The life re-start, part 452

Over the last few weeks, while at Clear Passage and in Sweden, I have read some interesting books. Sure, some of them were novels, but some were not. In particular, I have been thinking a lot about “Better Off” by Eric Brende, and “Nickel and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich. “Better Off” is a memoir of the time that Brende and his wife spent a year living among Amish-like people as an experiment for his MIT thesis, to see if we are really better off with all our modern technology or not. And Nickel and Dimed is about the time that Ehrenreich lived doing various minimum wage jobs to see if she could get by.

As a back story, let me just say that I suppose I live a mostly typical American existence. I mean, I have a well-paying job. I spend too many hours a day at work. I have put on weight since moving here from the UK, and my middle continues to spread. I don’t do enough exercise. All that is typical, yes. But I am dissatisfied. I wish I could work less, have a more fulfilling lifestyle, be skinny. Again, all pretty typical. But I feel that I am a little different from my US friends in that I definitely worry about the environment, I drive a hybrid car, I turn the thermostat on my a/c as high as I can take it. I try to save energy. I worry about too much pharmaceutical use, about processed food. In other words, I am a bit crunchy.

But I seem to have spent so much of my life thinking that “it’ll be better when…” Usually, the “when” is after I’ve moved house again, or moved jobs, or when I’ve lost weight. You name it, I think it. I have this vague dream of living in a little urban enclave, with a small garden in which I grow vegetables, where I can walk to my local health food store, bistro or deli, bike to work and generally be all smug and crunchy. In fact, I picked my current house partly because there was a health food store two blocks away. However, after I had finalized the offer on the house and was waiting for closing day, the ceiling of the health food store caved in, and they decided to close. For good. Really, in walking distance there’s Winn Dixie and not much else. So, I have been living a typical American life, and bemoaning the fact that I don’t live in a better part of the world. And doing nothing about it.

But the books I have been reading lately have made me think. You know, I only live 5 miles from work, which should be easily bike-able. OK, I live in Florida, maybe I can’t bike in the summer, but I should be able to manage it for at least 6 months of the year. And, it will actually buy me time. That was the startling realization I had. I get up early and walk for 3 miles every day, which takes about 50 mins – 1 hour, depending on how fast I go. I am usually pretty slow. Then my commute to work takes about 15 mins in the car. So, say I bike and it takes 25-30 mins to get to work. I spend an hour tops getting to work and back, get much better exercise than before, and don’t pollute the planet or spend money on gas. And I gain 25-30 minutes per day because I don’t have to walk. Every day - an extra half hour to do with what I want.

Equally, I spend money every month having a maid service clean my house. I am perpetuating the low wage economy by not directly hiring someone to clean my house, and what’s worse is that the cleaning companies care more that the house appears to be clean than it actually is. If I start cleaning the house again myself, I save nearly $200 per month, and get exercise in doing the cleaning. Likewise, I spend $150 per month having someone do the yard work. I could do it myself. The secret is in thinking that yard work or cleaning are not terrible chores that should be avoided at all costs. It is in thinking that, hey, I am taking care of my surroundings in a caring manner by not using nasty cleaning products or pesticides, I am getting exercise out in the fresh air and at home so I don’t have to join a gym or do other exercise, and I am not wasting my time watching inane TV shows. And, perhaps more importantly, that I am living a more genuine life because I am taking back responsibility for it all. I am not paying people to do things that I could do myself, so therefore I don’t have to work extra hours to pay for it. Maybe at some point this can translate into working less, you never know. Now, I’m not saying that I’m going to put all this into action immediately. And in fact, since I got home from Sweden the house has already degenerated into a mess, so I have a long way to go before becoming a happy house proud cleaning person. But I’m going to try. I’m going to try to live my somewhat urban life. OK, there’s no deli or health food store that is easily accessible, but it doesn’t stop me walking or biking to Winn Dixie to pick up a basket of food. I can bike to work, and maybe be an example to others that it IS possible. And maybe if more people do it, eventually some nice stores will open in the neighborhood and it’ll be the place I imagine that I want to live.

So, today I bought a new bike to cycle to work on, and I’m going to do a test run tomorrow. Then the plan is to bike Tuesday and Thursday next week, building up to every day the following week. And cancel the cleaning service. Man, I hope I can do this and it won’t just be some harebrained scheme that I tried and failed.