How do you do it... I am struggling....

Homer need more beer...........

Get back to work Rob.......

Anthony, thank you for posing a dilemma that has plagued mankind since at least we could write. Why does it suck so bad to earn a living? Why must existing be so tenuous? Surely if this was really the way things were supposed to be it would be easy, right?
That's why we climb. It sure isn't easy, and your lizard mind or whatever is constantly telling you YOU"RE GONNA DIE, but you pretty much always make it to the top, right? And if you're still posting on this forum, at least those little gadgets we fiddle into the ice/rock/snice are worth the money you paid for them because they worked. Or else you need to climb harder.
You've heard from the gallery, well spoken as it is (this forum is chock-stoned with great contributors), and I'm gonna guess you're jonesing to pull down on somethin' pretty soon, so just remember what it feels like the next time you feel gravity take over, and you aren't in control any more, and your life depends on the protection you've placed because if you remember it, you nailed it. Now send it...

Andrew Gram wrote:Agree with jmac. I much preferred working as a line cook or waiter to my current gig, though i like my current paycheck a lot better.

Hmmm, fair enough, there is a certain phenomenon of retrospectively enjoying restaurant jobs. Flexible schedule, lack of commitment, enough money to live, on your feet, partying after work; waiting tables can be good for a stint maybe in your twenties. Do it long enough, and it sucks there is no way around it. Once I'm done with school this time around, I'm never going back. I would gladly sit a desk 8 hours a day. I have met very few people in the industry longer than 20 years who are happy with their lives. Cooking was no different for me. Thank god I have the opportunity to move forward in a different career.

-pat

JLP just depressed the shit out of me.

Fat Dad wrote: Wow, that's pretty bleak, and misinformed. You're 27 and you already know everything life has in store for you? Think again.

I know that life has death in store for me. Do you NOT know that? Can my decisions change that? Only in timeframe, I think. That only seems misinformed in our death-denying culture.

Hope is bleak? Love is bleak? I do not believe that death gets the final say; love does.

I also often fail to appreciate the table set before me, as you may have guessed from my 'bleakness'. Maybe one thing to take away from this thread overall seems to be an attitude of thankfulness.

In part, thankfulness requires what JLP advises: confronting ourselves again and again.

I'll throw in my two cents, but then I'll be penniless.

But for what it's worth, I'll share a little story that has absolutely nothing to do with climbing . . . but does have to deal with the unpredictability of life.

There was a husband and wife (relatives) who had no children. They had worked hard and planned their whole life for retirement. They had a house in Hawaii and in Tucson, lots of money, and were waiting for the day to retire and enjoy the rest of their lives together. They both worked really hard for everything they had (he was a lawyer, she was a geologist). One day, after the Christmas holiday, the wife wasn't feeling well, and went into the hospital to get checked out. All of a sudden life became very unpredictable, and she was diagnosed with cancer. Three weeks later, she passed away. A very sad story indeed.

Now there is the widowed husband left. They had waited their whole life, had worked very hard, and had a great plan. Now he has all the material stuff they worked so hard for, but no one to really share it with.

I'm young (27), and don't really have anything like a house or 401K. I don't really have savings or any of that. So in some ways, I don't have a damn thing. But what I don't have in material, I try to make up with memories. I know I don't want to be the 60 year old guy wishing I had experienced more. Enjoy doing the things you love while you're healthy enough to do them, and try to stay in good company.

I grew up in Florida, but always loved the mountains. I went to college in Tennessee, and really started climbing hard, and got into mountaineering. After school, I wound up back in Florida with a "great job." It even involved a considerable amount of time outside camping, doing sampling in the Everglades. In many ways, a great gig.

However, I was miserable. I wanted to be back in the mountains. I was young, single, had no major financial commitments to speak of. I had done some research in Southern Colorado while in school, and knew that I wanted to be back.

I found a seasonal position in the Dillon Ranger District that paid $300/week, and you lived in a tent in wilderness areas. I quit my "awesome" job in Florida, packed up my truck, and moved out here (Colorado). The first six months were hard, even scary at times. After the seasonal position was over, I was living in my truck. I found a job that paid a little bit better, and now have established myself. I'm working a typical 5 day a week position in Boulder totally outside of my field of experience, but I'm so stoked to be here. Completely satisfied. You just have to know you can do it, and that you'll be able to cope and work through it when it gets hard. Because it will get hard, whether you quit or stay.

