Was having an interesting conversation with a mate today about, well, “fitting into your own skin”. It’s a great idea that goes, you should do what you feel is right.
The impetous for the conversation was free time, and a shared outlook on how people we’ve both known over the last twenty years have planned out and conducted their lives.
What’ve we’ve both noticed is that all too many have followed “the formula”, and woken up to find themselves extremely unhappy. An example? Some who is a creative, but hasn’t been among the few who’ve made it big doing creative things. They end up depressed, and wonder why in the hell their career in writing/art/music/dance/whateverthefucktheydo hasn’t turned into fame and big dollars. And frankly? Tough shit… Not every career is going to make everyone great, and if you’re still battling for that big break in music since you were 18 and you’re now 35 then… bad news. Your playing might just be, to use that popular Wellington phrase, a bit shit.
Many people simply can’t see that though. They end up in these mid/early-life crises because the life they imagined and the shit they ended up with do not marry. They might be in a loveless marriage. A stressful but ultimately meaningless job. An endless cycle of creativity and rejection.
Now I recognise that some become famous after they’re dead, and some take the SeaChange option and get the hell out of the rat-race. Many don’t though, and they eek out their miserable lives, making themselves and others around them miserable as well. Working in the public service certainly exposes you to a lot of them.
“The formula” is a version of this where you:
- Leave school and go on a gap year
- Go to University (or maybe uni then the gap year), or start a career/trade
- Meet someone special
- Move in together
- Get the joint account
- Get engaged
- Get married, and buy a house (or vice versa)
- Breed.
Let me state right now that there is nothing wrong with living according to the formula. It is a tried and tested way to live. Especially in the 1950s. And not everyone this conservative and limited are complete tossers.
Thing is though, the formula isn’t for everyone, and if you’re living according to it because you think you have to, then experience has taught both the mate and I that you will end up completely miserable. But if you are conscious of what you’re buying into, and you actively chose this path, because it is right for you, then you will be happy.
That’s the clincher we decided. You need to decide that peeling on the skin that is the formula really is you. And if you’re a cliched range of different types of people – gays, geeks, weird creatives – then you might just find that this isn’t for you.
So what’s the way out? Choosing. If you want to live by the formula, just chose it. Say, “I want to live my life this way”, and whatever that way is will make you happy. But, you have to actually believe it. And if you’re lying to yourself, then you will never, ever be happy.
Even when you buy that Porsche.
PS. I realised last night that I have a better example of “the forumla”.When Second Chef and I first told people about Chef Du Plunge there were three, maybe four questions that almost everyone asked. These were:
- Are you going to get married? – Ans. WTF? We’re a happy, stable and committed relationship. How is a ceremony going to change or improve that?
- I suppose you’ll be moving to some place with “some land”? – Ans. Why is this important? There’s only, maybe, a billion people who grow up in cities? Why do we have to start commuting from the back of beyond to be living somewhere “normal”?
- I guess you’ll be needing a car then? – Ans. No. The car is only necessary if you’ve been dumb enough to go making work by getting a big garden and lawn. i.e. so that you can escape the hell and social isolation that is suburbia. It’s like making choices to spend more money, just for the sake of it…
- Are you ready for the responsibility/lifestyle change? It’s pretty big… – Ans. Weeeelll… if we we’re grown-ups who chose to have a child because we were ready and comfortable with the idea, then… maybe.
17 January, 2009 at 8:11 pm
I’m surprised at the number of people I know who had been working away at poorly paid job that they stuck with because they enjoyed the work and freedom the job offered, only to chuck it all in and go work for The Man once their wife/partner had a baby. It seems the boho lifestyle isn’t so practical when there’s another mouth to feed.
Also, arrgh! SeaChange! That show totally ruined the perfectly good Shakespearean “sea change” for me – I actually thought “sea change” meant something like “to quit your job and move to a coastal town”. Thanks, Sigrid.
18 January, 2009 at 7:09 am
yeah, but as long as they’re happy taking up the corporate drone life, then sweet as.
i should stress that i’m ok with whatever lifestyle you want to choose. firstly it’s none of my business, and second, who gives a toss?
what i hate is people trying to insist that just because they can’t accept their own choices, that i have to accept unhappy choices as well.
18 January, 2009 at 8:09 am
I’d be interested to see how long you guys last without a car, to be perfectly honest (or without borrowing a car from friends all the time, as some people I know do – that’s just cheating). Justine and I got our first car seven years into our relationship, and just because my mum was coming to visit and we just couldn’t do without it at that point. But then we had our first and boy, it quickly became indespensible. I don’t drive and do a lot of stuff with the kids just fine, but the situations where it makes the difference between being able to do something as a family and not are too many to count.
The living in the city part I won’t quibble with, except to say that on a personal note I didn’t come all the way from Italy to live in a bloody apartment. And you make all suburbs sound like they’re Ngaio – I can easily walk to town or to the Newtown shops or to the sea from Berhampore, thank you very much (ops, look: I did quibble after all). Plus “hell and social isolation”? I think you’re talking about an apartment building in Cuba street, surely, not a road where I know everybody (and like them). But I’ll agree that you don’t need to own a place for any of that to happen. Having a baby puke on somebody else’s carpet is not a bad idea at all.
18 January, 2009 at 8:10 am
By “then we had our first” I meant child, not car.
18 January, 2009 at 8:47 am
if we need a car we just hire one on a day-by-day basis. cost a heck of a lot more than that to pay a warrant and registration.
that or taxis, and/or people giving us lifts.
plus, for now the cuba st apartment is perfect. when the lad is more mobile we might need something else, but we won’t rush into it because other people think that “it’s what one does”.
