Deliriously happy? Long distance backpacking. That is what I did this summer. It was life transforming. I want to go back and finish the trail and do other trails and live that lifestyle forever. It was a dream I had for 33 years and I finally went out there and did it for 3 months and it was like finally being who I was meant to be.
But I can't do it all the time because it is seasonal and obviously doesn't earn any money. So the next best thing is to carve out some kind of life that makes long distance backpacking possible. It is not really clear to me whether it would be better to work for myself so I had more control over my time, or to commodotize my full-time career. Work for a few years, save lots of money, quit, hike, go back and work etc. I'm hoping freelancing will be the way because I've really had it with cubicle life and freelancing kind of feels like a new trail in life to follow. It gets me excited. But cubicle life is calling because I have skills in demand and the siren song of earning and saving a ton of money for more backpacking is aluring.
Perhaps the problem we have is that work is pretty much all he does anymore even though they treat him horribly at his job and he hates it. Work is the center of his life. He is working right now at 8:30 on a Tuesday night. He manages people in India and China and so he's on the phone with them now. Sometimes he's on the phone at 6 AM.
But with my long distance adventure, work has a lesser place in my life. It doesn't seem as important to me now. My time means more to me. Real life was on the trail. I was rich in time. More happened each day on the trail than happens in a month in regular life. I want to go back. I don't feel finished with it yet.
If I lived alone I would want to live a much more scaled down life than the one we have. A total voluntary simplicity kind of life rather than this keeping up with the Joneses middle class life. I don't want to own a car. I don't want to own a flat screen TV. I don't want anything anymore. Just my backpack and a few more things for the house. He asked me, if I won the lottery what would I buy. I said nothing. Anyway, if I moved to be on my own I would feel much better with a solid income, even though it would be soul-crushing. At least I could pay the rent. So far I can't on my freelance career.
Thing is, I think he prefers life to be soul-crushing. As much as he complains about me when I'm in some job making me unhappy, he actually seems to hate it more when I'm happy. It's like we both have to live with our spirits broken for him to be happy. The happiest was when we worked at the same company and could complain about the same idiotic Dilbert things.
Oh well. Sorry to dump all my problems. At least you know a little bit more about me.
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