Sunday, March 06, 2011

struggling against the axiom

ax·i·om
   /ˈæksiəm/[ak-see-uhm]
–noun
1.
a self-evident truth that requires no proof.
2.
a universally accepted principle or rule.
3.
Logic, Mathematics . a proposition that is assumed without proof for the sake of studying the consequences that follow from it.

(from Dictionary.com)


Grow up, go to school, get a job, work, work, work, get married, work, work, work, have kids, buy a house, work, work, work, die.

if it helps, picture the house to be in the suburbs with a white picket fence.

that is what most people expect of their lives and feel is expected of them.

then there are the brave few who decide that the common prescription is not right for them. they are the ones we admire who chase their dreams and live the lives we want to live

travel. adventure. LIFE.

yet we so often fall into the common path; the rut carved deep by those who have gone before us--our fathers and grandfathers and forefathers before that. for most of us in America, however, there is at least one ancestor who decided to take the shady, overgrown trail from his or her home country and move to America.

so where did the idea and decision come to us that we are to do what society says is expected of us?

on a whim, i decided to design a ten-year plan of adventure... and it was somewhat remarkable that when i did a financial analysis of it, i came out ahead of the "non-adventure" path. and i was being incredibly conservative with my analysis.

how is it then that i am to stay in the rut? the only answer i can come up with is the feigned security of it. yes, feigned. nothing is certain.

yet, i still want that house and wife and kids... but who is to say that cannot come during the adventure?

this, of course, if following along in the lines of thought that have been pervasive through out my posts the past year (or longer)... i am finding a strange sense of security about the idea of doing what i want to do and rolling with the punches that may come my way... kind of like being in a kayak and tipping over, only to roll back up.

so i am thinking that the axiom is wrong and it's supposed benefits to be a fabrication to make the shackles look a little less ominous, and a bit more comfortable....

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