When is Enough?

“Have I lived enough?
Have I loved enough?
Have I considered Right Action enough, have I
come to any conclusion?
Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude?
Have I endured loneliness with grace?"

- A Thousand Mornings, Mary Oliver

___

Work has rapidly become more than I can handle in addition to school. Longer hours compiled with increasingly difficult work has made focusing and being awake enough at night to study almost impossible. We worked 6 days a week for a while. 

Already, I barely make it to the gym to two classes a week total when I used to be there two classes a night, minimum. My beloved motorcycle, Sebastian, still sits half- road-ready in the shop in the old post office building on Cumberland St. There's not much else that can give. 

I, like many people in their twenties, still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. I like many things. One of the guys at work who's been at the company for 30 years and I stopped at Burger King for lunch (I packed a lunch). Well, George makes more money than most of us since he's a class A operator and his father worked at the company his whole life and now George's son is there as well. I don't think he's ever seriously thought about anything else. He asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and between bites of lettuce, I said I wasn't sure but nursing seemed like a good direction next but I liked who I've been so far. 

But now I am not sure where to head. This year I've cut back on or haven't done the two things I love and make me the happiest I've ever been: training and my motorcycle. For what? Money. A job that provides me the ability to live for another year of school that will also prevent me from having time/money to do those things next year. that bring a lot of joy and happiness in life. It's fine if it's in the future that I'll be able to do those things, but how could that end up being? And what if I didn't make it to that period of life, or "life happens"?

Do I really want to be a nurse or do I want the lifestyle it could potentially provide? Is there anything wrong with a job that pays the bills? People have lived fantastic lives that way. But not everyone is built for that. 

WHAT IS LIFE SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE?

You get one life and by the time you'll have it remotely figured it out you'll be long dead. Which is a total crock in my opinion. 

I want to travel, fight, write, love, work with teenage girls, and ride my motorcycle at sunset into the darkness with the lightning bugs streaming by- a cacophony of crickets and cicadas as my escort. To be content with doing small things with someone I love and have meaningful work that isn't killing me like my current job. 

Unfortunately, this doesn't sound terribly like the path I'm currently on. 

I listen to The Mad Fientist podcast which is pretty great, it's on financial independence and interviews people from all kinds of circumstances and backgrounds about how they became FI. But this one hosted interview was a panel at Mr. Money Mustache's "Camp Mustache" and one lady said something I actually wrote down, "You can have anything but not everything and every dollar you spend is a trade off for something else." 

This goes for our time as well. It's good, right?