On being normal (or successful)

I have tried so many times in the last 8 months to write a new blog post.  There are several beginnings saved in my Blogger drafts, a couple on my computer, and a couple more in my journal.  For whatever reason, every time I've tried to do it, I just haven't managed to find words to put on paper.  I think today will be different, though.

I was just going through my Facebook news feed and saw a photo of a college friend of mine (acquaintance, at this point) at the holiday party for the bank where she works.  She was in a beautiful dress and accompanied by a man in a handsome suit, both looking very professional.  As I looked at the photo, I found myself thinking how glad I was that it wasn't me in it.  I was suddenly thinking how miserable I would feel if I were the one in the handsome suit doing (what I perceive as) dissatisfying work.  This is not to say that I think my life is glorious, not by a long shot.  I spent last summer as a prep cook, which I think many people would consider cheerless or disgruntling and perhaps even demeaning, and I'm currently working at the guest services desk for a ski resort.  My life is not glamorous.  My life also doesn't fit in a neat little box, and I think that's one of the aspects I like most about it.

I've shied away from the picture-perfect lifestyle for quite a while now.  I didn't search for a "normal" job when I finished college, but rather went into a volunteer program to work with delinquent boys in upstate New York.  I didn't search for a normal job after that, either, but rather opted to move to South America to teach English as part of a social justice project called Utopía.  I still didn't search for a normal job when I got back from that journey, either.  I've told myself for some time that the reason I wasn't interested in the cookie-cutter life path was because I wanted to work in social justice, because I was too committed to guiding my path in that direction.  Don't get me wrong, I do want to work for social justice, I do want to go down that road.  What I think I began to realize as I looked at a picture of the bank holiday party, though, is that my avoidance of the "professional" world is not really about social justice, it's about my discomfort with the ordinary.

I've always perceived the ordinary life (which society also generally considers the successful life) as boring, and I don't want to be bored.  Sure, the stability of $35,000/year starting salary sounds nice, but I could never do it if it was just for the stability, or just so other people would say, "Oh yeah, Alex, he's doing really well.  He's a banker." Working just for stability sounds like a waste of life.  Working for the approval of others sounds like a waste of will.  I want my life to be interesting to me, and I think if it's interesting to me it will be interesting to the people who care about me, too.  What more could I ask?  I'm happy for my friends who are happy for themselves, but I know some of my friends are working for the sake of working, and I'm sad for them.  I wonder if they won't suddenly find themselves at 35 and wondering what they spent their 20s doing.  I wonder if they won't find themselves at 45 and wondering what they're doing with their lives.  I wonder if they won't find themselves at 60 and wish they had done it all differently.  In a world where we are blessed enough to define success for ourselves, we are also cursed with the constant questioning of whether 30 years from now we will feel like we achieved it.

I suppose these questions will haunt us no matter what life path we take, but for now, at least, I feel confident that the one I'm on is the only one I could be on and be happy.  I'm living this time for something besides what other people have defined.  I'm living this time with the hope of looking back years from now and saying, "I was clueless, but I did alright."

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If you've wondered where I've been, well, you probably weren't alone in wondering.  I left Colombia at the beginning of May and made my way to southwest Montana, where I worked as a prep cook at Mountain Sky Guest Ranch until the end of our season.  I took a month to road trip through southern Utah and Arizona, then started work just this week at Whitefish Mountain Resort in northwest Montana for the winter.  I'll be here through April, and then, who knows?  I tried many times to write about the adventures I had over the last 8 months, but just never seemed able to put words on the screen.  I hope you can forgive my recalcitrance and accept this wee post as a kind of payment toward redemption.  I don't know when the next post will come, but I'll try not take another 8 months.

It being the holiday season, I wish you a Merry Christmas (or Happy Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, or Boxing Day, or, well, you get it ;-)

Until next time.

-Alex