Life in the Slow Lane

I quit my job in the summer of 2009, in the midst of the global recession. At that point, I'd spent nearly 20 years in academe working as a lecturer/professor and then as an administrator.  The last 5 years of it were particularly frenzied.  The line between work and personal life blurred, I was tethered to my blackberry much of the time, and I spent lots of time on airplanes.  I enjoyed my work to a large extent, but for a variety of reasons I chose to walk away from it.

I wasn't really sure what I would do with myself those first few months.  I had some money saved up, so I didn't have to charge straight into hustling up a living somehow.  I also knew that another "job" was not what I wanted.  So, I didn't do anything really for the first several months.  Nothing productive, at least.  I mean, I did a few local speaking engagements here and there for pocket money, but for the most part I read a lot, worked in the yard and garden, played with the dog, hunted and fished a little, filled the birdfeeders on the patio, and watched the purple martins teach their young to fly from the box stationed in the backyard near the lake.

At about the 2 month mark, my shoulders finally came down from around my ears for more than a few hours at the time.  At the 4 month mark, I realized that I could think straighter than I'd been able to in a long while.  At the 6 month mark, I realized I would never hold a traditional job again if I could in any way help it.

At first, I worried about money.  I'd walked away from an executive pay package and was living off my savings initially.  But, writing and speaking work drifted in bit by bit, and I've been able to make it just fine for the most part by downsizing my life just a little.  I don't make as much money as I did before, but it's enough. And, I have something much more valuable than money, at least to me:  freedom - especially freedom with my time.

I'm not "in the scene" as much as I was before, either.  I don't get invited to the big galas and fundraisers and other such events like I used to.  I don't miss it really.  Only a few people at those things did I really care about seeing anyway.  I still see those people over lunch, coffee, or just hanging out on the backyard swing.

When and where did I buy in to the idea that anything short of working 60 hours a week was some sort of cop-out or weakness?  I guess it comes from my family background.  I come from a blue collar immediate and extended family where everyone works hard into their elderly years - 5 and 6 full days a week, sometimes even 7.  They were - and are - good people.  They provide for themselves and their families.  They provided for me, and I am forever grateful.

I still wonder, though, if Adam's curse in the garden - to sweat and toil for his sustenance - has to be the way for us.  Especially now, when we have so much at our fingertips in terms of technology, communication, etc.  Or maybe those of us living in this part of the world have simply lost ourselves in the feverish consumerism that washes over us every day, so we work all those hours for all the crap we supposedly "need" to be happy.  Or maybe it's just become "the way it is" here.  It's just what we do.  Don't ask questions; get back to work.

I didn't intend to change my whole worldview about life and work when I quit my job a year and half ago, but that's exactly what has happened.

Life in the slow lane is proving ever more irresistible.