Sometimes, where you are at is enough

[TxZen]

After going through all I have gone through the past 3-4months, I have realized I am good where I am at professionally.
I used to be a ladder climber, always thinking ahead, thenext job, accolade, degree, title, project, etc. Now, I am just on cruise control and itfeels good. I am still challenged, as I work for a start up healthcare companybut I also like that I comfortably know what I know, if that makes sense. I would like to stay where I am at for atleast the next 5 years, enjoy my son growing up and all that my town has tooffer, without worrying about the next career move. This is a HUGE change forme because I used to feel guilty about not climbing the ladder or moving fastenough. I felt as if I was not accomplishing anything because I didn’t haveanything on the back burner. Now, I am enjoying making what I have as good asit gets and going with the flow and it’s a nice relief. :D

[Lainey]

Makes a lot of sense. American culture makes people feel lazy if they aren't constantly striving. It's good to just Be for a while and enjoy your family and your accomplishments.

[TxZen]

I haven't just stopped in oh 23 years...it's time. :)

[ctg492]

Umm maybe I should remind hubby again about this topic.

[catherine]

Yeah, in 2008 I got to "enough" and jumped off. You know the Peter Principle: that's what happened to me. When I got promoted to the point where they expected me to manage others to do the work I loved to do, I said "enough." I quit so I could continue doing the parts of the job that suited me. And I make the same amount of money and don't have the stress of quotas, staff performance issues, etc.

[Gardenarian]

I'm taking the summer off. I've always felt that I had to be super busy at work and always available - I have that Puritan work ethic.

But I'm a part-time academic, and while people may value my work, I'm not compensated for the amount of life energy I put into it. I'm looking forward to having a few months to get some perspective. (Part-time academic, full-time homeschooling mom, taking care of two houses, while trying to squeeze my writing ambitions into the cracks around.)

I, too, feel a sense of relief that I can just let go and not have to beat myself up all the time. Now I just have to make sure I don't over-schedule my summer. Nature abhors a vacuum...

[Selah]

I am 48 and am on complete career cruise control. Frankly, if DH and I could afford to quit our jobs tomorrow, we would. It's not that we hate our jobs...they are very nice. Nor do we hate the idea of work, in and of itself. Nor do we dream about quitting just to create some start-up business where we can maniacally work for ourselves as our own bosses/tyrants just to make more money (been there, done that).

Rather, nowadays we want to quit just so we can BE. We want to take care of our minds, bodies, spirits, and our social lives. We want to spend time with our families, pursue creative interests, and travel more. We want to enjoy the beautiful country we live in now, and see more of this amazingly beautiful planet we are so lucky to be living on today.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I'm sick of money. I want to give it away more than anything. Ok I'm not going to give up everything I own and what live homeless on the streets of what, some major urban area? Yea, that's exactly what I should do with my life - NOT. That could be said to lack all self-care at all. I just want to see how much of the income I am capable of making I am able to give away. Because nothing is likely to change from above (I mean sure fight to change our totally corrupt politics), but really if we want a better world we have to fund it. I don't want to buy (well maybe minimally - an occasional treat), I don't want to save (well maybe minimally - because @#$# happens). But I am tired of this system, it's stupid and hollow and will all be worth nothing in the end. I just want to live at peace with myself and work for a better world with the time I've got left (oh I'm healthy, I'm not on deaths doorstep, it's not that, I just don't know if the world has much time left anyway).

I've never been super ambitious, I've always done fairly well anyway. I'll never be really rich. Sure I'd like to quit my job tommorow. And I could live off savings for a few years but then I'd have no income and probably after a while of not working no prospects of any income (and noone else is going to support me). Sure I'd like to take a summer off but corporate america will agree to that when GMO pigs fly. I've pretty much always hated jobs. I hate the idea of work. Not of effort but of work - I hate the idea of spending your life doing things you have almost no voice in and don't care about and that's what is meant by the term "work". I want more time to BE. I don't care about travel or anything (I want to BE HERE now - and here can be whereever - it doesn't really matter that much). I want to take care of myself, my social life, and the world. But if I can't have that anyway (and it seems I really can't), I want the money I must spend my life earning to at least do some good for the world, to seed hopes of a better world (beyond what I need to survive obviously).

