When I was in college and considering what I thought I wanted my life to look like, I often envisioned living in different scenarios – spending several months to a year in NYC, then spending a year in a rural environment. Then I’d go to England and live there for a year. I never gave a thought to how I would support myself – something would work out. I wasn’t concerned about the details, just the location. Although that plan did not materialize in exactly this way, I have lived my life in creative ways: different jobs in different places, mostly within Colorado, but in a few other states as well. I believe living in various places and environments enriches a person’s perspective of the world as well as their life experience. For many it starts with sharing a dorm room with a stranger and goes from there.
I also have the same philosophy about work choices. The conventional method for many is to finish high school, possibly go to college and beyond, maybe have some travel experience somewhere along the way, then get The Job and be committed to it forever and ever amen. Even if the venue for the career changes, the general expectation is that we stay in the original field.
But for many, this route is too stifling. People are born creative but we often talk ourselves out of this trait by the time we’re adults, or we’re told by other people in various ways (with their own issues or why on earth would they say such a thing?) that we aren’t creative. We are living in a world made by insanely creative people. Look at anything around you – it was envisioned by someone, added onto by someone else and realized in its final form by others. People create on the fly, come up with ideas while lying in bed or driving, or taking the bus, staring off into space, when a “HEY, we could do it this way!” idea crashes into their consciousness.
And I’m not referring to only traditional art-type creativity but Daily Living Creativity. The buzzword in recent years is Lifestyle Design, but it doesn’t matter what it’s called, it refers to following our desires in living the life to which we are drawn: Working in a restaurant, living in a tricked out tiny apartment, saving money then hitchhiking across the country. Then finding a sustainable living farm, setting up life there for a year or two then catching a train to Alaska to volunteer with the Forest Service. Then following the urge to settle into a studious mode and going to school to study something interesting. And on it goes. A person gains perspective, experience and vision along the way.
But most folks get scared into the One Path. They follow the expectation of their friends or parents. Or they get lured by the Big Money and Big House and Trophy Family. Nothing wrong with that if it’s your heart’s desire. But if you really wanted to keep learning new things and having different work experiences indefinitely, why not do it?
Society. A force to be reckoned with and not always supportive of the unconventional types. More on that later…I feel the need to go make something.
