Hey everybody,
As Ronald Reagan once said... There you go again... by which I mean I am once again unemployed. I'm not trying to compare myself to Jimmy Carter; if anything I consider myself the Walter Mondale of unemployment, though I would've preferred to be the Gary Hart of unemployment if you know what I mean. The point is that I am once again free to roam the earth, fight crime, hand out vigilante justice, bring peace to the Middle East, make delicious waffles, etc.
Now what to do with all this freedom? I remember talking to a career counselor in high school who told me to write down what I would do if I didn't have to work and whatever I answered is what I should pursue as a career. Then I got my placement test results back and it said I should be an optometrist. Anyhow, my issue with the counselor's proposition is mostly that it comes from a position of privilege. If you grow up middle class in the U.S. then yeah, it's possible to simply choose whatever you want as your career, but I'm pretty sure it's a little different if you grow up somewhere like Haiti or Somalia or North Korea. Even when you do have this freedom of choice your passions can't always translate to a career. I was talking to my buddy Felix a few weeks ago about unemployment and he said, "I told An [his wife] that if I didn't have to work I'd sit on the couch and play video games all day. That would be awesome. So she said 'What about Jake?' [his son] And I said 'He could hang out on the couch with me. It'd be great!'"
Maybe there are a lot of open positions for video game-playing nannies out there but I'm pretty sure they don't pay as well as being a corporate lawyer. So you make a conscious compromise to practice law to pay the bills to afford you and your family the life that you want and you play games and hang out with your kids during your free time. I think it's that way for most people, myself included. Most of my jobs have been a compromise, a means to an end, whatever. I had a good run at Keynote these last 4+ years working with great people and with a job that gave me the flexibility and free time to do all sorts of cool shit. But at some point it started to wear me down. The lucky part for me is that I'm able to be in a position where I can just... say... fuck it. Which is fantastic, by the way. I encourage anyone who has the opportunity to do so to quit their job with nothing else lined up. It completely flummoxes a large percentage of the population who cannot compute how you can simply quit a job. To be fair, the approximate breakdown is this: 60% supportive/wants to live vicariously through you, 39% flummoxed, and 1% my grandma. When I told my grandma I was quitting, first she said she thought she might be having a stroke. Then she looked directly at me and said, "You have mental problems." So of course I laughed, to which she replied, "No, I'm serious. Quitting your job. You have mental problems. You need to see a doctor." Then the other day she told me that I shouldn't leave because she's 96 and she might die while I'm gone. I said she'd better not because it would be a real inconvenience for me to have to come back home just for the funeral.
Don't get me wrong... it wasn't an easy decision. I have a pretty sweet life that I just kind of sort of blew up. I've had my share of sleepless, anxious nights asking myself what the fuck I'm doing and I anticipate a few more of those down the road. If there's one thing I know about myself, though, it's that I often need a kick in the ass to make changes and sometimes it needs to be self-administered. It felt like it was time. I was telling my friend Gemma about some of the weird twists and turns my life has taken over the last 10 or 15 years and she said, "It sounds like the universe has always taken care of you." I don't know if I would've thought of it in those terms but it's true that I've always been able to figure a way forward. Whether you choose to see that as faith in yourself or your friends or in the universe... it seems to have worked so far. Besides, I'm pretty sure I won't be lying on my deathbed lamenting the time I quit my job so I could go travel. I think I'll be able to find another conscious compromise when I need to, or maybe if I'm lucky find something that's not much compromise at all.
So I'm hitting the road once again, this time in my trusty and (hopefully) reliable 1997 Honda CRV, in whose company I will be roaming around the U.S. and Canada. I have already embarked on Project Beard where I will try not to shave for the duration of the trip which, along with Project Unemployed and Project Living Out of My Car, will comprise Operation Not Getting Laid. I'll try to post pictures and whatnot once a week or two on this site so if you want to keep up just put your email address in that box on the right where it says "Follow By Email" and click Submit.
Take 'er easy,
Dave
As Ronald Reagan once said... There you go again... by which I mean I am once again unemployed. I'm not trying to compare myself to Jimmy Carter; if anything I consider myself the Walter Mondale of unemployment, though I would've preferred to be the Gary Hart of unemployment if you know what I mean. The point is that I am once again free to roam the earth, fight crime, hand out vigilante justice, bring peace to the Middle East, make delicious waffles, etc.
Now what to do with all this freedom? I remember talking to a career counselor in high school who told me to write down what I would do if I didn't have to work and whatever I answered is what I should pursue as a career. Then I got my placement test results back and it said I should be an optometrist. Anyhow, my issue with the counselor's proposition is mostly that it comes from a position of privilege. If you grow up middle class in the U.S. then yeah, it's possible to simply choose whatever you want as your career, but I'm pretty sure it's a little different if you grow up somewhere like Haiti or Somalia or North Korea. Even when you do have this freedom of choice your passions can't always translate to a career. I was talking to my buddy Felix a few weeks ago about unemployment and he said, "I told An [his wife] that if I didn't have to work I'd sit on the couch and play video games all day. That would be awesome. So she said 'What about Jake?' [his son] And I said 'He could hang out on the couch with me. It'd be great!'"
Maybe there are a lot of open positions for video game-playing nannies out there but I'm pretty sure they don't pay as well as being a corporate lawyer. So you make a conscious compromise to practice law to pay the bills to afford you and your family the life that you want and you play games and hang out with your kids during your free time. I think it's that way for most people, myself included. Most of my jobs have been a compromise, a means to an end, whatever. I had a good run at Keynote these last 4+ years working with great people and with a job that gave me the flexibility and free time to do all sorts of cool shit. But at some point it started to wear me down. The lucky part for me is that I'm able to be in a position where I can just... say... fuck it. Which is fantastic, by the way. I encourage anyone who has the opportunity to do so to quit their job with nothing else lined up. It completely flummoxes a large percentage of the population who cannot compute how you can simply quit a job. To be fair, the approximate breakdown is this: 60% supportive/wants to live vicariously through you, 39% flummoxed, and 1% my grandma. When I told my grandma I was quitting, first she said she thought she might be having a stroke. Then she looked directly at me and said, "You have mental problems." So of course I laughed, to which she replied, "No, I'm serious. Quitting your job. You have mental problems. You need to see a doctor." Then the other day she told me that I shouldn't leave because she's 96 and she might die while I'm gone. I said she'd better not because it would be a real inconvenience for me to have to come back home just for the funeral.
Don't get me wrong... it wasn't an easy decision. I have a pretty sweet life that I just kind of sort of blew up. I've had my share of sleepless, anxious nights asking myself what the fuck I'm doing and I anticipate a few more of those down the road. If there's one thing I know about myself, though, it's that I often need a kick in the ass to make changes and sometimes it needs to be self-administered. It felt like it was time. I was telling my friend Gemma about some of the weird twists and turns my life has taken over the last 10 or 15 years and she said, "It sounds like the universe has always taken care of you." I don't know if I would've thought of it in those terms but it's true that I've always been able to figure a way forward. Whether you choose to see that as faith in yourself or your friends or in the universe... it seems to have worked so far. Besides, I'm pretty sure I won't be lying on my deathbed lamenting the time I quit my job so I could go travel. I think I'll be able to find another conscious compromise when I need to, or maybe if I'm lucky find something that's not much compromise at all.
 |
| My trusty steed awaits |
Take 'er easy,
Dave
