Keep on Driving…

I was driving to work the other day and I thought about just driving on by. Not to anywhere specific just somewhere that wasn’t work. There has been many times lately where I wonder what it would be like to completely withdraw from life…no responsibilities, no work, no bills, no budget…just surviving. There’s certainly something to be said for the simple life (though I imagine even the simple life has its drawbacks!!). 

I think of the book, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer and how Christopher McCandless packed up his life, abandoned his possessions, gave away all his money and hiked into the Alaska wilderness and lived in an old abandoned school bus. Now that’s a little extreme and if you’ve read the book, you know the ending isn’t a happy one. And honestly, I’m not sure I have that kind of simple living in my bones. Because even though life can be annoying at times, it’s also pretty amazing. Someone once said to me, once you realize that life is a pain in the butt, it makes things easier. So true!!

But, I’ve often thought, when things get tough how nice it would be to just get in my car and drive. Stopping when I want. Seeing friends and family that I haven’t seen in a while because I’m either working or don’t have the money. Not caring about the final destination or having a set deadline for where I need to be and when. Life can be pretty hard at times, and I don’t recall ever being prepared when I was young for how tough it can be. It’s not really hard in a bad way; it just feels stagnant and tiring. I get up, go to work, go to work at my second job, come home, make dinner, do the dishes and go to bed – and then it starts all over again the next day.

Now, I’m very aware that everyone has been struggling lately especially with the economy and unemployment. And I’m also very grateful and appreciative that I have a job. I know there are people much worse off than me. But I don’t remember it ever being so hard and so I wonder is it because I’m 40 and have a lot more responsibility; is it the time were living in – similar to the difficulty of the Great Depression; is it because we have so much wonderful technology that we can literally be accessible at any time, anywhere; is it because we desire to have it all so we literally work ourselves to death so we can buy all the things that are suppose to make life fun and easy?

It seems to me that we work ourselves so hard we end up not having any time left to really enjoy life. 

There’s that saying that time is money. And so, as we think about saving money and paying down our debt as part of this Project Money challenge, and even there after, I think it’s equally important to think about how valuable our time is as well. This is one of the things I often times struggle with because I don’t want to save for my retirement and then not be able to enjoy it because I’m sick from working too hard – or even worse dead.

It’s the balance that I’m trying to find and honestly it’s really difficult. So, I continue to wonder…but I’m again struck by reality because I’m on my lunch break at my second job and it’s now over so back to work I go. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so responsible!!