How many here have changed or quit their careers in order to return to a simpler lifestyle. This has come up on another thread but it deserves it own.
And yes, I’m one of those who is sick of the urban materialist culture and would like to chuck it (and my career) for something simpler and saner.
steve hiker
My career is one thing I’m walking away from. Here is a short list of other thing;
Michael Jackson interviews
Reality TV
People who continue to have chrismas lights on in March
One sided “news” networks that seek ratings not truth
People with 4 children complaining about the cost of living
Lawyers Lawyers Lawyers
Al Sharpton’s raspy voice
Traffic jams
Suv drivers complaining about gas prices
Cell phones
Ladders, electricity, ditches…I’m and electrician
Schedules
Alarm clocks
Rednecks with mullets
Fast food
My computor
Pens that leak in my pocket
Pens that work until you really need them
Microwave food
Mowing the grass
Small minded people with big opinions
Bigotry, except for people who don’t like people in kilts
3 foot snow drifts
New Jersey people who say “You don’t know me!!!”
Walkie Talkie
i quit my job and gave up a career for a simpler way of life. granted i’m only 27, but i have a degree in recording arts. i used to be an assistant engineer in a very high profile recording studio in nyc. i’ve worked with a lot of very well known musicians and eventually became facilities manager of the same studio.
to make a long story short, i ended up quitting, biught a one-way ticket to colorado and spent two years there climbing and absolutely fell in love with the place, but realized i couldn’t be a climbing bum forever. so i decided to become a nurse (yeah, i’ve already heard all of the meet the parents jokes already!)
i wanted to do something that i felt good about doing, offered flexibility, and allows me to live wherever i want to and earn a decent buck. unfortunately i’m back east for school because the nursing programs around denver are baced up until the end of 2004. i got into school a lot sooner out here and upon graduation i’ll be heading back west for sure.
while i was out there i saw a whole new perspective on things and realized (at least to me) that a career wasn’t the most important thing to me, it was pursuing the things that i want to and having experiences and adventures - not sit behind a desk the rest of my life!
scott
outdoorjunkie
I was one of those ten, zero gravity surgeons. Problem is theres too much gravity were I live to be a big success. I closed my business and now I create pop art with medical gear. It sells real good down at the beach!!
Virginian
I’m about to change careers after 19 years with the same corporation. I’m looking a 50% pay cut square in the face and liking what I see. The benefits? Cutting a 70 minute commute into 15 minutes, doing something I actually like as opposed to something that simply pays the bills, and last (but not least), the new job I hope to get will have me in the outdoors fairly often. Woo hoo! Sure beats fluorescent lighting.
Little Bear
GA-ME 2000
Little Bear 2000
I just bailed on my big buck job to thru-hike the AT. After the trail I will not return to the rat race. I will never again give up my happiness and peace of mind for a pay check.
Footslogger
When I wanted to do a Thru-hike last year (June-Southbound), my company told me “you can’t go, your to valuable”. Only to be laid off 3 months later. I will never work for anyone ever again. In the last 3 months. I managed to scrape, borrow, and beg for enough money to buy a house, and rent it out. Got my Tax Refund back, and filed for unemployment so I have income for the trail. There is by far more honesty on the trail, then in the workplace.
Ficade
I’m chucking my job (programming). but i have no other skills, i definatly dont want to go back to it. gotta pay the rent somehow… the other path that i’d like to follow would be horticulturalist. but jobs for that aint exactly thick on the ground…
Bloody Cactus
for those who chuck the rat race, what are some less insane ways of making money (the root of all modern evil)?
steve hiker
teamwork is a key tool when dismantling the prescribed commitment to the rat race. my girlfriend and i are able to afford a somewhat nomadic lifestyle because when traveling we share very small studio apartments, thus very cheap rent shared between two of us. this reduces the wage-slave necessity greatly. i think the greatest (and most obvious)way to slay the work beast and money monster is to simply recondition yourself to not need it. we don’t have a car, nor do we use a credit card. we are not in debt, thus we are unencumbered. we do settle for some ‘menial’ employment (who else will hire part-time?), but to me, all work is the same when you are selling your time, your energy, your life to the march of the machine (in addition, i don’t handle authority, routine, or discipline well at all). of course a great risk in this style of living is that neither of us has benefits that come with career-type servitude, so no health care. but its worth the risk to be able to remain a free-spirit.
