unrequited love

 Friday morning, 5am, I am awake. But it is not a bad thing. I am awake because I am excited. I fly to San Diego for the weekend, and yesterday I successfully passed my citizenship interview. San Diego beckons me as the place I first truly longed to be, to live, to see… and I still, to this day, would love to be self-sufficient, without the need for a physical office or company or reporting structure, to simply live and read and write whilst exploring the streets, parks, beaches, museums, and bars of the place.

The world can be a better place if we can let go of old beliefs and traditions. Those traditions that put so much pressure on people. For example, everyone is raised to believe they must get married, buy a house, have children… and so people become depressed because they can’t find a partner or buy a house, or a couple can’t have children. Instead, we should be enjoying our independence, travelling, investing, enjoying life. We don’t need to buy a house… be a nomad, be free. We don’t need children… it won’t be a lack of childbirth that causes the extinction of mankind. The same applies to those traditional thoughts passed on about work. ‘Work is not supposed to be fun.’ ‘You’re not supposed to be happy; you’re getting paid to do a job.’ We can make things more enjoyable and more flexible. We’ve come a long way from the days that I would be calling my boss and apologising because I was going to be two minutes late in getting to the office. When we used to sit from 9am to 5pm staring at a screen, just to pass the time that we were being paid for. The time when we travelled to an office five days a week. But there are still boomers in the workforce, and they want all of that back. They want us to suffer. They want us to go through what they went through. Even a simple thing like a meeting… change it. Change the need to set a one-hour meeting. Change the need to use the full time that you have set. Change everything.

                  And so, I will explore Ocean Beach, and as I walk along the beach, I will think of those who refuse to even work a day from home, those who insist on being in an office five days a week. I will think of those who are too scared to take a day of vacation because they fear they may lose their job. I will think of all of us when, if we are lucky enough to grow old, weep with the realisation that we worked too much and lived too little. There are some I know who are in desperate relationships that have caused them almost, or completely, to give up. To feel that they have already wasted their lives. There are others I know who are alone and feel their life is wasting away in loneliness. I consider myself deeply fortunate, I love solitude. I love solo travel. I love to read and to listen to music and to write and to dream. Yes, I long for the one who got away… but is not unrequited love the only true form of love? It is human nature that we want what we can’t have. It’s beautiful and sad. It is poetic and true.

                  See you in San Diego.




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