My first career endeavor didn't work out, and the family part is an issue concentrated deep within my heart that really only my wife fully understands. That's a subject for a future blog entry... or maybe not. :-)
I've been ruminating for some time on whether Nashville is the place for us permanently. It seems like job prospects have run thin, and the idea of starting a new biz in Nashville, or buying a practice, simply all sounds "blah," most likely for the reasons contained within the tomato blog. Nearly every healthcare business I've come into contact with here has fallen into a trap of ever-increasing overhead and pressure, and a resultant ever-increasing atmosphere of a demand of intensity and stress that, in some cases, has lead to money; and in a few others, lead to debt. There have been one or two that have not fallen to such a fate, and I find it amusing that these couple of business owners made sure to put God first, family second, and the business, well, like fifth or sixth. And those couple of businesses were financially successful, but, distinguished from some of the others, the ultimate harvested fruit was happiness.
As for our house, we're isolated in Pasquo, which is near Bellevue, a has-been suburb of Nashville. It takes 15 minutes to get on the interstate from our house, and 25 to get anywhere fun to eat (one of our favorite things to do) or really to do anything out of the ordinary walk in the park. On the positive side, my parents live about 7 miles down the road and have a nice farm that I grew up on, with lots of land when we feel smothered. Willow can run free there without worrying about meeting a Park Ranger who'd give us a ticket for letting her off leash, or worrying about her biting the head off some yippy dog with a Napoleon complex. Plus, my brother and his family live 25 minutes away. It would surely be tough to give up the convenience of the farm, and the wonderful close-by support of my family.
But then I start thinking...
Colorado has always had that "zing" in my heart, in winter and in summer. It's a pull that's always there, like gravity, that's like a compass with its arrow hopelessly seduced by the Rockies. The mountains... ahh, allow me to pause for a moment... to be able to revisit my whitewater kayaking days... the canyons, the rivers, the meadows, the hiking, the camping... the air... the laid-back people... that feeling that makes you want to stretch, or take off sprinting through some huge field in a valley at the foot of a snowcapped range. Snowball fights in July. The whole gig.
And Florida... the sun, the waves (East coast), the beaches. That gritty feeling in your mouth that makes you wonder how sand got in there, or when you see sand in your car and see it as a friend, not a mess. That's what's got my attention of late.
I dream of living in a smaller sandy house, probably a block or two from the beach, with a downstairs concreted area that triples as ping-pong room, theater room, and hurricane shelter area (and maybe quadruple as kid nap room). Much like the one mama Ruth has rented for us twice-- once for Thanksgiving and once for Christmas-- in the New Smyrna area, right smack dab on the beach. Yeah.
And then comes the idea of a 3-day-per-week chiropractic practice, at maximum, and a good shortboard/longboard combo, with a bicycle and a board attachment on it for easy transport to the beach. And a friend or two on-call for whenever the waves are just right.
For a slam dunk, there'd be a decent public school area for the kids, and maybe a bigger town or city nearby when we feel crazy, and to provide perspective about how awesome our simple life is, when we start to get used to it.
Forget complexity and intensity and blood pressure and stress and cardiovascular disease and absence from family participation, all for the sake of a few extra dollars to waste on family/marital/health problems that have all arisen from all the complexity and intensity and blood pressure and stress and cardiovascular disease and absence from family participation. I choose a relaxed life of family, fun, friends, and time to spend on enjoying the world we're so privileged to interact with.
We have been blessed with day after day of being a human, the animal with the most extensive ability to feel and appreciate our experience, whether for better or worse. And like it or not, we are, by-and-large, responsible for whether the outcome is better or worse, unless astronomical amounts of suffering have unfortunately entered our lives (for which I believe God will atone).
I often think of how infinitesimal the chance of becoming human must have been. Really, think: how many other living beings are there on Earth (including bacteria)?! A gazookaschmillion? Billions and billions and billions... thousands and thousands or millions of billions... How wonderful that, by God's grace, our consciousness happens to be that of a human who has all his or her needs provided for? Imagine a gargantuan die, with a gazookaschmillion sides on it, and only .000000000000001% of the die is devoted to being human. It is rolled, and only if it lands on a "human" tile, then we are blessed with human consciousness. If not, you have the thoughts of a bug. If you're lucky. Would you take that chance? The truth is that you did.
Why allow our complex brain cortex to be wired such that the reward neurotransmitters are released only when we see our paycheck? Almost every single one of us can be rich, right now.
Louis Armstrong said it so well:
__________________________
"Grab your coat and get your hat
Leave your worries on the
doorstep
Life can be so sweet
On the sunny side of the
street
Can't you hear the pitter-pat
And that happy tune is your
step
Life can be complete
On the sunny side of the street
Can't you hear the pitter-pat
And
that happy tune is your step
Life can be complete
On the sunny side
of the street
If I never had a cent
I'd be rich as rockefeller
Gold dust
at my feet
On the sunny side of the street"
__________________________
And to top it off, even more pertinent, from the same, the legend Louis:
__________________________
"Sittin' in the sun, countin' my money
Fanned
by a summer breeze
Sweeter than the honey is countin' my money
Those greenbacks
on the trees
Comes a summer shower, drops o' rain falling
Sweeter than
Christmas chimes
Hearing those jingles upon the roof shingles
Like pennies,
nickels and dimes
Tho' it's known that what I own is not a large amount
Fields
of gold that I behold are in my bank account
Yeah, sittin' in the sun,
countin' my money
Happy as I can be
And to top it all
When shadows fall
I look
to heaven and I see
There's a silver dollar in the sky
Shining down on me"
__________________________
Nuff said. Hello, riches. Hello, life.
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