future and it was full of possibility. We lose that, chalk it up to maturing and decide that being practical is more important than happiness. We settle. Or at least half of us do.

I really wouldn’t recommend that half the US quits their jobs and starts a new career. But for those people who want that, who are ready, and feel a need—a real honest to god desire to do something drastically different, then we’re here. It might have started with the make-money onliners or the backpackers or the passive-incomers or the lifestyle redesigners, but slowly it seems to be growing into something else. It’s not a pat “how to be happy” manifesto or some new age philosophy. It’s definitely not one-size fits all. In fact, there is only one rule: do what makes you happy.

Ah, but the details. How do you feed, clothe and shelter oneself during all this happiness? Yes, well, that’s the trick. It’s not easy, at least not in the conventional sense, where easy is going to a job you hate every day, buying things to make yourself feel better, but ultimately feeling the big fat “what now?” instead. That’s easy. This takes a little practice. A few false starts. And once you get there, you might have to do it all over again (like I am now, as my husband and I start our family).

So that’s my goal for 2010. To put my arms around this idea as best I can. To better understand what it means to be a traveler—not just for a summer or a year, but through major life changes. How technology, community and the online space can help us create lifestyles that incorporates all the things we love, removes what’s not working and simplifies in the process. What is the core value that we’re all working towards? Is it more time? Less stress? Increased freedom? Is unplugging enough? Or do you have to fill that space with meaning? And what the heck is meaning anyway?

Two years in, and I’m still figuring it out.

pic: ecstaticist