Yea this is a bit ranty :) "I've had enough", in a whole other sense.

[catherine]

ANM, I was just reading one of my favorite books (again) which is The Handmade Life by William Coperthwaite. Here's his dream:


Imagine if instead of being so preoccupied with our "hourly wage" we were all to set aside a piece of time each day to contribute to the world's labor pool. Imagine a world in which nobody is for hire--where nobody works for pay, nearly all work being done for the enjoyment, for the feeling of being useful, or for the desire to learn. Everyone would be required to do his or her own work, or else convince others to trade labor.

Doctors would sweep their own floors; bankers would wash their own windows. The CEO of General Motors would change his own oil.

He talks about each of us contributing a small amount of time for "bread labor" just as the Nearings did.

He says:


The ideal work will develop and utilize--rather than fragment--the whole person: be intellectually challenging, encourage creative thinking, advance the cause of a better world, and provide for basic needs.

I don't know how we get there when it take more "life energy" and hollow tasks than it should to acquire these basic needs. I wonder if part of the solution is to expand on the idea of intentional communities that share the common goal of "just enough" work. That's what the Nearings were hoping to do--bring people along on this idea of sharing work and leisure, but it never caught on.

I wonder if there are really out of the box solutions. Heidi Marie Schwermer lives without money by going from home to home caretaking or house sitting, etc. I'm still looking at the backyard Tumbleweed solution. That to me would be fine.

[ctg492]

I can only say what happened in husband's life, which in turn was my life at the time. Travel, climbing ladder brought all that comes with it. The good and there is good, the bad too. Planned for three years for freedom from it, early retirement, watching the river flow. I made a paper chain inside a glass jar for his office. Year count down and then it was done. Then waited one year afterwards to be sure. Then liquidated and moved to our summer home to watch the river flow. One month in happiness and pleasure. Two months in ok this is life now. Two and half months "I am rotting". Three months in on flight to NY, Turkey and has since been as it was before the dream.
That was 7 or 8 years ago? I have forgotten. This ended up being a very strange time of life. We no longer speak of "when" "what we will do". For him, the dream was far better then the actually event. I am glad he got to do it or there would have been the regret. I hope everyone who can afford to or has a dream of major life change, can so it or you just would never know how it may have been.

[TxZen]

This discussion came up at work because as I hire new people, I am "supposed" to set the example for moving up and goals/motivation. Such a crossroads I am at.

[JaneV2.0]

...
I've never been super ambitious, I've always done fairly well anyway. I'll never be really rich. ... I've pretty much always hated jobs. I hate the idea of work. Not of effort but of work - I hate the idea of spending your life doing things you have almost no voice in and don't care about and that's what is meant by the term "work". I want more time to BE. ...

That's the way I feel about it; I don't want to be given orders or expected to meet someone else's standards, I don't want to mill around in a herd; I'm perfectly happy entertaining myself. I've been free for awhile now, and it never gets old.

[Simply Divine]

I'm still climbing up the ladder -- it feels like inching, actually. I'm going back to school and learning new skills. Time slips by; I never move fast enough.

The dream? A tiny house off-the-grid in the country, with an organic garden and a goat and chickens, and riding the bike to and from work. I don't mind making plenty of money, if that happens, but I've learned over the years my needs are rather few. Food, clothing, shelter, a decent net connection (first-world requirement these days), friends, family, some transportation like a bike for day-to-day trips (saving up now) or a car with basic features for longer trips. That's about it. That's the dream. I just want to be happy.

[Spartana]

I don't want to be given orders or expected to meet someone else's standards, I don't want to mill around in a herd; I'm perfectly happy entertaining myself. I've been free for awhile now, and it never gets old.Ditto to this! While I'm ambitious still, it is more focused on doing things "I" enjoy and love and have a passion for rather than flittering away what time I have on this planet doing things I dislike. And yes, being "free" NEVER gets old :-)!

[Teacher Terry]

The last 10 years I worked f.t. I loved my job so did not look at higher jobs, etc even though it would have raised my pension. I was content and happy so just went with the flow. It was the right decision for me.