Spencer

P.S. I don't know what your situation is, but I've learned that I don't want to be saddled with big financial burdens that tie one to a single place. I love being here, but I don't buy into the idea that you should buy a house just because suddenly you're making enough money. I've lived in some pretty righteous locales, but have never been in one that made me think that I'd never live somewhere else. The idea that I could conceivably get up in a month and move to BC or New Zeland or Brazil is something I'm not willing to give up for ownership or a wife. Just my perspective.

Anthony Milano wrote:This post does not apply to people who love their job. How do you do it? Working a job for 50-60 hours you can barely stand, how do you stay employed? I ask this because I am working in an office of which kills me on the inside a little more each day. All I want to do is climb. All I can think of is being outside. I definitely make my days off count and take quite a few personal days. But how do you deal with the five days of Monotony before you climb again? Sit there and dream? Tease yourself about what you could be doing? I am not trying to complain. I am working towards a job I will eventually love but for now-is not happenin. I just wanted to know if anyone out there has any ways of dealing with this... Any help/advice is appreciated! Thanks.

It's a job, you're not supposed to like it. Grab your ankles a bit harder & try to smile more! That's life, suck it up.

Brent Silvester wrote: So in some ways, I don't have a damn thing. But what I don't have in material, I try to make up with memories. I know I don't want to be the 60 year old guy wishing I had experienced more. Enjoy doing the things you love while you're healthy enough to do them, and try to stay in good company.

I hear a lot of older climbers saying the same thing, but in the particular cases of which I am thinking, they did a lot of climbing but never had a family.
The angle of viewing doesn't seem to change the 'grass is greaner' problem. We all regret NOT experienceing whatever it is we have not.
The key to happiness is not getting what you want, it is appreciating what you have. The Thais say that they problem with a lack of possessions is not the lack of them, it is the desire for them. Then again, that's a standard of living I do not envy. I'm just saying it is an available perspective.

Scott Thalacker wrote: I do not believe that death gets the final say; love does.

OK. Maybe I was unable to decipher that from your initial thread.

A couple points. One, I worked my way thru college at a cafe, which I thought was a grind. The days would go by quickly, but it was run, run, scrub, wipe, etc., then I'd go home and study or be in class. If anything, it reinforced that I needed to study hard to do something else.

Two, while I mentioned an epiphany of sorts in India, I probably had many similar ones while climbing, particularly on long routes. Still, there's something about traveling that teaches you about home. There's some good quotes on that topic. I like how T.S. Eliot phrased it best:

"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."

This thread really rings true. I'm going to see my job move back to the northeast, and I've lived out here for 24 years (AZ.) My wife flat-out told me,'No way are we moving there.' God bless her for that. I've been through law school and gave up on the law firm associate grind after a few years because it was a soul killing adversarial lifestyle. I became a photo assistant, made little money and worked irregular and inconsistent hours for three years. Then my wife and I bought a travel agency and two years later the airlines cut our 10% commissions to less than what is cost to generate the damn tickets. We went into Chapter 7 bankruptcy over that little foray into owning your own business. Now, after ten years in financial services I'm out in the job market which is sort of scary. I've had one interview and two more in the works. I'm hoping to land an offer and keep my financial life on track.

I will tell you that this is the worst economic situation and employment market I've ever been in. You may hate your job and that isn't all that uncommon to be really honest, although I like what I do and the people I work with (always a few exceptions there.)

If you don't have a mortgage, no kids or a spouse that would balk at it, it may be the time to take that six month road trip and see the world. Just remember, when you $$ runs out, you'll be faced with the same thing. You may be taking any job just to feed yourself and be back at square one, but don't let that stuff stop you if that's what you want to do. Too many people wait until they retire to enjoy life and by then your body might not be up to what your brain wants from life.

Don't quit just yet. Formulate a plan for your future. What would you really like to do? How important is money or a steady career to you? Where do you want to be in five or ten years as far as work, where you live and what things you want. You could become a 'climbing bum' but remember from various threads here, if you become hurt in a major way, you'll be suffering for want of reserve resources to see you through bad times.

I'll never have the dinero to really retire here in the states and we hope to retire to northern Thailand with some friends, one of whom is Thai and do the guest house thing, start an export business and do some teaching on the side, but right now we are here and times could be better.

Before you make a move, ponder what you really want from life. Good luck with all that and make sure your free time is used to recharge your soul and body doing things you really love doing.

To Tony B and JLP: I can understand your points. However, if the "older climbers" are lamenting about their decisions and regretting the past, then they might have made bad decisions for themselves. And JLP was right, their lives didn't suck. And yes, if their plan had worked out, they would have been styling . . . living the dream. But shit happens, and it did. There were things that had been put off until the big retirement, but it never happened. Now all that waiting and saving is kind of lost. Make of it what you will. I'm sure my philosophy on life will change as I change as a person.

