Opportunity, or, as I am fond of saying, Opportronity, abounds in this land of milk and honey, as any student of PT Barnum will tell you. In equal amounts is a rampant self-defeatism. People with very tiny dreams allow themselves and, subsequently, their dreams to be crushed in equally tiny ways.
I remember a conversation I had in college with a friend from Ireland about the ease of living; doing and being whatever you wanted. At the time, we were both on a one-meal a day routine, smoking our faces off, then using alcohol to re-connect them. We had no money, but we had managed to carve out a lovely niche for ourselves. The gist of the conversation was that if you’re willing to give up on some of your creature comforts, you can do whatever the hell you want. When you let your comfort level get in to way of that, then you have failed.
I have a lot of friends who travel extensively, have lived in multiple countries, and generally been living some form of a life that I covet, and maybe, at one half-baked point, thought I would have for myself by now. My lady recently spent two weeks in France, one of many tiny dreams of mine. After the resentment and self-disgust subsided, I came to a pretty a nice catharsis.
I am a bit of a slow learner, it has taken me a while to get a design for life together. After figuring out why I have yet to get beyond Canada (and that’s not even recently. I have never used my passport), I realized that I am a bit more together, collected, and dare I say- less manic than some of my more subjectively successful associates.
Here’s the key difference, and it comes in something my lady said a few days before she left; “Whenever I have money, I travel.”
After I was ready to deal with her absence, after I let the classicism stew for a bit and was done bitching about friends that had plane tickets pretty must thrust upon them by doting parents at one time or another (to be clear, the lady paid her own way, unlike many of the folks I know), I realized that I could have been doing the same thing.
Anytime I have savings, I quit my job. Ever since I escaped Erie, PA, I have been consistently trading up in terms of income and overall happiness. Not to make my sig a case study, but she is a bit of a worrier. It gives her a reason to keep me around, because I am adept at convincing people that e’ryting goin to be eyeree. When she came back from vacation, underemployment was there to meet her, along with added responsibilities (sans raise) for being so competent and solid. She could probably single-handedly save the publishing industry (she’s pretty awesome), if one of those fuckers gave her the key to the secret club. Hell, I can name a half-dozen of my friends who could save the creative industry if those fuckers weren’t such circle-jerking assholes.
I had a few jobs like that, added responsibility for no real gain. At one point in my life, I thought the added trust and responsibility was worth something unto itself. Unless you’re a total moron, you ascertain, in short order, it’s really just way for this shitheel economic system of ours to keep us all down. You have a key to the backdoor, you say? That’s just great. Did a raise come with that, or do you just have to do inventory every shift now?
So, instead of swallowing the shit sandwich, I quit, on several occasions, although I’ll tell you myself, it was probably too late, and never very well planned- Par example: Last year, I ended up with no job for about a month solid in mid-2009, and it took me all summer to recover.
As much as I would like to swap travel stories with friends, I’ve had different priorities, mostly trying desperately to live the dream. Beyond a lack of healthcare, I’d say I have nailed it.
To put this into a more general context, to anyone who reads this, anyone who is working a thankless job (and most of us are) that also gives you no joy (heaven help you), get out and fix it. All the vacations in the world won’t fix what you have to come home to. It can be easier said than done, and in the meantime, there’s nothing wrong with throwing some money into stocks, taking a weekend off to a casino, or calling off for a week and getting baked. But don’t delude yourself into believing whatever trip you desire will be some end-all-be-all adventure.
Sounds like a solid deal!
As my friend said, “Just fuckin do it. It’s no a big fuckin ordeal. Quit bitchin abou’it, and fuckin do it.”
If it’s worth it, you’ll starve for it, at least temporarily. But you’re still going to have to work some sort of job to keep that starvation temporary. Your life is going to be waiting for you, every time you put it on hold.
Never put what you really want on hold, but if your employment makes you want to die, forgo the vacation this round and find something better. You’d be amazed how easy it is to live comfortably, even when you give up NetFlix, full cable, and all of those little toys we value so much. If you think a high-paying job you hate is worth the years it shaves from your existence, you probably aren’t worth your existence.
I have a friend who landed a very lucrative consulting job last year. She’s harried, confused, and borderline miserable (though she has recently, in her words, “managed to fit her life back into her life”). Everything has a price tag attached, and it’s not always in cash. The big cake is your day-to-day happiness- those grandiose trips, new televisions and expensive tickets are just the icing.
Take the money you had saved for your big trip, and invest a little in the big cake.



On paper, I’m easily impressed by movies. If there’s checkmarks for aliens, explosions, and sinister corporations and/or governments, I’m usually in. I was raised on sci-fi movies, I am an unapologetic Star Trek fan, I fret about the potentiality of SkyNet and I still watch TRON (and was all kinds of jolly to see the trailer for the 
We missed the first half of B-Unit’s bout, but were just in time to see the ladies squeak out a tight win in the second half, beating the Ohio Roller Girls’ team by one point. My crush for any and all girls on roller skates continues to grow at a geometric rate.


