The quest for balance

The major problem with working the grind is lack of balance. Its an all or nothing scenario.

The major aim of the escape, was to achieve balance in our lives. Instead of living in a concrete jungle and working 5 days a week we wanted to move away from the central focus of our lives being about making money. Now we have achieved that, but we still do not have the balance that we crave. If you like we have gone from "all" to "nothing". From being on the go all the time, to not having very much to do for long passages of time all week.

It was never our intention to give up working completely. We had built in the need to do some part time work as part of the escape plan. I am too young and have too much energy to sit around and do nothing. The scary thing is that the less you do the lazier you get.

We always thought that we would find some part time work. Something fun to do, nothing to do with law. Perhaps we would work in food retail. But the part time job seems to be very elusive. Strangely, most jobs seem to be full time or 20 hours a week spread over multiple days. We don't want to work multiple days, and we don't want to work nights. Its seems that we are living in an area of high unemployed, where the local workforce is largely unskilled and so the sort of jobs that we are looking for are probably in high demand.

And lets face it, we could do with the money. One thing that I failed to appreciate before planning the escape was that you need a certain amount of money to entertain yourself when you have a lot of time on your hands. I never thought I would say that. You see when we were working the grind in the concrete jungle, all our spare time was spent doing free things in the outdoors, we were gasping for the outdoors and that fresh mountain air, literally.

I dont know what the solution is. Perhaps where we are is not the place for us long term. It would be lovely to achieve that balance though.