A fleeting encounter

This guy - I can't even remember his name now - took seven hours to change my life.

I wish I could remember his name, I feel so bad that I can't. I checked my journal, all I wrote was 'the Dad with his two boys in the combi'. Technically it was a Kombi. Anyhoo... I didn't even take a photo of him.

I was trying to get out of a little rainy town called Ucluelet, on the western side of Vancouver Island, in BC, Canada. I wanted to go down to Victoria, some six or seven hours by road, but couldn't afford the bus ticket, so I thought I'd hitch-hike.

I stood by the roadside, freezing my butt off, massive pack at my feet, waiting, waiting for a car to pick me up. I'd been told it was easy on Vancouver Island, everyone was super friendly and looked after backpackers. I started wondering whether those words had been delivered sarcastically an hour later, when car after car after van after car had driven past, without a driver so much as making eye contact. I'd all but given up, prepared to head across the road, grab a coffee and warm up. I'd literally picked up my bag and was about to cross the road when a bright green Kombi came around the corner.
'What the hell,' I thought. One more thumbs up wouldn't hurt.

I nearly tripped over myself in my haste to get in the Kombi when it pulled over, afraid he'd pull away before I could get there, some cruel joke. I stuck my head in, he kicked his son down to the back of the van, grabbed my pack and off we went. Of all the rides I could've landed, a dad, two kids and a Kombi seemed to be pretty sweet.

With nothing else to do, we talked. He was American, two boys (in the back), they'd been camping on a father-son trip, just boys and the ferocious Canadian camping grounds. They'd caught the ferry from Seattle and driven up.

We talked about American politics - the healthcare debate was still raging, we talked about Obama, about the structure of the Australian parliament and we compared political systems. He had a Master of Economics and he all but lectured me in global economics - I disagreed with plenty of what he said, but was completely out of my depth in my ability to argue. He was a Republican, I'm anything but. It set the scene for a rather uncomfortable few hours on the road.

Yet, as we kept talking, we began to share our life stories. He was a smart guy, he knew a lot about a lot of things. In his early 40s, I thought he'd made the most of the world. Yet when describing my life - quitting my job, taking a year off and flatly refusing to work, he looked at me with a kind of envy I'd never expected.

It wasn't that I wasn't used to envy - I'd seen it plenty of times before. Broke backpackers forced to go home to work, friends stuck at home, dreaming of my life on the road, I'd seen envy. But not from a guy like this. A guy who'd done it all. A guy who had a family. A guy who, in his 40s, was still living the dream.

In his early 20s, he'd been ambitious, and he'd worked his butt off to get what he wanted. He'd succeeded, was rich, had a beautiful wife, big house, and was on track to be a star in his company. He negotiated major corporate real estate sales - from what I could gather, he settled deals for logging companies, that sort of thing. And his company took a slice of each deal it negotiated. He was loaded.

And yet, when he'd scaled the peaks of life, when he'd got the money, the wife, the job, he hated it all. It all fell apart. He split from his wife, he hated his job, even his house he could no longer stand - it reeked of money, wasted money, luxuries so unnecessary that he felt guilty owning them. Of everything he'd worked his arse off for, for all his ambition, he said there were only two things he was proud of from the last two decades of his life: his two sons.

So he rolled the dice. He quit his job - with that losing his contacts and his future, his bosses reacted angrily to losing their star prospect, his high-flying friends distanced themselves. His family had already fallen apart - while still friends, he and his wife divorced. He sold the house, the palace of excess, and even got rid of his luxury car. He packed it all in.

He wanted purpose in life, something to be proud of. He got out. He went to the Caribbean - I can't remember which country, though Haiti sounds right - volunteered for two years with an aid organisation setting up permanent tents for refugees and the homeless. He worked his butt off and excelled at that too.

In those two years, working hard, labouring manually as he had never done, he found a peace, a contentment, that he'd never known as a high-flyer. The money wasn't coming in any more but he didn't care, he'd found a happiness - as cliched as it is - that money couldn't buy.

He went back to the US, bought a Kombi, and vowed to spend as much time with his two sons as he could.

That was where we met.

His advice to me, the advice that I remember every time I look to make a decision, was: 'don't miss out on life because you're too busy chasing something else. Make the most of it while you can.'

He, the big shot, lecturing me in global economics, talking politics at a level I can't imagine, driving a Kombi with his kids through Vancouver Island in the middle of a Canadian summer, was jealous of me.

That's hard to forget.

Response

A good friend of mine, Dom, has recently embarked on his own overseas adventure. Just before he left, he wrote a blog, which is a very good read, and I am exercising my right - as one of a billion or so voices on the interwebs - of reply.

Dom quit his job three or so weeks before he left, and had a cheeky taste of the reality of unemployment. As someone who has been there, I can attest that it sucks. Especially if you're saving money and all your mates are working. Shit gets pretty boring, fast.
However, as someone who is now employed, yet longs to be free on the road again, I come from a very different position.

Step 1: Employment
Yes, a job gives you a definition. It's an identity, to a point. What freaks me out, more than not having a job (and therefore no identity), is that as we are defined by our jobs, our jobs change who we are.

I've always feared being one of the masses - one of the suit-wearing, well-groomed corporates you find on Collins Street at pretty much any time of day. The people who once were interesting, but now spend their days at work - on the train by 8am, home at 6pm. A person is interesting because they do interesting things. What do you think corporates talk about with their families when they get home? 'Just finished another tax return, love. It was a big one this time.'
As a journalist, this wasn't a problem. It was my business to know the most interesting things in the world, so there was plenty to talk about. But then I jumped ship, went to work in PR for a big company. All of a sudden, when I'm asked 'how was your day?' I'm fucked. My day was boring. It was easy, I got paid well, but it was boring. The most interesting thing I did was read Dom's blog, and then I ran to the loo because of the stomach pains a crippling bout of envy delivers.
Do boring jobs make boring people? Is my contention true? Are we defined by our jobs, and do our jobs change who we are?

Step 2: Remember why you work.
I didn't quite say this in the interview for my current job, but there's two reasons I went for it. The first, and most obvious, was to save money. Money money money. Money so I can go overseas. Money so I can buy a van and travel the world. Money so I can snowboard, money so I can go on ADVENTURES.
The second was to get enough experience that when I inevitably get back from my next trip, I can get a good job quickly. I want to be in a position where I'm not wallowing in the depths of unemployment, the kind of unemployment that drains your soul. The kind of unemployment Dom described.

They're two pretty bloody good reasons to work, but sometimes I need to remind myself of them, when I feel boredom creeping in. When I'm looking out the window, dreaming of the beach, the snow, an aeroplane.

Step 3: Staying
The end result is worth the boredom. When it all comes down to it, that's what sucks. the boredom. When your friends (I'm looking at you, Ciconte) head overseas on trips you can only dream of, it sucks. I could pack up and fuck off now too. Head to Europe, America, South America, wherever I like, and live the dream. But that would be to throw everything I've worked for over the past year down the loo.

There's two types of people in the world - those who talk about doing things, and those who do them. I like to think I talk about doing things, and then go and do them. So I'm talking a big game: June 2012, I'll be on a plane to Europe, and I'll be over there for a while. If I delay it any longer I'm going to go insane. The only possible change to that plan is if I go earlier, and that's a very real prospect.

Holiday Dom is well and truly alive and free. Holiday Stu, well, he's getting restless.