Cause and Effect - Work to Live, Not Live to Work

                How many times have you said; “there just isn’t enough time in the day?”  We have become so busy with school, or our careers and family, that we couldn’t possibly find time to consider doing anything more than we already do.  All of us have become time poor.  We are slaves to debt, material possessions, and social placement.  We have allowed what we do for a living to consume who we are and define us.  We are completely missing out on the real experience of why we are alive in the first place.  We are not here just to exist, but to enjoy life.

                Most people I know work a full time job or are in school full time.  We all have family and peer obligations and every one of us gets trapped in a daily commute of some sort.  Our rushed lifestyle becomes a constant chase of time, and as time goes by it always leaves us with the familiar feeling that there never will be enough of it to do all of the things that we think we need to do before we die.  How will we ever escape from our daily grind when there is only twenty-four hours in a day and we are busy for all of them?  Where will we ever find the time to be free?

                We choose to cling to certainty and to the things we know.  We conform to a time consuming schedule that robs us of our spirit and passion for living.  We choose to become prisoner to routine, promising ourselves that we will find the time someday; to travel, escape the daily grind and leave our cares behind.  We make these false promises to ourselves as if we are dangling carrots in order to lead ourselves like a horse to the finish line.  Where is this finish line we are rushing towards? Is it death?  Is this all there is to life?  We forget why we are working so hard and on a deeper level we mindlessly surrender to the fact that we feel we absolutely have to keep this pace in order to merely get by.  We lose track of how little we actually need to survive, while we justify the consumption of life on it.  We completely overlook the endless possibilities for travel and adventure, and we miss out on the narcotic feeling of wanderlust as our spirit for life fades and we race to our death.  People drop dead every day never having known anything more than school, work, marriage and children.  They never chose to take the time to feel freedom from any of those things.  I refuse to leave this world with that regret.  I will not die wondering “what if”.

                Henry David Thoreau wrote: “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”  We should embrace the song within us.  We need to stop making excuses and just go.  We need to stop waiting for that perfect moment in time that never seems to arrive.  We also have to stop telling ourselves our time will come when are able to save up enough money.  We must give up being a slave to the financial save and the wait for time to magically appear out of nowhere.  These restraints are mystical creatures that do not exist.  It is time for us to face our fears and realign ourselves to see the importance of our personal freedom.  When we choose to take control of our circumstances; then, and only then will we ever be truly free and give up the lament for a life we might not see otherwise.  I am not suggesting we quit our jobs or drop out of school, but I am saying that every one of us should treat our time here on earth as though is it meant for the enjoyment of living.  The world would be a better place if we all embraced our passion for life and fueled it with adventure, travel and the things that free us from social normality.  At least then, when we check back in to society and the daily grind, we are able to remember specifically why we are doing it.


Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. Radford, VA: Wilder Publications, 2008. Print.