Wow, Good question. It seems like there have always been two paths. I think we had a thread like this a while ago.
Follow the path before us- the “normal” thing to do. Go to school, get the degree, get the job, get the mortgage, get the house. Boom, you’re done. You’ve succeeded and you’re successful.
Having not taken that path I can say it has often seemed pretty attractive: Health insurance, paycheck every other Friday, The big company taking care of you. Come in every day at 8 and be out by 4 or 5. Weekend’s off, paid sick days, vacation days, time off for holidays. Pure cake. Of course, there is boredom, the indignation of being “normal” or “average”, the chronic sameness and lack of accomplishment and/or acknowledgement that I hear 9-5’ers complain about.
What’s the other path? It’s the one you make by yourself. It is scary and difficult and there is no one there to catch you when you fall- and you will fall, that is guaranteed. Fall? People will try to take you down. People will steal from you, lie to you, rip you off, sue you for bullshit- everything you have they will try to take. You are like an animal outside of the herd: Vulnerable and responsible for your own safety. But there is honor in that- and honor is something people don’t value much these days. There is something to be said for turning the key in the lock at night and going home knowing you did a good job- or at least you survived. And if you did a bad job, you can come back in the next day and try to fix it (or, more likely, stay all night to fix it before tomorrow). The rewards can be great, but so are the risks.
There is a saying from ancient Rome: “Better to live one day as a Lion than a hundred years as a lamb.” I firmly believe that. But not everyone does- and that’s good.
There are huge rewards to this lifestyle though:
This year I will have raced on all seven continents. I am told less than 100 people in the world have done that. I have climbed the three highest mountains on three continents and climbed Mt. Rainier 7 times. I’ve raced in the desert, on the ocean, in Antarctica, through the mountains and the densest jungles on earth. I’ve seen sunsets the rest the rest of the world will never see, and learned a lot along the way. I’ve visted over 35 countries. You don’t get that doing the 9-5 thing. There are a ton of benefits, that is just the tip of the iceberg. I also occaisionally make a decent living, but not always. These past two years, since 9/11/2001, have been universally poor in retail and the bike industry. We’ve still had growth, but it has been expensive and difficult, and we didn’t always make money during these last two years. Prior to that it was like printing money.
But the sacrifices for owning your own business like mine and taking this “alternate” path are huge. I loved a girl who was a 9-5er. I loved her more than anything, for a short time she may have loved me too, I don’t know. We tried to make a go of it and it didn’t work. She needed a 9-5er like her with a mortgage, a cushy job and all that stuff. That is what she valued: Pools, hot tubs, sprinkler systems, alarms in her house and automatic garage door openers. I often said to her, “You’ve made better decisions than me” especially when things were really hard for me. She was the kind of person that, when things were hard for me, she wouldn’t be there. She would seek the path of least resistance. Eventually one day she just gave me the “We need to chat.” and I was gone. We had a ton of problems during our relationship, no doubt. She was constantly certain I was cheating on her. The irony is, I never was. I went out with one other girl during the time we were toether and kissed her casually, but then sent her an e-mail the next day saying what I had done wasn’t appropriate and I shouldn’t see her anymore. My 9-5 girl went nto my e-mail, found that e-mail and blew a gasket. Things were never the same. We were always on again/off again from then on. It was a living hell except for the good times, which were great. I never knew what to expect. One day- sweet as anything, the next day: “This is over because you had lunch with someone”.
Anyway, in the end she left because I didn’t own a big house and have a big car and big mortgage and come home every day at 5 and have weekends off. She immediately latched onto a guy she had been seeing behind my back (who I introduced her too from our bike club) and went to Ironman with him- the Ironman we were supposed to do together. She just replaced me with someone with a big house, more money, more time. She has since kicked him to the curb and is on to someone else. Again. I’m sure for her, this guy is “Mr. Right”, just like all the others before him, including me.
This isn’t a judgement of her. I am bitter because she lied to me for three years and said “We’ll always be together” and “I would take you in if you showed up on my porch with just your cats.” But in the end, that was all a lie. She really wanted someone more like herself. It would have been better if she said so from day one.
Here’s my point: 9-5ers (like her) and “alternate pathers” (like me) don’t mix. Since there are 100,000+ 9-5er’s for every one “alternative pathers” the chances that you will be lonely as an “alternative pather” are pretty high. My Mom, in her ultimate wisdom, put it succintly: “You have nothing to offer a woman.” That is another factor in owning your own business. Girls might think its cool at first, but no matter how honest you are about how difficult it is they will live in denial until one day they wake up and say “This isn’t for me, I want a normal guy.”
So, another benefit of the “average guy” path is you can find an average girl (of which there are thousands), “settle down” (God, I hate that term) and have the white picket fence.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t spend a lot of time being lonely. At 42 years old, it is likely that this part of my life will go unfulfilled: The part where you have a meaningful relationship with another person. I haven’t even bothered dating anymore since this last break-up except for a girl I saw three times and then just stopped calling. I wasn’t into her and I knew it wouldn’t go anywhere anyway.
So, if you are thinking about what it is like to make a living like this, I guess it is like anything else. It alternately is great and sucks. Just a different flavor. I alternately love it and sometimes it is pretty hard and lonely. But it is what I do and mostly I do a pretty good job. So here I am.
