Musings from a Whirling Dervish

Whistle While You Work

Years ago -- at least five, probably seven or eight -- I remember a conversation I had with my best friends in California. Actually it was more of a debate: Was it better to do freelance work that you didn't really like for great pay so you could work less and have more time to do the things you really loved? Or was it better to create a life around work you really loved even if it meant working crazy hours and possibly lowering your standard of living?

I was living the first option and voted for the second, believing work should be play. I envisioned a life where each day I would wake up excited to go achieve whatever was on my to-do list for the day. My friends were more pragmatic: Bang out the boring work, and then go play. None of us even considered the third option of working lots of hours for little pay doing something you didn't like. No thank you, period.

I headed back up to Montana, where I'd moved to be closer to nature. I didn't have a clear vision of passionate work that would light me on fire, and it was pretty nice to just work 25 to 30 hours a week writing for high-tech companies and then go fish, ski, hike, act, volunteer, and settle into coffee shops. It was nice, but it wasn't satisfying. And then one day, I hit a wall. I didn't want to do it any more. I sold almost everything I owned, rented out my house, and moved to Sri Lanka to help with the tsunami recovery.

Now, five years later, I'm at a crossroads again. I spent five incredible years doing international development work -- the last three in eastern and southern Africa. It was exhilarating, enriching, rewarding, and incredibly frustrating at times. I'm very thankful for those years, and now I'm ready for something new.

The question is, what? For awhile I didn't have an answer to that question. But now it's emerging (yikes!): I want to act, travel, and write. I want to share stories, mine and others, that touch a chord in people and make them look at the world around them a little differently. I'm scared to take this on. Aren't enough people already doing this? Is there really anything new to be said? Am I creative enough to really succeed? Isn't helping to balance out the world's unfair distribution of resources a more important and necessary goal? Shouldn't I already be sharing more of my own wealth to help effect this change?

I don't have clear answers to these questions. I have realized that not all people have this same desire to live an engaged, passionate life -- and not in a bad way. Different things make different personalities tick. For me though, I now know that my work needs to be play. The next step is to really take the plunge. I'm not quite there yet, but I am inching closer and closer to the edge.

On Envy

Today I saw a friend's photo album on Facebook and felt jealous. I wanted to be having such incredible adventures. I want to be taking bigger bites out of life. And I also am not feeling the energy right now to be doing that. I moved to Biarritz two weeks ago. I want to allow myself to slowly shift into a new way of life, and yet I also see myself wanting to be doing more, bigger, better, now. I think this will be an interesting internal debate in months to come.

Judge Judy

So earlier this week, I went for a morning walk, leaving my exceedingly large house to walk the streets of my exceedingly lovely neighborhood. I turned a corner and up walked two young boys in white shirts, green vests and litte grey shorts -- clearly students at one of the upscale private schools in the area. This was the second time I'd seen them, tripping along to the bus stop. Slogging behind them were not one, but two nannies -- yes, one for each little boy! -- each carrying a matching backpack, with one of the nannies also awkwardly juggling a large sports bag with a tennis racket sticking up out the top. I couldn't hold back. "Hey children, you aren't carrying your own backpacks?" "No," with a sheepish grin. "That's just not right," slipped out, as my head started wagging side to side.

And is it any more right that I live in my exceedingly large house in my exceedlingly lovely neighborhood when the average Kenyan lives in a one-room wooden shack?