On Dissatisfaction

(From an assignment from Timothy Ferris' book 'The 4-Hour Workweek''. The following is a question, and the response that it evoked. It is what it is. A.O.)

What are you waiting for? If you can not answer this without resorting to the previously rejected concept of good timing, the answer is simple: you’re afraid, just like the rest of the world. Measure the cost of inaction. Realize the unlikelihood and repairability of most missed steps, and develop the most important habit of those who excel, and enjoy doing so, action.

I am waiting for my wife. Or am I? I often wonder if I am using my family as an excuse to not pursue what I know will eventually have to be done. A lot of what I feel is anchored to an emotion named selfishness, and the transhistorical negative connotation affixed to it. But how does one leave their family without feeling guilt? Do I forgo the guilt, and leave? And so, instead, I selfishly attempt to convince my wife to come with me. So, if I am selfish in wanting my family to join me on an adventure and selfish should I decide to go on my own, is the only available instance of unselfishness to stay where I am at and to seek happiness where there is seemingly none to be found?

An archaeologist can only excavate so much from the same dig. Perhaps I have unearthed all that was meant to be found in this location. Am I selfish for not being content in the presence of my wife & children alone? Shouldn’t this be the source of my happiness? Must it be the sole source? And, if it is not, is it because I am a selfish person for wanting to see what else the world—that I was forced in to, without consent—has to offer, outside of where I have been for the past 32 years of my human experience?

The guilt is at its heaviest when I am forced to reconcile my wanderlust with the effects of my absence. The thought of leaving the woman you love alone, to raise your children, is a difficult pill to swallow. Words like irresponsible, deadbeat, inconsiderate, and self-centered come to mind. If I do not go, who is to blame for my emptiness and the death of my spirit? Will I get to point the finger? Will people say that I, who am found incapable of finding happiness within, am to blame for my own unhappiness, even having invested myself so greatly in self-reflection as to have discovered what I believe would have made me happy to begin with, only to find that I would not be allowed the opportunity to unveil the truth behind my assumption?

Wise men and women have so much to say, but say so very little. Even the sagest of advisors—people that use few words to convey profound wisdom—still speak from their limited frame of reference. Everyone will offer advice and opinions, but how selfless is such an act? The very act of impressing ones beliefs on another is selfishness, whether the person is aware of this or not. If everyone partakes of selfishness, why then would this instance be any different than the others, any less permissible? It is no more than a variation of selfishness. If my wife does not wish to go, but I wish to go, who is the more selfish of the two? Is either more selfish than the other, are the two of us just plain selfish, or are neither selfish; just two people who have journeyed together for quite some time, that are now at a fork in the road. So what are our options? There are our children to consider. There is much to consider and much to discuss.

One thing is for sure; my spirit can not endure pressing the reset button with every rotation of this planet. The perceived rising and setting of the sun is not governed by solar days or civil calendars. Life is not to be controlled, conquered and compartmentalized. You can not box-up the very thing that provides you with the resources from which to construct your boxes; life is for living, and taking from, just as much as you have been given.

An adaptation to a quote from Yvon Chouinard, on climbing Everest, from the documentary 180° South, might be that “the whole purpose of climbing something like [Life] is to effect some sort of spiritual and physical gain. But if you compromise the process you’re an asshole when you start out and an asshole when you get back.” I am that asshole. A part of me feels as though too much compromise has taken place in my life; that I have tread the beaten path for far too long. When I really take the time to reflect upon my life up until now, it has been boring; an endless & empty pacing. It has been so easy, that it has become too difficult for my soul to bear, and so I scream from depths of it, “Is this IT?” My “process” has become stagnant. It has been relegated to work for work’s sake; a routine of earn, burn, complain, purge. A life littered with earning money, spending it, complaining about stuff, looking forward to days-off, engaging in weekend binges (i.e. social engagements, church, sleep and more of the same). Hell, it’s difficult to tell if I’ve even begun the ascent, although I’m pretty sure that I haven’t. I have preoccupied myself with this dig for far too long, far too deep. It’s time to climb.