Get Busy Living, or Get Busy Dying
August/19/2007 10:17 PM Mississippi River
This
is a blurb from my journal from the Mississippi River
Expedition. Lots of thinking on that trip.
Get Busy Living, or Get Busy Dying
Been thinking about Dad today. He worked himself into the ground at the ripe old age of thirty-nine. I often wonder what he’d think about these kinds of trips I’ve been doing if he was still around. I wonder if I’d even be out doing these trips for that matter.
Sometimes I wonder just what I’m doing out here. Shouldn’t I be doing the respectable thing and be working at some job right instead of wondering down a river all summer? Wouldn't it be easier to just settle down and start going down the road that everyone else is travelling?
I feel as if I have a foot on two different trains going in opposite directions and I’m torn with which one to hop on to. If I continue with this PhD I’m probably going to end up with a decent job at a university with some time off to sneak outside every once in awhile. Then again, many professors seem to have abandoned that part of their life to chase tenure.
The other direction has me working some random jobs piecing together more of the things that really make me tick. An old friend of mine told me once that I’ll either be a graying professor somewhere or a chair maker. Right now I don’t know if I’d argue with that prediction.
I think that Dad's early passing affects how I look at all this. I could get run over by a bus tomorrow for all I know, but I spent years doing all kinds of stupid crap and I feel lucky just to be around right now. I feel like I wasted ten years of my life to finally get to this point, so now what am I supposed to be doing with myself?
I spent the better part of my twenties floundering around from school to school, job to job, and relationship to relationship. A decade lost to decadence and depression. I've always a tinge of regret to all those years, but I can't do anything about that now. Live and learn.
Now I'm here at the ripe age of thirty-five, winding my way down the Mississippi River with someone I'm passionately in love with. Not exactly sure how I ended up here, but I couldn't be happier. Jess has been a god-send, and I'm one lucky, lucky dude.
I don't think that just going through life based just on what feels good is any way to live. I’m not much into goal setting either, but it feels great to watch something that I’ve planned and worked hard for come together. I planned on being a professor, and now that what I've worked toward for the last five years gets closer I just don’t know if it’s worth it anymore.
I can’t obsess about this much more, and I’m not sure this trip is helping anything. Everyday is one hundred percent living. There’s not a moment that goes by that we’re not right in the middle of what’s going on around us. That’s a hard act to follow, and certainly harder to recreate back in the working world. I think about the Appalachian Trail every day even now, I’m sure this trip down the Mississippi is will be the same way. I swear it’s like a drug.
Do you go on some life-changing trip only to pine away for another for the rest of your life, or do you just work your way through and never really get to those super-high points? Those super-highs also come with some awfully low points in the end as well. I honestly can’t get my head around the whole thing.
Get Busy Living, or Get Busy Dying
Been thinking about Dad today. He worked himself into the ground at the ripe old age of thirty-nine. I often wonder what he’d think about these kinds of trips I’ve been doing if he was still around. I wonder if I’d even be out doing these trips for that matter.
Sometimes I wonder just what I’m doing out here. Shouldn’t I be doing the respectable thing and be working at some job right instead of wondering down a river all summer? Wouldn't it be easier to just settle down and start going down the road that everyone else is travelling?
I feel as if I have a foot on two different trains going in opposite directions and I’m torn with which one to hop on to. If I continue with this PhD I’m probably going to end up with a decent job at a university with some time off to sneak outside every once in awhile. Then again, many professors seem to have abandoned that part of their life to chase tenure.
The other direction has me working some random jobs piecing together more of the things that really make me tick. An old friend of mine told me once that I’ll either be a graying professor somewhere or a chair maker. Right now I don’t know if I’d argue with that prediction.
I think that Dad's early passing affects how I look at all this. I could get run over by a bus tomorrow for all I know, but I spent years doing all kinds of stupid crap and I feel lucky just to be around right now. I feel like I wasted ten years of my life to finally get to this point, so now what am I supposed to be doing with myself?
I spent the better part of my twenties floundering around from school to school, job to job, and relationship to relationship. A decade lost to decadence and depression. I've always a tinge of regret to all those years, but I can't do anything about that now. Live and learn.
Now I'm here at the ripe age of thirty-five, winding my way down the Mississippi River with someone I'm passionately in love with. Not exactly sure how I ended up here, but I couldn't be happier. Jess has been a god-send, and I'm one lucky, lucky dude.
I don't think that just going through life based just on what feels good is any way to live. I’m not much into goal setting either, but it feels great to watch something that I’ve planned and worked hard for come together. I planned on being a professor, and now that what I've worked toward for the last five years gets closer I just don’t know if it’s worth it anymore.
I can’t obsess about this much more, and I’m not sure this trip is helping anything. Everyday is one hundred percent living. There’s not a moment that goes by that we’re not right in the middle of what’s going on around us. That’s a hard act to follow, and certainly harder to recreate back in the working world. I think about the Appalachian Trail every day even now, I’m sure this trip down the Mississippi is will be the same way. I swear it’s like a drug.
Do you go on some life-changing trip only to pine away for another for the rest of your life, or do you just work your way through and never really get to those super-high points? Those super-highs also come with some awfully low points in the end as well. I honestly can’t get my head around the whole thing.
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