Just trying to say that life is short, and you never know what the hell is going to happen tomorrow. So if you're itching to do something good for yourself, then I think it should be done.

Brent Silvester wrote: Just trying to say that life is short, and you never know what the hell is going to happen tomorrow. So if you're itching to do something good for yourself, then I think it should be done.

Brent:

That is the whole Crux of Life. I know lots of people who sacrificed enjoyment of life for material things and they all don't seem to be happy. They lament the fact that the didn't go here or there or didn't do this or that and then they realize they'll never have the opportunity to do what they really wanted to do. JPL, you can't get your life back and if you forsake something or a lifestyle for material items, I believe regrets will follow later on. I held several jobs over my life so I could climb, backpack and enjoy the outdoors. I've never been a dirt bag or climbing bum, but I made sure I could get outside enough to satisfy my soul. My wife felt the same way, too. We don't have the resources to do the retirement thing for the foreseeable future, but at least I'm not sitting home grumbling about how I never did this or saw that. Like Brent said, life is too short and it is very uncertain. Best to enjoy it while you can.

as blunt as he may be, JLB is one wise mofo.

JLP wrote: First, Nick - are you employed? Where are you coming from, other than still being young? Indeed images of Camp IV came across my mind - but my point is the same. The "lifer" types I met there, after meeting many over many years, seemed to me more like they were mostly "avoiding life". The Deli, in particular, when everyone is drunk and stoned on a perfectly fine sunny day - was f'n depressing. Admit it - if you've in fact spent a lot of time at destination areas - you've met a lot of drop outs. If you've had several consecutive months of free time - you've felt the entropy, the slow leak of energy and motivation, the suck - you should know exactly what I'm talking about, at least for the sake of discussion. Yeah, there are a lot of pro full time climbers out there just killing it - but how many are we talking about here - really - a few dozen at most - and how are they really filling in their days? How many of even the absolute best, top ranked climbers are busy 40 hours a week, 48+ weeks a year? Using the simple model of getting back out of life what you put in - what are you really accomplishing with your time? If you're putting a lot into your climbing (or anything) and getting a lot back - that's great. I wish the same for everyone in everything they do. Another example I can't find online - a great article on Fred Beckey's life written by David Roberts for Outside magazine in the early to mid 90s'. I've met and climbed with Fred - not the life for me. In the end, as usual, the truth lies between. Kissing ass and working long hours at a shit job is just one end of the spectrum, a carefree climbing bum the other. I work, I climb, I spend my life getting better at both.

I dunno, JLP. I think your metric is a little bit flawed, or at least self-centered. A lifestyle climber may not be putting 40 hours a week into the activity of climbing, but every element of his being is likely consumed by the vertical virus. In some ways I consider myself a climbing bum...I deviated from a very stable, very successful career track in order to pursue climbing. Even though I work a 5-day-a-week job often well over 40 hrs. a week, there's hardly a given moment during the day when I'm not thinking about the big wall or the big mountain. I literally work to afford gear.

When I'm not thinking about or actually climbing, I'm usually reading philosophy, math textbooks, or forestry/ecology journals. No longer do any of those things provide a stream of income for me, but I put a ton into them. It seems like you're skeptical of their value other than as they supply fiscal stability. If someone is a bum but is satisfied, who is anyone else to criticize them? As a matter of fact, I would readily call them successful. Just because I or "normal people" wouldn't want a given lifestyle does not make it wrong or "unsuccessful." I've made lots of choices, some with immediately positive or immediately negative consequences. But I don't look back on my life thusfar and feel that I have wasted any time. I think that's all a man can ask for.

S. F. Pitman wrote: A lifestyle climber may not be putting 40 hours a week into the activity of climbing, but every element of his being is likely consumed by the vertical virus.

I'd strongly disagree with that statement. Prior to putting my shoulder to the wheel, I would spend most of my summers dodging rangers in Camp 4. Given the huge amount of time I and other full-time climbers I saw spent puttering around, in the arking plot, Lodge, etc., etc., there's a huge amount of fluff time doing absolutely nothing productive, rewarding, enlightening. The reason why its called being a "climbing bum" is because of when you're not climbing, you're pretty much being a bum.

