Thirty Day LA

Growing up, along with saggier bodies and never-ending responsibilities, entails accepting routine. Not all of us can be rock gods or movie stars, and I think part of the reason why we envy them is because their lives aren’t dull. They get to travel the world, do whatever they want, and get paid handsomely for it. In the meantime, we get to sit in the same office or cubicle every day, do our best to eat something different for lunch, and get paid just enough to cover our expenses and sometimes not even that much. People thrive off of new experiences that reshape our attitudes and understanding of our world. Working full-time in an office behind a computer doesn’t provide that kind of opportunity. Instead, it perpetuates an infinite loop where our minds and bodies waste away.

I was chatting with my high school friend Narcissist online last night about routine. He said he’s waiting for a big change to come in his life. He thinks that doing small, new things doesn’t really qualify as change, because the routine will still be there. And in a way, he’s right. My attempts to do something new everyday have become part of my routine. I still wake up every day and go to the same office and do the same work I don’t enjoy and then go home. That takes up most of my day. Even right now, when I'm outside of work and in the middle of trying something new, I'm in front of a damn computer. I'm sitting in Unurban Cafe listening to the workers bitch about their other coworkers, trying to fill out my schedule. My new experiences just mask the underlying routine, and if I go back to living the way I did before I started this adventure, routine will have prevailed.

A way to combat the routine of work is to do stuff outside of work. I bet even musicians and actors get tired of having to spend so much time away from their families, getting up early all the time, doing take after take in the studio. So in a way, the 9-5ers have a little bit in common with the celebrities, because they have to deal with routine too. But the celebrities can release the routine through the job itself, whereas we have to find our own release.

This is just a long-winded way of saying that I wish I had a job that I really enjoyed. I'm doing my part to keep things fresh, but I don't know if it's enough. I don't want to be a celebrity (or maybe I do, who knows), but I do want to have enthusiasm about what I do. It's my fault that I've never spent much time figuring out what I would realistically like to do. My job provides me great perks and tons of freedom, so I really can’t complain about it, but ultimately I don’t want to spend most of my life slacking off at work. To those lucky people who have jobs they enjoy, mad props.

After these 30 days are up, I know I need to break out of my routine. 30 days in the context of a lifetime is insignificant. But if I can make these 30 days the catalyst for a bigger change, then my daily adventures won’t just be masking the symptoms of routine. They will become the routine itself, and in a journey of freedom and adventure, I will get a small taste of the rock god movie star life, working-stiff style.