Sticking to the plan

I certainly hadn't intended to let six weeks go by without posting, but it is what it is. I clearly haven't made blogging a priority and I'll forgive myself for that because of how busy I've been in those past six weeks. The busy-ness of my life right now is what's inspired this post. Let's get right to it.

One of the main highlights over the past month or so was a workshop I attended on voluntary simplicity. It was hosted by the Sustainable South Osborne Community Co-operative, in which I will be a board member as of tomorrow evening, and it was led by Mark Burch, a leading expert in the voluntary simplicity community. At the workshop I made friends with a peer, someone who was actually my age and is at roughly the same place in his life as I am. We're both in transition from the "old ways" to a new way of living. He's been a godsend as far as I'm concerned because I now have someone I can genuinely communicate with while I navigate the difficult and lonely waters of social pariahism.

So we come to the heart of the issue of transitioning my core values and lifestyle. This is something I want, but damn it can be pretty lonely at times. That isn't to say that I am alone. I still have all my friends and family, they still love me, and I am ever grateful for them, but they don't get it. I'm not saying "no one understands me" either, because I've begun building a community of like-minded individuals, but they're not my friends yet. For the most part, I am alone in transitioning from the "go to school, get married, buy a house, have kids, go on vacations and work until I retire" script to "discover what's truly meaningful in my life and don't rely on material comforts to provide that meaning." After all is said and done, it may just turn out that the original script is what I want. I don't rule that out. At this point, however, it's looking very unlikely.

One of the most effective ways of testing this all out, after much consideration, is to completely leave behind my regular life and go on an adventure. I learned last year during my sabbatical that taking a break from the everyday routine can provide a lot of perspective on just what the hell it is that I'm doing. We can get lost so easily in the doing that we forget where it's taking us. I've become so busy exploring my hobbies, building community and socializing that I'm concerned that I'll be swept up by it all again and lose sight of my overarching plan. Going on an adventure will provide the big break I need to gain an even wider perspective on my life.

A lot of my activities are currently aimed in the right direction. I'm much more cognizant of the activities I choose and how they fit in my life. Some activities I feel move me backwards, things like visiting family or certain friends. It's a mixed blessing, because it allows me to go to back to sleep, in a sense. I can stop striving for personal growth for a little while. I can't stay there for long, however, as that drive to pick myself up and move on is always there in the back of my mind. Maybe that's my purpose in this life. I feel more passionately about that then most other things, and it would explain my dedication to it.

In the end, though, I have specific goals I want to achieve within the next year, and I don't want to lose them amongst the "living" that happens in everyday life. I am so thankful that I am busy with life, and everyday I do honour to my existence by living consciously. Sticking to the plan, i.e. WWOOFING in the fall, and leaving my very comfortable and safe job, are the priorities. This is the next step for which I've been preparing myself. I've delayed it for one more summer, but then there can be no more excuses. I try to avoid binary thinking as much as a regular person can, but in this instance it truly does come down to moving forward with my personal development, or not. I choose the former.