Part of the reason why..
I don't want this to sound like a shameless plug for Jimmy Buffett's book ("A Pirate Looks at Fifty"), but I have to say the book did play a part in my defection from the rat race. If you get a chance to read it, perhaps you'll understand what I mean. Personally, every time I read it I get restless. It makes me want to get out and see the world, meet new people and live a little.
Quoted in the book is a fantastic poem by Don Blanding called "The Double Life".How very simple life would be
If only there were two of me
A Restless Me to drift and roam
A Quiet Me to stay at home.
A Searching One to find his fill
Of varied skies and newfound thrill
While sane and homely things are done
By the domestic Other One.
And that's just where the trouble lies;
There is a Restless Me that cries
for chancy risks and changing scene,
For arctic blue and tropic green,
For lusty fun and raising Hell
But shackled to that Restless Me
My Other Self rebelliously
Resists the frantic urge to move.
It seeks the old familiar groove
That habits make. It finds content
With hearth and home--dear prisonment,
With candlelight and well-loved books
And treasured loot in dusty nooks,
With puttering and garden things
And dreaming while a cricket sings
And all the while the Restless One
Insists on more exciting fun,
It wants to go with every tide,
No matter where...just for the ride.
Like yowling cats the two selves brawl
Until I have no peace at all.
One eye turns to the forward track,
The other eye looks sadly back.
I'm getting wall-eyed from the strain,
(It's tough to have an idle brain)
But Ones says "Stay" and One says "Go"
And Ones says "Yes," and One says "no,"
And One Self wants a home and wife
And One Self craves the drifter's life.
The Restless Fellow always wins
I wish my folks had made me twins.
I'm going to indulge the Restless Me for a while :o)