I really love my work. As with any job, a certain amount of repetition is involved – that’s necessary to actually build expertise. I write about the same subjects every day, but the specifics of each piece, the details, vary.
Creating content is awesome. But really, what am I contributing to the world by sitting at a computer all day?
By first world standards, life in NZ can be tough. The cost of living is so high, the property market is insane, it’s a struggle to get ahead. Yet compared to some in the world we have so much.
The part about travel that depressed me the most – and really started to grind on me towards the end – was visiting countries and realising, every time, just how their civilisation was built upon slavery, oppression, war. The same was true the world over.
I’ve been working my way through this book on Somalia – very slowly, because it’s not an emotionally easy read. It enrages me and depresses me in equal parts. It’s just unfathomable what some of our fellow human beings have to endure simply for being born in the wrong country.
Like Her Every Cent Counts, right now I’m struggling to reconcile those feelings with my own desire to get ahead in the society I live in. I feel like a terrible person for not wanting to read more books like this (despite the fact that I can’t resist memoirs like Escape from Camp 14) for that reason.
I realise this is all sort of pointless. Even if I was to go work at a nonprofit, my job would still consist of sitting at a computer because that’s where my skills lie.
/end ramble
This week’s links
TRAVEL
Besudesu Abroad interviewed me for her weekly blogger series – head over to read about our travel budget, favourite destinations and my love/hate relationship with the beach
Ashley sums up all my feelings about the Grand Canyon (like her, I heard mixed things about it but was blown away) and astutely observes that “we romanticise travel when so much of it is completely unromantic” (um, see this post on all the unglamorous stuff we don’t like to write about)
Beverley is missing Auckland badly – a post I never expected to read anywhere online (people do NOT write yearningly about my city!)
Yes and Yes shares a few things you probably didn’t know about Alaska
WORK/MONEY
Her Every Cent Counts argues that most stock options are BS
Hilarious ways to quit your job and life working on on a cruise ship, via Budgets are Sexy
Alicia ponders the reality of being a solitary woman in a sea of men at work
LIFE
Frugal Portland ponders the phenomenon of celebrity
Newlyweds on a Budget are in the same boat as us when it comes to house buying
Fun date ideas from Well Heeled (2013 was a year of limerence for us, but even so we still need to shake things up once in a while)
The problem with the stories we tell ourselves, from Minimal Millennial
And my post on surviving a layoff was in the carnival of personal finance
Happy weekends! Looks like I’m going to be cooped up inside – there’s a bit of a rainstorm going on out there.
I hear ya about the personal drive to get ahead versus the societal changes that are really required. I find it difficult to reconcile, but I don’t know what I can do to really help. I feel pretty useless with certain things like that.
PS, thanks for sharing my post 🙂
Hey — I would love to talk to you about freelancing (if you’re available for more writing). Email me. Also thanks for sharing. 🙂
Somalia would be a tough place to live. NZ seems like it would be great. Often countries have problems due to the people not wanting to shed blood for freedom. The world if full of tyrants, and people need to rise up against them.
In the USA, we have it pretty good.
I’d say that by writing content you are contributing amazing stuff to the world. You are doing something that you’re passioante about, others all over the world can read and feel inspired or have a connection with someone..
I’ve travelled to developing countries too (Nepal, Thailand and am looking forward to visiting more of South East Asia).. This motivates me to want to do what I can to make the world that I live in most of the time (Sydney) a better place by giving someone a smile, saying hello, asking how their day is or buying a magazine off a homeless person trying to earn a living..
If we all did this I feel we’d like in a better world (although I feel the world is pretty awesome), call it the optimist in me 🙂
Good thought provoking post though