Our society is the age of the desk job. How does that sound? Its exciting, I know. Young men and women go through years and years of education and hard work to build a killer resume. Imagine a young lad, fresh out of college and seeking employment to start his career: “I can’t wait to start my new job!” he began.
The executive promptly replied, “Oh you're new here, welcome to the company. What floor is your office on?” as they rode up the elevator.
“Forty-Seventh.”
There it is. The excitement of a working career. Every once in awhile a coworker has a birthday party or a potluck to keep things interesting. The company holds its annual Christmas and New Year’s Bash along with the Spring is Coming Cook-Out. Everyone seems generally content and continues to work the job that they do. James Conway has a Porche and a nice weekend house, but he has never seen anything but the inside of an office.
Every single day people wake up, go to a standard desk job, work for eight hours, come home too exhausted to do anything but eat and go to bed again only to wake up the next day to do the exact same thing. Weekends have become the only source of optimism in day to day life. The glorification of the weekend starts in Elementary and Junior High School and never gives most people the chance to know anything different. This is one of the fears of my generation. Is that all there is to life? I refuse to accept it; there has to be something more.
In this life, where people feel trapped in their own day to day schedule, but cannot escape it, comes the feeling of Wanderlust; the continued curiosity that lies in the very nature of being human; The strong desire to travel. To experience change and thrill and beauty and culture. To walk the stones of the Great Wall of China, gaze in awe of the Pyramids of Giza, snorkel dreamily among the Great Barrier Reef. To topple out of airplanes, climb rough shale, sing the praises of birds in the Amazon Rain Forest and cascade down snowy peaks.
The lure of adventure has most people hooked because traditional desk jobs seem so mundane. Young people are starting to realize that there has to be more than just a desk job. I had a conversation with my grandpa when he told me that “you think that you can do what you do now forever… but it just doesn’t work that way.” I think that I had taken this for granted. I think many of us do. However, curiosity is flooding into society's skull--As it should because experience and memory are the only things that we can truly keep for certain.
You only get one life. There is no going back once it is too late. Regret eats at countless individuals for not taking opportunities to explore this secret urge to experience new things in juxtaposition to the mundane life of blue collar jobs. So the best new thing to do is wander, adventure and explore any opportunity that comes your way.