Don't get me wrong, when you're young and your path is open, that's a totally fine activity. But after a certain point in time you have to decide whether you want a family, a job to afford a decent place to live and the other things in life other than climbing, or whether you want to be some old dude living out of his car, without health insurance, hitting up young climbers for belays.

You all need to stop taking yourselves so seriously!

Is climbing a waste of time? Sure, but if you didn't waste your time on the stone you would probably waste it watching TV.

Is your job going to really make a big difference? Probably not, but neither is the next job around the corner.

You are one of 6 billion people on the planet. If you want to quit your job and pursue some passion, in the grand scheme of things it won't matter. Nor will it matter if you "mess up your life" in some way by bad decisions.

The only thing that will matter in the long run is how your actions impact the people that love you. If you can convince yourself that whatever you want to do is unlikely to hurt the people you care about, then you really should feel completely free to do anything you want to.

Mainly because it doesn't really matter at all...

JLP wrote:I'm between projects, but I need to get back to work. I can't let this go, though. I believe you have to work and sacrifice to gain freedom. With the freedom I've attained, I've traveled the world and climbed things. In fact, I took about 40 days off last year and climbed the hardest routes of my life. Add up all my training time in the 2-3 years, I'm thinking I spend at least as much time climbing now as I did when I was unemployed and/or in college. Like sex, you can't do it all day long. There has to be something else.

JPL, I'm glad you have been able to balance your life. More power to you. It took me the better part of my life to do that. Some people struggle with attaining a balanced life and I congratulate you for doing so. Others have more of an issue with that.

I, too, have become much more disciplined in my approach to life and am willing to make some major sacrifices to keep my career on track (being separated during the week from my wife, living in SoCal if I must, enduring an hour plus one way commute to save expenses and live with my sister during the week.) I hope it doesn't come to that, but if it does, I must pay the mortgage, truck payment and the like and so be it.

What I'm saying is don't let life pass you by. Tom Hansen's comment about decent and wonderful people having a world of shit (a terrible disease or affliction) thrust upon them rings true. My wife's best friend from college, a tremendously wonderful, beautiful (personality) woman died at 42 from colon cancer. My wife thinks of her daily. She didn't deserve it, but her boy friend ended up marrying her on her deathbed at the hospital because she worried what her Jewish parents would think of her marrying a non-Jew. That was a bummer for both of them. My wife learned of her illness only after her husband called to let us know. So, what I mean is life can bring some really unpleasant twists and turns and for some who've seen those things happen to others, that can be a motivation to live for the moment.

Fat Dad wrote: I'd strongly disagree with that statement. Prior to putting my shoulder to the wheel, I would spend most of my summers dodging rangers in Camp 4. Given the huge amount of time I and other full-time climbers I saw spent puttering around, in the arking plot, Lodge, etc., etc., there's a huge amount of fluff time doing absolutely nothing productive, rewarding, enlightening. The reason why its called being a "climbing bum" is because of when you're not climbing, you're pretty much being a bum. Don't get me wrong, when you're young and your path is open, that's a totally fine activity. But after a certain point in time you have to decide whether you want a family, a job to afford a decent place to live and the other things in life other than climbing, or whether you want to be some old dude living out of his car, without health insurance, hitting up young climbers for belays.

And I guess maybe we're talking about different groups of climbing bums...the group you describe sounds more deserving of the "bum" moniker.

I think about the guys I used to climb with in Tennessee. We all were on different life paths, and all of us had different responsibilities outside of climbing to which we had to attend. In my case it was paying for school and learning. None of us had much money; enough to piece together a "rack" big enough for runout desert pitches. We made trips to everywhere on pennies.

Now, after college with a steady job and health insurance (but no desire to buy a house) it doesn't seem all that much different. Yeah, you have to put food on the table, but ultimately, the group of people I spend time with is willing to make HUGE sacrifices of time, money, effort or occasionally dignity to make trips happen.

I guess my point is that the prevailing attitude here seems to be either/or. And I disagree. There are definitely compromises that have to be made...like I said earlier, food must be on the table. However the compromise doesn't have to be between climbing and security. I guarantee my security by working my ass off at my job, and guarantee my contentment by working my ass off on the rock or ice or ridge or break. I have enough confidence in myself to know that if something bad happens, I have the skills to deal with it (in either field) or the responsibility to accept the consequences.

Of course my perspective is heavily informed by both my lack of children/dependents and lack of desire for those things (which some people say makes you unsuccessful). If you have people that are dependent upon your financial success, I think the conversation totally changes.

You can't guarantee your security by working your ass off at the job. The corporation or economic or market forces may well prove otherwise. This is happening to me now.