we are a work-obsessed culture, a civilization of commodification and consumerism, which obscenely necessitates work way beyond survival needs. our work is now our identity. when people meet each other for the first time, they don’t say ‘what are your dreams’, ‘tell me about your desires’, or ‘let me share my feelings with you’…nope, it’s ‘so, what do you do for a living?’…this makes me sad.
tim
teamwork is a key tool when dismantling the prescribed commitment to the rat race. my girlfriend and i are able to afford a somewhat nomadic lifestyle because when traveling we share very small studio apartments, thus very cheap rent shared between two of us. this reduces the wage-slave necessity greatly. i think the greatest (and most obvious)way to slay the work beast and money monster is to simply recondition yourself to not need it. we don’t have a car, nor do we use a credit card. we are not in debt, thus we are unencumbered. we do settle for some ‘menial’ employment (who else will hire part-time?), but to me, all work is the same when you are selling your time, your energy, your life to the march of the machine (in addition, i don’t handle authority, routine, or discipline well at all). of course a great risk in this style of living is that neither of us has benefits that come with career-type servitude, so no health care. but its worth the risk to be able to remain a free-spirit.
we are a work-obsessed culture, a civilization of commodification and consumerism, which obscenely necessitates work way beyond survival needs. our work is now our identity. when people meet each other for the first time, they don’t say ‘what are your dreams’, ‘tell me about your desires’, or ‘let me share my feelings with you’…nope, it’s ‘so, what do you do for a living?’…this makes me sad.
reduced to ants of capital.
tim
teamwork is a key tool when dismantling the prescribed commitment to the rat race. my girlfriend and i are able to afford a somewhat nomadic lifestyle because when traveling we share very small studio apartments, thus very cheap rent shared between two of us. this reduces the wage-slave necessity greatly. i think the greatest (and most obvious)way to slay the work beast and money monster is to simply recondition yourself to not need it. we don’t have a car, nor do we use a credit card. we are not in debt, thus we are unencumbered. we do settle for some ‘menial’ employment (who else will hire part-time?), but to me, all work is the same when you are selling your time, your energy, your life to the march of the machine (in addition, i don’t handle authority, routine, or discipline well at all). of course a great risk in this style of living is that neither of us has benefits that come with career-type servitude, so no health care. but its worth the risk to be able to remain a free-spirit.
we are a work-obsessed culture, a civilization of commodification and consumerism, which obscenely necessitates work way beyond survival needs. our work is now our identity. when people meet each other for the first time, they don’t say ‘what are your dreams’, ‘tell me about your desires’, or ‘let me share my feelings with you’…nope, it’s ‘so, what do you do for a living?’…this makes me sad.
reduced to ants of capital.
tim
Hey Steve Hiker-
This is a topic I know something about. First, who wants a job? A job implies labor, doing things you don’t enjoy. But having a career is something altogether different. A career implies doing something you love. A pursuit of making a difference and letting you walk a bit more upright, reguardless of the industry. I volunteered my position last year for a layoff that I knew was coming. My duties were changing so radically that it was no longer a good fit…it became a job. I learned a long time ago that having principles don’t mean anything until they cost you money. I started a thru-hike last year but wasn’t ready ( mentally), so I continued with sectionals to learn more. I have. Along the trail, I was reintroduced to an apprictiation for simpler things.
Such as water. A shelter roof on a stormy night. Seeing my shadow. And taking a nap. Trivial things to city dwellers, wonderous things for a hiker. The lucky ones are those who can find what they love and get paid for it. I’ve always counciled students to chase what gives them enjoyment and the money will follow, no one who has a job can compete with the person who does the same task out of passion. In 16 days, I’m restarting my Thru-hike and this time it won’t be a job. I look forward to the simplicity that awaits me, but I also look forward to pursuing new venues when I return.
Serendipity