Day 7: Dream Job

For a long time now I’ve dreamed of running a writing school for teenagers out of my base of a café, bar & bookshop/performance space where I would also have the time and the inspiration to write myself, perhaps even taking on writing a novel. Of course, this requires such a space to be everything to all people and I’m not sure that one shop front can do that in real life, certainly not the way it does in Dharma’s store that sells nothing.

(This clip starts with Dharma’s first ‘customer’ who, when asked, admits he’s not looking for anything but just waiting for the bus.)

I’m vaguely serious about one day realising at least part of this dream but at this stage, I’m not sure which part exactly. Besides which, I’m fairly busy being a celebrant and, starting Monday, taking a couple of tutes for a first year writing subject at Uni… Both of which are my realised-dream jobs!

What's your dream job?

Time

At the moment it seems that my time is like some kind of shifting sand monster and just when I think I have managed to grab hold of some, it slithers away and I'm left with nothing. The monster stalks me when it thinks I'm not paying attention and leaps in to eat up things I wanted to be doing.

All of that is just a waffly way of saying I have no time left for the things I really want to be doing and that I enjoy - like reading and writing. Instead my time is being devoured by work, tedium and busyness. I keep trying to squeeze time with my family and friends into my schedule but it is always rushed, there's more work or somewhere else I need to get to lurking close by.

I worry about time. I try not to wish it away but find myself doing so anyway. I worry that I will look back and wonder what I did with my life and regret that the time I spent on work and the value I place on the piles of correction and online reporting do not correspond.

Right now, I'm stealing a little bit of time to myself to write this. It's the break I have rewarded myself with after completing two of the four stacks of correction sitting on my lounge room floor. It's only a small amount of time that I can afford. For example, I couldn't afford to go out to our house site with Nic as he is planning on spending a couple of hours out there and I still have those other two stacks to get through.

Time interests me. I think we don't value it when we have it - usually as young people. And like any good supply and demand model of economics, it only becomes more valuable when we realise just how little we have.