If you are anything like me, you’ve wondered more than once over the last several months about all the vacant job openings. Where did everybody go? What’s happening here? I’ve mostly stopped interacting with local businesses, because every time I do I feel like I should sign on for a month or two just to help them out. But I don’t really want any more jobs right now. Does that make me a monster? I mean, I could surely squeeze another job or two into the gaps. I recently started showering more than once a week. I could rethink that time and deliver Chinese food instead, couldn’t I?
That’s the thing, though. For the first time in my life, I think I prefer the extra showering over working more. I sorta got tired of working so much, and then 2020 happened. Don’t misunderstand, I loved 2020. The year 2020 was infinitely better for me than 2019. I had been getting tired of doing the wrong thing at 200mph for 70 hours a week for a while before 2020 hit.
Is this part of what has happened to the rest of the world? Were most of us just careening through our lives at speeds high enough to keep us from focusing too much on our surroundings right up until we crashed into quarantine? Or were we simply locked into the zombie lifestyle? Putting one foot in front of the other until the sidewalk ended? I dunno.
When I look around at the world today, it’s possible that a bunch of us have recently woken up. It’s also possible that a bunch of us might have bought gaming consoles, contributed to the TP shortage, stocked up on Velveeta and Rotel, and then dropped off the map never to be found again. I’m still not sure which.
For those of us living hand to mouth, there’s no time for such academic questions. One job goes away, and we find another. At least there is no shortage of crappy jobs available these days. For those of us with a little margin, I think Covid-19, and the correlating social upheaval, has got us to thinking. Who do I want to be when I grow up? You know, up up. Older than I am now. Or in other words, this could be my last chance to get this thing right. How do I want to spend my remaining days?
I’ve been asking myself this question. I’m not really sure of the answer. I’ve started a short list of potential vocations:
Death Doula
Vocational Councilor
Humor Columnist
Landscape Artist (ie. lawn boy)
Novelist
Alternative Housing Entrepreneur
I think that’s it. I’m guessing any one of these could spiral into excessive overworking…if I’m not able to figure out the whole balance thing. I’m working on it. And maybe that’s what everybody else is working on at the moment as well. Hmmm. It will be interesting to see how society shakes out on the other side of this social shift. We could end up enslaved by our robot overlords even sooner than I had expected. (I respect my Amazon and Google overlords. Meta, you can stick it!)
At the Desk This Week
Happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the States. Happy normal week to everyone else.
Only one episode left of the third season of The Green Ones and I’ll be done with my final rewrite. Then I’ll get it copy edited, and it will be ready to roll. I’ve added some more back and neck stretches and exercises to my old-man-desk-jockey routine. Hopefully those will extend my career expectancy! No new signs of the end times this week, that I can tell. Just all the same old stuff. So, as long as we are all still around next week, I’ll be back. Until then…
If You Wish to Start Reading The Green Ones…
[Click here to start at the beginning.]
Thanks so much for taking the time to read these scenes of Boundaries, Season 2 of The Green Ones. I’ll be publishing FREE daily scenes from The Green Ones until…I die…or something terrible happens. Seriously, I’ve got over 100 scenes written so far, and I’ll be writing more until the story reaches its natural ending. You are totally welcome to read the entire story for FREE! If at any point you decide you would rather finish the story in ebook or print format, just click the buttons below and you can do that as well. If you enjoy reading the serial releases, BUT you would also like to support me as a writer (my kids need wine!) please subscribe to my premium content for bonus scenes, exclusives, and insider access to my process. And of course, I’d be grateful if you would share this post with any of your reader friends who you think would enjoy The Green Ones. Happy reading!