18 January, 2009 at 8:48 am
ps. i am talking about living in the hutt, or johnsonville…
18 January, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Those of us who live in the Hutt refute you!
18 January, 2009 at 7:32 pm
hmmm… any readers in karori?
18 January, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Well, the Hutt is a city, not a suburb of Wellington. I’m with you on Karori, though, it’s like the dark side of the force and has claimed many a friend, who disappeared there never to be seen in human company again. (Heather Roy and her ilk don’t qualify as human.)
Surely there must be a point after which renting a car, bumming it from friends or taxying a lot becomes not very different from owning a car, for all intents and purposes.
plus, for now the cuba st apartment is perfect. when the lad is more mobile we might need something else, but we won’t rush into it because other people think that “it’s what one does”.
Always thought that buying a house at the same time as having a child is daft – you end up taking on two of the major stresses in life at the same time. Then again, we bought a doer-upper when our first was two – also very unwise.
19 January, 2009 at 6:28 am
i’m definitely talking about karori then. terrible bloody place. all those bloody tuis and bellbird. ack!
and, we’ll probably buy an apartment closer to a park and/or school, and further from a busy road.
did i mention that i **hate** mowing lawns?
19 January, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Yes… well… we fairly much did your steps 1 through 8, ‘though no gap year, and we both had a couple of goes at university. I don’t know that we are content, becuase neither of us are particularly content-ful people, but 19 years of marriage later, I wouldn’t change the basic decisions we have made i.e. decisions 1 thoguh 8.
Karori – fantastic! Schools, parks, good cafes, shops, doctors, dentists, excellent public transport, kaka flying over the valley. I would happily live there again.
Re your inner city pad, and space, and the Chef de Plunge (who BTW is the most beautiful baby boy I have seen), being a bit flexible is the answer, I think. That is, seeing how thing are going, and being prepared to change plans as needed. Which is possibly the problem with heading off into steps 1 through 8 without too much thought about it, because once you have taken the final fateful step 8, then there really is no going back.
And I would like to point out that I didn’t ask any of questions 1 through 4, because 1 is none of my damned business, and 4 is a no-brainer, and re 2 and 3, see my point above about flexibility, which I believe is what I said at the time… something about seeing how things went and if possible not getting locked into a long term lease because it’s good to have flexibilty to adjust as needed.
19 January, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Karori – fantastic! Schools, parks, good cafes, shops, doctors, dentists, excellent public transport, kaka flying over the valley. I would happily live there again.
Don’t listen to her: she’s obviously a pod person who took over Deborah’s old body when she moved to Karori. That’s how it works.
19 January, 2009 at 2:22 pm
hey I’ve lived in Kaori and turned out fine
19 January, 2009 at 2:57 pm
My family didn’t have a car until I was 19 and even then that was only because it became uneconomic for my parents to use the train for long journeys to the Lake District when none of us kids were travelling with them anymore.
We grew up in a south London suburb, and used public transport for everything from shopping trips to family holidays. I’ve never owned a car, and hope I don’t need to – I’ll take your approach of renting one every now and then if I need to for a particular trip.
Seems to me that Wellington’s public transport will be good enough to sustain a car-free existence for as long as you want. Travelling to another part of the country on holiday might suggest renting a car – if you intend to venture away from the bus routes that is.
19 January, 2009 at 3:33 pm
We’ll come and pick you up for the your visit to Miramar
Oh – I hate gardening (not just lawns) and the deal for Liz and I was, we get a section (for the kids to go out and eat worms) she does the garden – Liz loves it … so do I!
On the whole I agree with your view – there is no such thing as “one size fits all” but damn me peer/society pressures are both strong and insidious (oh, and fairly invisible
19 January, 2009 at 6:15 pm
thx mike, looking forward to that trip out to the west.
yup. i should reiterate that my view isn’t that other people’s ways of life are “bad”. but taking up one without thinking it through, or whether it’s the skin you really belong in, is.
21 January, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Living in the big bad burbs of the North Shore, and having two cars, I reckon we’re pretty much at opposite ends of the spectrum!
I understand what you’re saying though – couples in New York or London aren’t idly dreaming of lawns – they do just fine.
For me, I sometimes feel we need a little more space, if only so we’re not endlessly putting out and tidying up baby toys. Still, there’s space and there’s space – some of the families in our coffee group have homes that are positively MONSTEROUS. Seriously, they are huge, and far bigger than is practical IMHO. We’re not after that, just something… comfortable.
*My* main requirement for the future family home is a back lawn; all me, my brother and Dad *did* in the summer was play back yard cricket, and I want to do the same with Henry, and borther or sister TBC. I’ve got simple needs.
And – learning to ignore other people’s advice is one of the most valuable parenting skills you can develop. I couldn’t care less about other people’s ‘formula’ – I just want my family to be happy and comfortable.
21 January, 2009 at 3:10 pm
right on man. all i want is a kid who’s happy, and who likes people.
the rest is bonus.
22 January, 2009 at 8:07 am
Learning to ignore other people’s advice…. yes, but in the sense of sifting the wheat from the chaff. Though what worked best for me was realising that I had at one friend with children a year or two older than mine, whose parenting approach I admired, and whose children seemed to be doing just fine. I got some very good advice from her, and she was very reassuring about some issues. Like when my older daughter stopped eating voraciously, at about age two, and became very, very picky. “Don’t worry,” my friend said. “She’ll start eating again when she’s six.” And she did.
22 January, 2009 at 8:35 am
As a member of a 12 year non-married relationship I agree with you on the “why haven’t you…?” questions. We may have a party at some point but not because it’s the done thing.
Of course I’ll accept your apartment-living argument much easier the day you stop complaining about the noise
22 January, 2009 at 8:39 am
fair cop.