Hats off to “The Rat Race Trap” (one of my favorite blogs) for the inspiration on this post! The compass? It’s about “finding the right direction.”

Stephen’s post today was about “In defense of laziness,” and he pointed out that different lifestyle choices are just that - choices. For instance, he said, if you enjoy living in a pizza box, beer bottle strewn apartment, but then hook up with a neat freak who wants “more” out of life, chances are you’re going to be miserable, or you’re going to change or at least compromise because you love your lifestyle choice. Why? Because one person may see the pizza box life as “lazy,” apparently. I don’t know that the post (for me anyway) was as much about “being lazy” as it was about our choice of lifestyle in many ways.

One of the reasons I’ve been single most of my life is because the men I’ve met have a definite idea of what kind of life they want to live, and shall we say - it’s not usually in sync with my idea of nirvana. They either want (early in my life) a trophy wife, beautiful, fit, sexy thing to show off - or later in life, a rich and attractive wife to support them while they don’t work. Being a 24-hour on demand sex machine, meeting a man’s every whim, is not how I want to spend my life. My generation may have been teens during the women’s equality movement, but they were raised during the 50s and 60s when a woman’s place was in the home, barefoot and pregnant and waiting on their man and that’s what most of them expect in a woman. The 60s and 70s were about free sex for them, not liberation of a woman’s spirit. So, I rarely meet a man who shares my idea of what a relationship is - and when I do, they’re married already. Oh well. I’ll keep looking. There’s a man out there somewhere who wants to RV, fish, travel and work enough to enjoy life, pay the bills and be in the moment, and treat me as an equal! Some men think that people ought to work hard their entire lives and would see me as “being lazy” because I don’t want to retire in a million-dollar condo on the beach and drive a $50,000 car. That’s just not me. I’m not lazy. I just don’t want to work that hard to get, keep and maintain a material goods life.

So after reading Stephen’s post I started thinking about how I would describe how I choose to live and if it’s lazy or not. Some people think so because I’m not chasing the 9-5 and take work home dream. Then I realized that I’m living the way I am and I’m not happy with it a lot of the time. It’s not because I don’t like the lifestyle. It’s because I keep feeling like I have to defend my choice - like it’s wrong somehow. Stephen writes:

Despite working extremely hard through a lot of my life, I’ve been called lazy at times. I’ve called other people lazy when I probably shouldn’t have. Most of the time people are simply projecting their values on someone else. We throw the word “lazy” around far too often when we are judging other people’s free choice to live their lives as they see fit. If you are taking care of yourself and are not a burden on others, as far as I’m concerned you can be as lazy as you want.

Same as me. All through college I took a full load of classes and often worked two or three jobs as well. I’ve been called lazy and called others lazy (some when they truly were) because we were projecting our values on each other. But when it comes down to it, my lifestyle choice is mine, and theirs is theirs.

I have several friends, all younger, who have big homes, several kids, matching SUVs and are scrambling to pay their mortgage and live their American dream. And they are truly happy - challenged at times - but happy. I would enjoy the pool, the vacations, the kids, the yard and the dog, for about a month - then I’d be severely depressed. That lifestyle to me is like a pair of golden handcuffs - shiny, pretty, but restricting. Every decision you make is based on whether it will help or hurt your ability to maintain that lifestyle. I’d like all the stuff - but not enough to commit to doing whatever I had to to keep up that particular lifestyle. Stuff doesn’t matter to me - relationship does. Am I lazy for not chasing it? I don’t think so.

I was once involved with an alcoholic who came with a large extended family, a beach house, nieces and nephews and the sort of family (Thanksgiving, Christmas etc) I wished I’d had as a child. But the drinking, the lack of intimacy, the fights, mistrust, misery and all the things that go with having an alcoholic and non-supportive spouse weren’t enough to keep me living the house-with-a-picket-fence dream. It reminded me too much of my childhood (surprise!). So I left. I’m much, much, much, much happier now than I ever was then. I miss the family stuff, but I’ve found other ways to meet that need - including finding healthy friends and social networks where I feel that same sense of belonging.

So I’m taking care of myself, paying my own bills, and yet until I read Stephen’s post today I didn’t realize my “unhappiness” has come NOT from my spartan lifestyle - but from feeling like I have to defend or fight off people who are telling me how I should be living. I’m unhappy at times because I’m still trying to live just “normal” enough to make other people happy. I’m not focusing enough on ME.

I quietly severed ties recently to another friend who obviously thought my lifestyle wasn’t appropriate. She made comments about everything from the color of my office curtains to the fact I’m still living in, and driving my van. I quit returning her calls and haven’t heard from her in awhile - which is good.

I was thinking about that, then I remembered a friend of my brother’s. He comes from a wealthy family, but after a horrific accident changed his life, he took a different path than the med school, law school, business expectations people had for him. I don’t think he’s ever seriously looked back. He now chooses to make a good living selling t-shirts and hang-gliding. He’s very good at what he does and is very well known for both his designs and his athleticism. Here’s a video - you can see for yourself. He too gets asked, “How can you live like that?” And his answer is perfect, “The pay-off is worth managing the risk.” He’s doing what he loves - flying. If you wonder if the accident changed his life - made him love the freedom of flying more than life on one leg - possibly. But life changes us all, shapes us all.

The point is, I just realized I was focusing more on “How can you live like that?” than on deciding exactly HOW I want to live. It’s a subtle point - but an important one. I’m off to think about it. Do you know how YOU want to live as opposed to how others expect you to be living? Leave a comment. I need the inspiration!