Finding My Purpose

I had an interesting chat with a good friend today. He’s a guy I’ve known for the better part of a decade worked with daily for about a year, and respect the heck out of. He’s a man’s man, but the conversation today turned to what happiness is. Why is it so hard to find happiness?

Here’s a guy who’s built like a 19^th century lumberjack, one of the smartest men I know, makes a very decent living for himself and he’s telling me how unhappy he is. I wonder how many of my other friends feel this same way. He worked outdoors previously and misses it, even though it was long hours and low pay.

I wonder how much good a garden would do him; if eating eggs just laid by a chicken or duck would lend more to his happiness than a fat paycheck; if knowing he’d put aside enough food to feed himself for a year would allow him to relax a bit and enjoy his fleeting youth.

I’ve been a gypsy, a vagabond, and a libertarian free spirit all of my adult life. I’ve been without a job fewer days than I have fingers since my senior year of high school. I’ve lived all over the country and been able to find a job where ever it is I’ve been. I’ve made my share of mistakes, but I’ve learned from all of them. I’ve been a searcher that entire time. Searching for knowledge, for truth, for my purpose, if you will. For eight years I coached college basketball, and loved just about every minute of it.

I found my purpose in an unlikely place, in my backyard. I knew, in my gut, back in the summer of 2008 that things were getting off the rails with the economy. I just didn’t understand then why I felt that I had to do something. A little over a year later I became a head coach, and to make ends meet took a part time job working as a County Veterans Service Officer. I was talking daily with the dwindling cadre of WWII and Korean veterans, whose parents had lived through the depression. Those fellows talked frequently of not seeing how our situation as a country could get better. Which reminded me more and more of the stories of (and buckets of things that couldn’t be wasted) the Great Depression that my own father lived through.

I left coaching in the spring of 2010, as the opportunity to work full time as a CVSO opened up. I started riding my bike to work several days a week and needed something to fill the hour and a half each day. Initially it was podcasts of Yale, MIT, and Stanford history lectures, and as those were listened through I stumbled upon Jack Spirko’s, The Survival Podcast www.thesurvivalpodcast.com and it just clicked for me.

The show itself is much less tied to traditional survivalism tenants, than it is to projects and ideas to help each person live a more independent, self-reliant life. Jack calls his philosophy “Modern Survivalism”. The more I dug in my garden the happier I felt. The more produce I gave away the richer I felt. The more time I spent with my best friend on rocket mass heaters, discussing fractional banking, or teaching his boy how to dress a freshly shot rabbit, the more I realized what was important in life.

In the midst of that, I met, and fell madly in love with an incredible woman – and left her to go kill my debt. The year apart has been incredibly long and hard. It has also given us such a great foundation of communication. I’ve seen first-hand how the Northeast is not just in decline, but in decay. The infrastructure is beyond the state’s financial ability to repair it, the states are bankrupt (just playing kick the can for as long as they’re able), and I just don’t see how it can be fixed. That being said, I’ve met incredibly kind, generous, real people here who I’ve learned much from. I have been treated me like family and it’s allowed me to almost all of my debt in a short period of time…

So what does all of this have to do with my good friend’s search for happiness? Just this, slowing down, reading, growing real food, learning skills that will feed myself and my family never seemed to me to be  those things would fill my heart with joy and contentment, yet they have.

I’ve learned patience, from having to wait 3 months to eat that first watermelon. I’ve learned that charity is in no way connected to the government, by the giver or the recipient. I’ve learned feeding someone is an act of honor and dignity not one of pity. Finally I’ve learned that peace isn’t about how much money you make, or how many people like you, or where you vacation, it’s about the guy in the mirror – and being able to look him in the eye and know he’s made the world a better place.