{"id":4933,"date":"2018-03-17T08:42:32","date_gmt":"2018-03-17T15:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=4933"},"modified":"2018-03-17T08:42:32","modified_gmt":"2018-03-17T15:42:32","slug":"to-life-beyond-the-normal-santiago-chile-03-17-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=4933","title":{"rendered":"To Life Beyond the Normal \u2013 Santiago, Chile \u2013 [03\/17\/2018]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"“Normal is getting into clothes that you buy to for work, then getting into a car that still isn\u2019t paid for to drive through traffic to get to the job that you have to have to pay for the car and the clothes so that you can afford the house that sits empty all day because you can\u2019t ever actually live in it”<\/p>\n

“Then I realized that I look forward to it all year. That’s kind of silly isn’t it? I mean isn’t it an awful long time to wait for just one moment?” ~ Pleasantville
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Frightening and more truthful words have perhaps never been spoken.<\/p>\n

It’s not as though this is news, I’m sure many people are aware of the vicious cycles of life…<\/p>\n

I consider people like myself very lucky, because our jobs are not 9-5, we do not have the \u201cnormal\u201d normal. There are a lot of things about that I do miss, mostly the illusion of privacy and the calmness of a more traditional routine. But when I really think about what normal really is<\/em> to most people \u2013 not the fairy tale normal, not the normal that we are tricked into believe we can \u201cearn\u201d but somehow never really reach.\u00a0 I find myself wondering more and more who came up with this invisible cage so many put ourselves in. And why those of us who are outside<\/em> of it, somehow still end up with one or two limbs inside<\/em> of it. Those of us who aren\u2019t on<\/em> the treadmill actually are<\/em>, in some way, we are just able to run perhaps that little bit slower than everybody else.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no secret that I want a home of my own. While I have a fantastic family and I\u2019m sure we could come to a relatively contented arrangement wherein I stay technically under their roof forever, that has never been what I want in my life. As I get older, especially now that I\u2019m looking down the road to a white dress in my near future, the concept of \u201cbut how will I afford it?\u201d looms up higher than it should. And I find myself wondering \u2013 why has the world made this simple basic thing so difficult<\/em>? How did we get ourselves onto this treadmill in the first place? How did<\/em> we get to the point where most of us will work for months on end just be able to \u201cearn\u201d one month off? How did we, as a society, get to the point where we have to justify<\/em> taking time to do the things we love because the precious hours we get when we\u2019re not at someone else\u2019s beck and call somehow feel like they\u2019re being wasted if we aren\u2019t thinking<\/em> about being at someone else\u2019s beck and call?<\/p>\n

When did working for dollars replace working for joy? Or was there ever such a thing? Did we in fact evolve on the treadmill? And if so, how to we get off it?<\/p>\n

It should be simple \u2013 we should be able to choose to. Of course, it isn\u2019t that simple, because the world doesn\u2019t want it to be. Homes will still be too expensive, most jobs will still be underpaid, and taxes will still be overly high. We are \u2013 for a long while yet, unless or until there is a massive world change regarding the importance of the imaginary concept of \u201ccurrency\u201d (and yeah, we made up the idea of money, worst bloody thing humanity ever did in my opinion) \u2013 still going to be throttled by the rope that is \u201cbut I will have to save for it\u201d. Btu that doesn\u2019t mean we can\u2019t choose<\/em> to get at least one foot of the treadmill in little ways.<\/p>\n

If you want to start a project for yourself, do it. Just because you want to. Not because anyone expects you to, not because you want to see what anyone thinks of it, just do it. You always wanted to be a photographer? Pick up a how-to book and a point and click and start carrying your camera with you to work \u2013 it\u2019s amazing the shots you can find out of nowhere, not everything has to be framed for national geographic. That book you always said you were going to publish? That you wrote but never did anything with because \u201cit\u2019s not like it\u2019s important\u201d? Find a self-publisher, put it out there \u2013 if only so that you can say \u201chey, I did that\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n

If there is one thing my job has taught me, with all the things I\u2019ve seen and the places I\u2019ve been: it\u2019s that things work out when you least expect them. And that doing things now<\/em>, grabbing life by the scruff of the neck now<\/em> is usually the only way to lead to the most amazing avenues in your life. I may dream of a routine and a white picket fence, but that doesn\u2019t mean that I am not still constantly looking for ways to shake up my life. Even if it\u2019s little things. And as for money? It may sound niave to say, and there may come a time when it comes around and chomps me in the back, but I have truly come to believe that if you proceed as if what you need will simply be there, it somehow always is. I\u2019ve been at rock bottom, I\u2019ve seen so much red in my bank account that I can\u2019t even look<\/em> at it for months on end, and it\u2019s been the times that I have been able to shift my focus, pull my attention to something else, anything else, that I\u2019ve found that my circumstance picks itself back up.<\/p>\n

People: break your own cycle. Step off<\/em> the treadmill. Do something crazy. Do something fun. Do something risky. Do something that everyone in your comfortable conservative world will tell you you are absolutely incredibly crazy to do \u2013 and you will find that while you may think afterwards that it wasn\u2019t perhaps the smartest<\/em> thing to do, it will have been worth it to have something to remember the next time you get in a car, to drive to a job you hate, to pay for a house\u2026etc etc etc\u2026<\/p>\n

Life\u2019s a banquet people, please help yourself ot more than just the appetizer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Normal is getting into clothes that you buy to for work, then getting into a car that still isn\u2019t paid for to drive through traffic to get to the job that you have to have to pay for the car … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-below-the-waterline","category-reflections-below-the-waterline"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-1hz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4933"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4935,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4933\/revisions\/4935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}