For most of my life I lived in the city. I worked in the city.
I was fortunate to have employment that I enjoyed, but to tell you the truth, the pace of life was catching up to me.
I can play the corporate game well, going through the motions seamlessly. But it was becoming difficult to keep up with the intensity and passion that is
needed to keep succeeding.
One way
street
The pace of life, it seemed to me, was getting faster and faster.
I was thinking that I should just move to a desert island--or maybe be more practical…and move to the country. Now that would be a change! These thoughts
continued for some time and I finally had to admit that some change was in order.
You only have one life to live…and my big question was this: IS THIS ALL THERE IS? Keep doing this till…till when?
So I took some time to think about issues that I found myself concerned with. Here are a few of them…
Unsustainable Pace of LifeIt didn’t start that way, but in the past 20 years the pace of my life had accelerated and accelerated to where I was
really winded. I was tired of the unsustainable pace of life.
It takes honesty to admit this, as my macho “I can get it done” style has always ruled my life. But that fast pace really has no reward, and it was time
to get off of the treadmill. I didn’t have time for…literally anything. Even my family.
Some people discover this much later in life, and it always brings the “should have…could have” questions. But for me, there was no need to wait. The
pace was killing me. I no longer wanted to be a 24/7 slave to my Blackberry.
CreativityI like to create and build. But I lived on a postage stamp lot in a cookie cutter neighborhood where everything was the same.
Though I love projects, I detested the maintenance yard work. Everything was too cramped for me. I needed space, and there was no way to get any more of
it in our neighborhood.
The World Around UsWithout going into detail, I will tell you I was finding myself more and more concerned about our economy and what is happening
with our government.
Being a planning kind of guy, I couldn’t just sit back anymore with my head in the sand and say everything was OK. This isn’t politics…stuff was happening
that I absolutely couldn’t believe…but it is true.
Paint mare and
foal
I started looking at what I should do with my family, and living in the country was a great option. I am not one to operate in fear, but with my
family’s welfare at stake, I will do what I need to do.
For me, a life in the country became a reality. And now, I’m glad to be able to share it with you.
At GRIT, we have a tradition of respecting the land that sustains rural America. That's why we want you to save money and trees by subscribing to GRIT through our automatic renewal savings plan. By paying now with a credit card, you save an additional $6 and get 6 issues of GRIT for only $16.95 (USA only).
Jim, welcome to the GRIT blogging world. I agree that the corporate world keeps accelerating with always more production needs with less people each year. I too working in the cubical world for 41 years and now returned to my farming roots with urban homesteading. It's not quite the same as farming but still gives me an outlet for the planting and growing with a lot of digging in the dirt. My life was farm life up until I sped off to college never to return again until now. I don't regret the corporate road I traveled because it was during the sprouting technology era. I loved every challenging minute of it but as you have stated it really got to be a very fast pace and well, it helped that my company made me a offer I couldn't refuse so I took the money and run back to flat land gardening. I am really looking forward to hearing about your transition from city to country life. Thanks for deciding to share with us here at GRIT. Have a great day in the garden.