Routine

I heard a story on NPR's This American Life yesterday about a mid-thirties guy who looked back on the diary he kept as a teenager. He read some passages and expanded on what he was thinking when writing them, like that he would be the next Prime Minister of Israel and those writings would someday be needed by biographers and historians. One of his teenage themes was how sorry he felt for his parents, who were leading such trite, purposeless lives. The show's host pointed out the oxymoronic nature of this journal reading: the subject looking back and laughing at what he'd written as a teenager about how unfortunate it would be to grow into an adult such as who he is today.

I can't say that I ever looked at my parents and said 'I want or don't want that.' And while my dad has always done a great job of leaving work at work, I know he's had struggles and that he gets through them by looking forward to what he loves, hunting and fishing. So I taught myself to just try and pursue the things I love and skip over that 'being unhappy and needing something to look forward to' business. I've had some pretty interesting jobs, but I've also left out American Dream ideas like starting a family or planning for retirement.

The most stability I've had since college was Peace Corps, which was arguably a pretty exotic form of it. A word I have chosen to differentiate my life against the more traditional path is 'routine'. With the exception of where I am right now - knowing I'll be here for another 1.5 years - I often haven't known where I'd be just three months into the future (in fact the longest job I've had since 2004 has been just 3.5 months long). That's a sexy 'life resume' point to throw out in selling yourself as an adventurer, but there are also limits to it.

Now, I have routine. I know what time I want to be showering when teaching on Aka. Volleyball is on Sunday and Thursday nights. I need to have my yeast growing no later than 5pm if I want my bread out before 9pm.

Some of this is depressing. I've spent a lot of time reveling in the excitement of my short-term lifestyle, promising never to work at one job more than a year or two. I also even went so far as to expect never to have a high-paying job, because Real Jobs with Real Pay bring expectations and responsibility which will extract my soul.

But here I am, with a job that brings Real Pay. I won't go so far as to classify this in the Real Job category since I'm in a foreign country and don't have to write progress reports or get job ratings or deal with any managerial red tape. But I have routine. And for years I have promised myself certain things if I ended up with routine. One would to be to combat monotony. That's still easy here. Another would be to excel athleticly, since having a daily schedule with time to myself lends well to training. I spent all winter running and it culminated three weeks ago in a result I am really proud of.

Now, as SW Japan turns to spring and my morning routine is all confused, I think about the turn Japan has thrown into life as I know it. I ponder, 'Could I live in one place for a long time?' I think maybe. If I have a fulfilling job, natural beauty, sporting activities (fishing), the schedule to stay in good shape, and a personal or intellectual challenge (like learning a foreign language), I don't see any reason to give it up.