More like living the nightmare, am I right?

Lets have a Friday night discussion about life.

 

There is a common conversation that I have on a daily basis with pretty much anyone I bump into, and it goes something like this....

 

Stranger: Hi, how are you?
Me: Hi, I'm living the dream thanks, how are you?
Stranger: Huh, more like a nightmare, right?
Me: Naw not really. If I wasn't living the dream, I'd wake up and do something about it, right?
Stranger: *Confused* Umm, yeah I guess.
Me: I hope you have a great day.
Stranger: *Crickets*

 

This conversation breaks my heart. Every time. I hate it. It tells me there are to many zombies walking around. To many people who have already died, and are just keeping their bodies in motion for as long as they generate heat.

 

Here's the first point. A large amount of the general population has been convinced to live a life where they work a 40-50 hour a week job that they don't like, take a one week vacation every year, retire and die. They also have 1-2 car payments, an out of control mortgage, credit card debt, an unused gym membership from January 2nd, and a lot of Friday night pizza deliveries.

 

So where's the problem? Why is this the nightmare? Why are people so uncomfortably comfortable in this life? What about this scenario is not only OK, but something people are striving for? People are breaking their backs and/or minds at jobs they hate for this life.

 

This is the nightmare because we are supposed to be hunters. And gatherers. We are supposed to be warriors, and adventurers. Humans are built and designed for long treks literally walking animals to death. Seriously. Look it up. Hunting back in the day was a pack of humans following a heard until a few of that heard couldn't take it and their hearts exploded. Hunting wasn't like the movies. It was way more brutal. Humans were the nightmare. The hunters in the dark. Humans were the ever persistent threat. And I don't mean the "ruining the climate" nightmare we are today. That's a whole different conversation. We were the apex predator.

 

So, what do we need to do to live the dream? Why did we go from being the nightmare to living the nightmare?

 

Honestly, there is only one answer that comes to mind. Decide.

 

Decide what you want. Everyone has heard of the college student who switched majors 32 times, and eventually picks something they don't care about. A close friend of mine made a huge impact on me when we first met. He told me an amazing tale of how after high school he saved up money, sold some things, and planned a harrowing adventure to backpack the Appalachian trail. His story is something I think about on a daily basis. It literally changed my forward thinking about how I would raise my kids one day. And when I first heard the story I hadn't even met my wife yet. Let alone had a kid to raise. And I never knew there were other plans for how you were supposed to live.

 

I was very blessed to come from family dynamics that set the expectation of college long before I ever went. However,  I didn't know there was anything else. The plan went went..... middle school, high school, college, job, marriage, kids, house, grandkids, retirement, die. So far a lot of that has played out. Right now I'm between kids and house. But there's an issue. College never lead to a job. I screwed up the plan and got a degree that gave me different things than a job. It's not worthless by any means, but it didn't followed the plan. My job only requires a high school diploma. I could have saved 6 years, and some thousands of dollars. I did trade those years for a lot of experience and wisdom though.

 

During the process of college I learned to rock climb. This lead to meeting people and hearing stories that painted a very different view of what life plans were available for the choosing.

 

There are other plans.
What?
There are other plans. Did you ever play the board game Life? It's kind of a limiting perspective. You either don't go to college and make one variety of incomes, or you go to college, get debt, and make a different variety of incomes. For better or worse. Real life isn't as limiting as the board game. And it definitely wasn't as limiting as my plan.

 

My friend who backpacked the Appalachian trail (Lets call him.....Brandon)  showed me something I missed in my childhood adventures. Actual adventures. Actual choices. Actual things that might put you in actual danger. *Gasp* Danger. I had never been in real danger. I have still only really been in danger of some broken bones, and maybe a handful of times have I climbed high enough to actually die if I fell. But Brandon got Lime disease on his trek. And a bear ate all of Brandon's food. Another bear tried to steal pop-tarts in the middle of the trail. Punk bear. Real Danger. Real Adventure. Something worth writing a book about. Something worth telling your kids about. They are seriously good bar stories. (I heard most of these stories over good brews while girls twirled his lusciously long hair he grew out on the trail)

 

Why am I rambling about danger? Because I want my precious, sweet, innocent two month old son to grow up and put himself in danger. I want him to live. I want him to have real adventures. I want him to learn confidence as he grows up to be a person who knows what he wants to do, and to do them. I want him to let other peoples expectations roll off his shoulders like rain water, while hopefully letting some wisdom soak in and stick. His life goals can be different than mine, in fact, I hope they are much grander. But I want to raise him so that he sees the paths he can take. There are different plans. Hopefully he will pick the one that beckons to him. If it's college, great. If it's not, great. But there are lots of plans. Lots of adventures. Lots of ways to change the world.

 

Are you in a life that you want to live? You can change it. You can have adventures. You can have danger. You can join the Peace Corps. You can join a program to teach or volunteer all over the world. You can sell your things and live a different life. Make sure the only way you are stuck working a 40 hour a week job paying off car loans and mortgages, chauffeuring kids around, taking a stressful way-to-expensive-vacation-once-a-year life, is if it warms your heart. If it does, go get it. Live it out and love every minute of it. But don't you dare live that life without knowing you can make a decision. You can decide. You can wake up 5 years from now and be in a 100 percent different life for yourself. Take your family of course. This isn't a call to leave people in a miserable wake behind yourself. But you can create a family legacy that stretches beyond the American Nightmare.

 

I've encountered a lot of things in the last few years that have and still continue to shape my families future. So if you've made it this far, I'll share what my dream looks like, and a couple of those influences that recreated it, and why I don't think I'm living in the nightmare.

 

Instead of a house in the suburbs, coaching baseball, planning to drive to sunburn beach in July, hoping the stock market doesn't crash so we can someday fingers-crossed-maybe-hopefully retire one day, I want a Homestead. I want to raise our kids in the dirt, digging veggies, chasing chickens, having a pet pig, maybe even a pet goat. I want the kids to run into the house and smell fresh baked bread, eat homemade cheese, and grass fed beef. I want to enjoy making beer and wine at home and have things to offer guests who come to our house. I want to see garlic roped up and hanging all Italy style in our kitchen. Friday night pizzas baked from sourdough starters, jarred tomato sauce we made in the middle of summer topped with cured meat from the cellar, and cheese we made after school. I want to have the house my kids friends want to come to because the parents pay attention to them, and they have crazy awesome food to eat. And maybe because our kids are cool. I guess. Haha.

 

• So read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kinslayer. It's fantastic.
• Watch videos on the Youtube channel called Becky's Homestead. Becky went out and decided to leave her corporate life behind her, build a log cabin with her bare hands, and runs her own homestead.
• Go out in the world and meet people who are different than you. This is the most important. Ask them questions about how they were raised. Ask them about religion that is different than yours, why they have political opinions that are different from yours, learn about hopes and dreams other people have that are different from yours. This is the most important thing to do if your stuck in a rut.

 

The big takeaway here is that none of these were things I wanted at 16, 18, 21, or even 25 really. I had ideas for what I wanted, and they didn't work out. However, instead of wallowing in self pity because of the unfinancially wise decisions I made in choosing college majors, I met some people, read some books, and learned about new plans. So go get some danger. Double check your plan. Or make your honest to goodness first true-to-yourself-plan. Take a big breath, stretch, and look inside your self to see if what your doing is going to get you where you want to be. If its not, decide where you want to be and your thoughts will change your actions, and your actions will change your world.

 

 Decide.