As I was driving across the state the other morning, I noticed a lot of people on their cell phones. This got me thinking that maybe there were other places that these folks would rather be (perhaps where they were headed). During one of the extended Howard Stern commercial breaks, I started to move this thought around in my head and I assumed that the people on their phones, no matter who they were talking to, were trying to make something happen that would benefit them and/or their companies.
Before I take this post in a direction where I don’t want it to go, let me redirect a bit. I began wondering what I would be able to accomplish in life if I didn’t have any of the generic responsibilities that people are saddled with today. In other words, could I make my classes more interesting for my students if I didn’t have to spend 10 hours per day away from my home office? Further, would I be able to really explode my small website business if, again, I didn’t have those 10 hours each day away from my home office and if I could spend that time selling my services around my community?
Let’s flip it the other way around. What if I lived closer to my day job and I didn’t have the Adjunct Professor position or the small business? What would I be capable of accomplishing at the office if all I had to worry about was my occupation? Further, since I work for a small nonprofit where there is no real upward mobility, wouldn’t I be able to hyper-focus on my current set of clients and really learn their needs as well as the overall business more?
But the thoughts that really led me to write this post are really more artistic in nature. Imagine if a part-time writer didn’t have any bills or any familial responsibility and could focus on being creative. How about a great artist that holds a job he or she hates during the day, but makes magnificent paintings in his or her spare time? This applies to anyone – a musician who is a weekend singer because she has to work during the week, an artisan who does world-class woodworks at night because he has to hold a 9 – 5 to pay the mortgage, a budding scientist who is researching a new phenomenon in his spare time, etc.
My thoughts went further (it’s a long drive to work, folks!) and then I turned the argument in on itself. Are there people who have this type of situation? Absolutely. Those with no real-world responsibilities (families, jobs, bills, etc) have all of the time in the world. However, these are often the most inexperienced people out there or, worse, many of these are pampered people who turn to drugs to fill a void in their life. Not the group of people that you want beginning a new creative wave in the population!
But there are folks who have this amount of freedom in their lives. Those who do not have to take on the burdens of debt to afford a society-required education; those who make a good wage and are in financial control or financially free; those who have worked for a few decades and raised a loving family and are now getting ready to retire. Our world has the possibility to be very creative and for people to be in control of their own lives.
Then the asshole in front of me hit the breaks when no one was in front of him (idiot!) and I had to hit the breaks really quick! In a split second I was brought back to 195, headed to Trenton, on a cold December day, with 10,000 things to do before I could get back in my truck (after night has fallen) and head back to Monmouth County to teach my class.
Ah…life! 🙂
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