The Next Adventure

The next adventure should always be around the bend. It's hard to balance enough adventure in with the standard working life.  Fortunately for me, I've been at my job for such a long time, I get six weeks of vacation each year. So, assuming the adventure is not too lengthy, I can have lots of shorter (but perhaps not smaller) adventures throughout the year.

I didn't used to do this.  In fact, for the majority of the time I've been at my job, I haven't used most of the vacation time I had at my disposal, and it's likely that I lost quite a bit of what I was entitled to over the years. If I stop and think about the missed opportunities there, I'd probably get a bit sad and a bit mad (at myself). In the past, I felt as though work just couldn't get along without me.  A bit self-absorbed and self-important, methinks.  

I lived in England for about five years, and the biggest thing I carried away from my time there was that when it was 5 p.m. (or 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. or whenever you'd put in your eight hours), work was done. It was time for your personal life.  It's not about work ethic. I don't think British people are any less hard working than Americans.  Most countries value their citizens' personal lives more than the US seems to.  They give their working populations more days off in public holidays and vacation time than the US; the US is in the top ten in terms of actual time spent at work each day. We believe we must work hard to succeed, and that's definitely true.  But, could we be successful with a slightly better work-personal balance? I think we could be even more so.

Anyway, when I came back to the US, I vowed that I would spend my time not-at-work not actually working, if you know what I mean.  But, that wasn't enough. I still wasn't taking much, if any, vacation time.  And when I did, my laptop always came along for the trip - not nearly good enough.

When I walked the Pennine Way last year, I had the most consecutive days off that I've had since the days of summer break in high school.  It was liberating, it was freeing, it was refreshing (of course it was also soggy, muddy, and cold - but that's another story blog). After so much time of continual work and worrying about work, it took awhile before my brain got used to not constantly trying to plan things to do with my job. What the whole experience taught me was that I don't want to settle for two weeks of pseudo-vacation each year.  I want more!

So, now I plan for adventure.  I wish I could be more spontaneous, but I do still have to have a job at the moment. What is the next adventure? Chuck is going to hike the Appalachian Trail this year.  I'm going to start out with him for about nine days. Then at regular intervals, I hope to be able to join him again for a week at a time throughout the year. If all goes to plan, I hope to spend about 4-5 weeks in total on the trails. That's a good start!