Trail Dreamer: How NOT To Get the Work/Life Balance

Thursday, September 18, 2008

How NOT To Get the Work/Life Balance

The lifestyle sections in newspapers and women's interest magazines are full of features along the lines of:

How to Get The New Work/Life Balance!
7 Ways to Stress Less, Do More.
I Lost My Mortgage, & Gained A Life.
Work Less, Without Guilting Out.

(Red Magazine (UK), October 2008 edition)

It's clearly not just the odd-bod hobopoets and anti-wage slave idealists who know there's something very wrong with the way we live our lives today. The knowledge is now mainstream.

But every reader who browses the features stated above, will also then turn the page and flick through another umpteen pages advertising objects (clothes, makeup, furniture, accessories) that also promise happiness. The same edition of Red magazine followed the above articles with:

New Season Shopping Special: 60 pages of buy now wear forever fashion!

Contradiction anyone?

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Words of Wisdom (not mine, obviously)

"I think many limit their horizon. They must try and go over that. They would be amazed what is achievable and can be done... When faced with two alternatives, always choose the bolder." Chay Blyth.
...
"Dream big and dare to fail." Borge Ousland.
...
"If you dream of doing something, stop dreaming, get out, and make it happen." Chris Bonington.
...
"People are attracted by risk and it might be to go climbing, it might be to go caving, it might be driving fast cars. It's the adrenalin of risk, it's the challenge of the unknown. To give it a wider connotation, if human kind did not get challenged by risk, we'd probably still be in the caves." Chris Bonington.
...
To me, exploration isn't about planting flags, conquering nature or going where no one's gone before in order to make your mark. It's about the opposite. It's about opening yourself up, making yourself vulnerable, and allowing the place to make its mark on you." Benedict Allen.
...
"Exploration is very personal. It doesn't have to be the North Pole or the South Pole. I think the most important aspect of exploration is that you start on a personal level, you have to start at some level you are comfortable with and work from there. For me it is seeking out what is beyond the next horizon, it's about following your dreams." Borge Ousland.

Books

*The Wild Places. By Robert MacFarlane (2007).
* Faces of Exploration: Encounters with 50 Extraordinary Pioneers. By Joanne Vestey (2006).
*Ralph's Far North. By Ralph MacGregor (2000).
*Hills Of The North Rejoice. By Ralph MacGregor (2004).
*The First Fifty: Munro Bagging Without A Beard. By Muriel Gray (1991).
*The Runner's Handbook (2nd edition). By Bob Glover, Jack Shepherd & Shelly-Lynn Florence Glover (1996).
* Enough: Breaking Free From the World of More. By John Naish (2008)
* Summit Fever: The Story of an Armchair Climber on the 1984 Mustagh Tower Expedition. By Andrew Greig (1985).
* Survival Of The Fittest: Understanding Health & Peak Physical Performance. By Mike Stroud (1999).