Just to Pay the Bills
I watched The Sketches of Frank Gehry, a documentary on one of the most radical and unconventional architects of our time. He describes the turning point in his life. At a party, a friend asked him why he designed and built a certain building. “Because I needed to pay the bills!” His friend remarked, “I don’t like it!” Gehry said, “I don’t either!” His friend responded, “Well, never do it again! Stop doing that!” They shook hands and Gehry agreed never to do anything ever again just to pay the bills. He went on from that point to create the most amazing architectural wonders in the world, such as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. He said life got harder and scarier, but he experienced a freedom and a happiness he hadn’t known before.
Lately, I feel that much of what I do is to pay the bills. I’m tired of it. I don’t like what I do. It has become expected, conventional and boring. I want to break out of the safe box I’ve created for myself and what others learn to applaud. I’m bored, restrained, cautious, and uncreative. I need to shake the hand of passion, risk, and adventure and courageously thrust myself into my own life, a life of authentic creativity that is truly mine and not borrowed, stolen or copied.
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Oh I am so there with you. I feel so bored and crave adventure. Bills, young kids etc seem to stop us … oh and that noose called a PR application! Sometimes I get scared that my whole life is going to be like this, and I’ll turn back and think “why didn’t I take the jump and see?” Hope you find the adenture you’re looking for
Wow…For the first time in a long time, can I ever relate to this post. For years I feel that’s all I have been doing…working to pay the bills, I too want to break out and be free…but I can’t…gotta pay the bills…
Easy big fella….easy. Don’t go and do something that I’ll regret later.
What can I say to get you back into robot mode?
After my 10 year stint in the military as a photographer, I got out back in ‘88. I spent the next three years bouncing around. I had a wife and three young sons to care for. I had 15 different jobs in a three year period. I hated every one. I finally settled down and spent the next seven years as a stocker in a large grocery chain store. I despised every second I was there. I couldn’t even enjoy my off time because I knew I would be back in the store in a couple days, couple hours.
Finally, back in 1998, I couldn’t take anymore. I loved photography, and if there was going to be a way out for me, that was going to have to be it.
I quit. I had $30k in my profit sharing account. Every time I took some out to pay bills or purchase equipment, I lost 10% to taxes and fees. The last of the money was spent a couple years ago on car repairs.
I am finally, after 8 years in my own business, earning more than I was back in ‘88, just before getting out of the military. But, considering inflation, I am not making as much. I worry a lot. Even though I have droughts in my business, and even though I am a horrible self marketer, I somehow manage to make a little more every year.
Most of my photography work is not the kind of photography I really want to do. Most of it is posed portraiture. But for me it is a trade off. The only thing I know how to do (besides putting groceries on a shelf) is taking pictures, and I don’t hate taking pictures.
I will never be able to retire. I will have a heart attack and fall forward on my camera as all the little kids in the group shot laugh at the funny old man
I think Solomon may have taken this trail before you and journaled his own quest. I think George Bailey did too. Of course one of them was purely fictional.
enjoy the adventure! It’s not always easy but it certainly is better. after all, real nacho cheese is much tastier than the stuff in a jar - not as pretty, not as easy but SO MUCH BETTER
I think you’d like Ayn Rand’s book “The Fountainhead.” If you’ve never read it, I highly recommend it. It chronicles the story of a fictional Gehry, an architect who throughout his life refuses to ever do anything “just to pay the bills.”
I love the book, precisely because I know exactly what you mean by this post. Even though I’m only 26, I’m growing tired of a series of jobs that seem to have no meaning other than to allow myself and my wife to continue paying the rent.
Dave - have a feeling you are about to start a revolution!
viva la revolution!
;)
I suppose it might be a wiring thing - I am grateful for every day I get to pay the bills.
I don’t feel the need to seek adventure or gush creativity. I shuttle my kids, enjoy my husband, clean the house not all that well.
I have a job, not a career, one that doesn’t pay all that much. It’s not where I pictured myself but it’s okay.
someone else might categorize it as boredom, but for me it’s contentment
so, how much is a beer in Canada, eh?
I think lor nailed it on the end. CONTENTMENT.
Head….opps
lor… wish i was more like you… but sadly, i relate totally to np’s frustration. i do work that many would regard as fortunate… i illustrate, i animate, i produce music… but it is nearly always someone elses agenda! and i get bored….. sooooo bored… bored, bored, bored, bored, bored!!! my grandmother used to say ‘if you’re bored it’s because you’re boring’… i don’t think i’m boring… i think what people ask of me is boring… they want so much less than my imagination has to offer… and man, it’s tiresome! most of what i do gives me very little job satisfaction and leaves me wound up and fighting depression… dull, dull, dull!!! i have self initiated a few things recently and spend as much time doing those things as posssible, in the hope that one day the bills will be paid by default! i don’t think i shall ever get to retire either… i shall either be found dead at my computer, or dispossessed of all i currently own and found dead under a box somewhere! no time for boredom when you’re fighting to stay warm!
i’m not very good at contentment.
NP - What do you mean you don’t like what you do?
Here is an example of what happens to Pastors who are bored and visionless.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh_shsRfXqk&mode=related&search=
i hear you david…i’m currently in a ministry where i love the kids but not the other stuff that comes with it…i connect with people but the capacity i work in has me in a building 8-9 hours a day…drained, pissed, angry, and fighting to believe that God makes a damn bit of sense having do something i really dont wanna do…yep, that about sums it up for me…peace
that last paragraph….was stolen from my mind. j/k.
p.s. note new web address.
Cheers!
You don’t want to shake my hand right now…it has damp henna on it! My own way of authentic creativity.
~Anna
Where I live we’re never sure of being able to pay the bills - a month to month faith walk. I’m with you on breaking out of the safe boxes that are so stifiling and constrictive, but I wonder if there is ever such a thing as “truly mine” in that we’re always preceded by someone and something. Yet, I think, within sedimentation there can always be a spark of innovation and improvisation that makes life adventerous, creative and interesting.
Amen, NP. I think about this a lot, too. Like Jon Birch said above, “I’m not very good at contentment.” It may be simply my inability to reconcile these issues in my own soul, but I am at a point where I think I believe that this side of Heaven, nobody gets to have it all.
Working to pay the bills seems to be part of the curse of the fall. And when I look at the lives of those who don’t really seem to have to work to survive, they are largely cursed in other, more dismal, ways.
Uhm…everybody have a nice day, anyway.
I think theres something built in our DNA, this need for adventure. Some sort of craving that can be disappointed and manipulated over time and perhaps fade when misused or not utilized. I remember talking about this with our friend before she went (out of country). Now I cant GO unto all the world,at this time. And I want more risk and adventure, than just tossing red undies into a “white” load. Urban soccermom, even one who cant currently drive, legally (which really interrupts the soccermom part) seeks more. And I think I figured it out what it is for me. Its there in the depths, the depths of relationships. Its in the discovery of self and the transparency in which I am willing live it. Now thats risky behavior.