I'm doing 36 things
‘Character designs’, and ‘organize cottage’ are still kind of up in the air. A lot of other things have changed over the past year, but I think it’s time to talk about Phase II now that I am pretty sure I know what it is going to be:
I’m getting out of the Bay Area eventually. Probably within the next five years. My salary here is higher than it would be in most other parts of the country for a comparable job, and so the key is to not spend it all here, but save as much as possible for a move to somewhere else, temporary or perhaps even permanent. I was born and raised in SF, something for which I will forever be grateful on so many levels, but after I came back from college the place had changed. It’s becoming a caricature of its former self. I’m going to move out of state once I have enough money saved to scrape by on residual income, and then I will take a break from work and spend at least a year doing nothing but my real life’s work. This will be a badly needed sabbatical, but also an experiment which hopefully will be my stepping stone to entrepreneurship and a completely different way of living.
All of my life I’ve been working towards a life trapped in the corporate cycle: applications to the most prestigious high school to pad my applications to get into a prestigious college; summer school and work during the breaks to pad my college transcript and resume; three years without a vacation to prove to a corporation that they should finally hire me full-time. And what of it if I continue down this path? Get a raise, maybe a promotion, get a car, get a house, get married. Mortgage payments, car payments, bills for the therapy and Prozac and the yoga classes so I feel less stressed and unhappy about ignoring who I am—and just pray that I can make it to retirement without being laid off just before they hand out the gold watch (and believe me, that totally does happen. It’s happened at my company and others too. There is no such thing as job security anywhere anymore).
The real luxury of money is independence. It is what it enables you to do, rather than what it enables you to have. So, this is my goal for what I want it to do for me.
