Typical

Still drinking out of a wine juice box

Not long after arriving in Ecuador Teddy and I were up late (after 9pm) talking. He related some bonehead thing he did that could just as easily have been anyone's bonehead move. Then he smiled and shook his head, saying "Typical Teddy." Then after a short pause and with the residue of the smile still left on his face and his eyes now looking off into some photo album in his brain, he says, "I gotta make typical Teddy mean something else."

Now, I only pick particularly on Teddy because typical Teddy is such a great line (and he's a pretty hard target to miss), because many of us could say the same thing (or should).

We all work to improve ourselves, I think. It's why I love getting old (besides hoping that one day I'll finally look my age, or at least old enough to drink); if you're honestly working to improve yourself, every year is better than the last. One of the greatest barriers to self improvement…no, wait, the only barrier…is ourselves. We tend to rationalize, deflect, and excuse our way out of taking responsibility for ourselves and our failures. There are many things in life we can blame our little failures on: work got in the way; the kid got sick; it's really cold outside; the dog ate my homework.

But most of those things we shift blame to are just the thing of everyday life. And if we don't take life into account, our lives will ultimately be only stories of why not.

Or so we have found out on this sabbatical. We have stripped away not just our regular jobs, but many other commitments, responsibilities, and time-consuming opportunities. We no longer serve on boards and committees in our community. We don't have many social functions to attend. We don't have lots of friends or family nearby whom we haven't seen in a while and need to spend time with. We have, in short, nothing but ourselves and the day in front of us. Awesome, right?

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm afraid I look better with clothes on. And it's kinda like that. Without all those obligations and opportunities that create the structure of our lives and tell us and others who we are, we are stripped down to the raw us, and some of what we find ain't all that pretty. But unless you honestly know where you're starting, it will take longer to get where you want to go.

Still, unless you are looking at your naked self and seeing what you want to be rather what you don't like, you'll end up trying to fix what's wrong, rather than trying to create what's right. And that may be the greatest lesson we've learned here; be ready to look in the mirror, but don't waste time lamenting what you see. Get busy making typical Teddy mean something else.

A simple life

Just checked the weather in Denver and Vail. Flip flops may not cut it for friggin' 15 below zero! Good thing we gave them one last dip in the sand. I won't tempt you with too much of this beach trip, except for the cool fishing we got to witness.

Living In a Bubble: Fending Off Conformity

On one of my "in between" periods of unemployment in my life I traveled Australia and New Zealand for a bit. At the time it was the longest period of travel I'd ever had, long enough that when I returned I had…an event.

I had recently returned to Up Over (from Down Under) and was driving down a busy, major street in Denver. I had a peculiar sensation of moving slowly through all the pulsing energy of a morning commute, isolated and safe, like a Disneyland ride. I was mentally removed—and felt physically removed, as in a bubble—from what seemed surging and insistent purposelessness. This is how it will feel to the first enlightened ants, I think.

But I was on my way to a job interview or some other responsible thing. And I knew I was going to get back into it. So I did a Vulcan mind meld on myself at that moment—rememberrrrr.

And I have remembered, but recalling that memory now and again has only nudged me gradually toward a life more permanently in that bubble of isolation. I recall it now because we are about to leave Ecuador and our sabbatical, and return home to...it. But part of that experience on Colfax Avenue years ago was realizing that I was not walking into this experience; it was not a rip in the space/time/responsibility continuum. It was a state of mind.

And was it a state of mind only, or an early and necessary mental step to achieving a state of being? I choose door number 2, Monty.

And so, as we are returning home, we are thinking about how we incorporate what we have learned on our sabbatical into our lives, no matter where we are or what's happening. Some of those things are merely logistical: how we think about and achieve education for ourselves and the kids; how we continue to learn and use this new language; how we achieve the financial independence to allow a more flexible lifestyle.

But we will lose focus even on those logistical things if we don't also make the state of mind influence our planning and everyday decisions so that ultimately we have a different sensibility and confidence in our own shoulds. For us, and I think most people, what keeps us in the most common denominator and our own personal mediocrity is our natural tendency to measure ourselves against others and feel pressure to conform to social expectations. The phenomenon of, as I've heard it put before, being should on.

That social influence is usually implicit and subtle. When we'd tell people that we were quitting our jobs and living in Ecuador for a year the response was usually, "That's bold." But half the time the emphasis was on bold, implying excited approval, and the other half on that's, being a polite way to say stupid. And what we worried about was not the actual sabbatical itself or coming home poor and unemployed, but what others would think of that.

Would people judge like that? I don't think so. And why should we care if they do? But that's how your mind turns doubt into fear and fear into conformity. Now that we have done the sabbatical and are returning home there will be both real and imagined pressure to get back into the rat race. So we are working on strategies to maintain our current state of mind and make it a state of being, despite pressures to "normalize."

One of the best ways we can think of to maintain that state of mind is make it our business. We're working on a website and "inbox magazine" to encourage and help other families to take sabbaticals. The business itself, if successful, would untether us geographically, provide more flexible income, and help keeping us from stepping in hot, steamy piles of should.

We'll announce that soon, but in the meantime, watch your step.

Overworked

"Hello, Peter. Whaaaat's happening?"

This from a recent Bloomberg article: Americans working too much. Anyone out there disagree? Anyone since 1975? So Bob, how we doin' there on that working too much thing? I think the article was subtitled "but keep watching TV; it's making you smarter."
Wanna cry? Here's some excerpts from the department of Statistics to Prove What We Already Know.

• In 1965 a U.S. Senate subcommittee predicted that due to automation Americans would be working just 20 hours a week and taking at least seven weeks of vacation a year.

• In 1991 Joe Average had added 163 hours to his work year since 1973. And now Jane Average (Joe's wife) was also working full time, so the average per family was 500-700 more than the 70's. (And anyone think we're working less than 1991? We surpassed the Japanese by the end of the 90's as the worlds sweathogs.)

•  Median annual paid vacation time for Joe and Jane these days? Less than one week.

But at least the rest of the world has been having to compete with us to keep up. Right? World?

Dutch workers put in less than 1,400 hours a year and get a minimum of four weeks of vacation a year. I used to do my staff budgeting using the standard figure 2080 hours per year for full time, 120 of that as paid vacation. And the Netherlands has a positive trade balance, ranks fifth in life satisfaction, and enjoys the highest children's welfare (as in well-being, not a government programs) in the world. Man, there are just two things I can't stand in this world...

So, now that the dollar buys less, jobs are scarce, still got the big mortgage…better really start showing 'em who's a hard worker, eh? People keep saying that doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. OK, no, it isn't. It's got nothing to do with insanity. Besides, as a negative motivation, it ignores the fact that these days insanity is cool. But can we agree that doing the same thing and expecting different results is…stupid? I think we can.

So what are you going to do? Think about it next time you've got some time off.

A quiver of insults

Taking a break from thinking too much--or at least thinking way too seriously--with this little road game. We are all familiar with the terms of venery for many common animals: a herd of cattle, a gaggle of geese, a school of fish. There are also some less common, but very cool names: a parliament of owls, intrusion of cockroaches, and my personal favorite, a murder of crows. And it occurred to me the other day that traveling nationals deserve their own terms to fit our stereotypes for them. Here are some to get us started, and please contribute in the comments.