Paying the Piper — On Finding Meaningful Work

Posted by Greg on July 4, 2009

Back in Newfoundland for a visit, June 2009, retracing some of the steps from my circumnavigation.
Long trips are great but you eventually have to go home…

I love long kayaking expeditions. On such a trip you fully live each day and live for the moment. However, you can’t spend your entire life on what amounts to a glorified vacation. Eventually you have to return home and pay the piper.

One of my biggest challenges has been finding meaningful work. By that I mean work that pays well, work that stokes passion and leaves you energized instead of drained, and allows ample time for adventures, be that hiking the AT or paddling around some large land mass. Some people search for such a “calling” their entire life. Some lucky people find it or, more likely, stumble upon it — probably since few of us understand what we *really* need.  If you do know, then you are miles ahead of the pack.

If you follow my blog you know that I walked away from a comfortable salary working as a software engineer/project manager, to find the right blend of kayaking, teaching, sales, helping people, and application of my software/managerial skills, that would ignite all of my passions. I also knew that I would always have regrets if I did not pursue long kayaking expeditions.

I would like to report that I have found nirvana, but I’m still in active transition — “a work in progress”.  I went from a position with high pay and low satisfaction to a position with good satisfaction and humble pay.  Whereas before I couldn’t get the time off, now the challenge is affording the trips.  I made the decision that was right for me, but not everyone should leave their day job.

Linda Bartlett, my dear friend and long-distance partner, has probably heard more of my telephone drivel than she can stand, on this subject of work/life/passion/balance. She recently shared with me a link from Penelope Trunk http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2008/09/29/how-to-find-meaningful-work/ that addresses this topic. It strongly resonated with me, I hope you find it useful advice as well.

Following are a few notable excerpts:

 “1. Take care of yourself-have the basics covered.
The most important thing about making meaningful work is that if you are always worried about paying rent, it’s very hard to add goodness back to the rest of the world. Giving back to the world requires a sense of personal well-being and stability that only people who have a roof over their head can manage.

2. Take care of your work-make sure your job doesn’t suck.
Work doesn’t give your life meaning. The idea that your happiness correlates to your satisfaction with your work is misguided. What you need from work is to make sure it’s not undermining your ability to create sanity in your life.  Work is a way to get sanity, to make sure you are growing and you feel secure while you do it. Here’s what you need from a job to get that:

* A short, predictable commute
* Workflow you can manage
* Clear goals that are challenging
* Two co-workers you’re close friends with

So stop using your search for meaning as an excuse for not getting a job. Life is loaded with meaning, if you would just start living it. And, as an adult, that means engaging in ANY kind of work that we can do well”

Excellent advice from Penelope and quite different than either the New Age “follow your bliss” blather, or the old school “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” advice of my youth. I’d love to hear your comments.

Lost in Iceland

Posted by Greg on October 13, 2008

My life has been a flurry of actively since the completion of my solo Newfoundland expedition, including teaching at the Qajaq TC Michigan Training Camp, Maine Island Kayak Company’s  New England Intermediate Rough Water Symposium and even returning to Newfoundland to visit again. This week I teach at the Delmarva Retreat (America’s largest Greenland-style event) and following I will be teaching in Sweden at the Escape Kajakcenter from October 23 – November 2.

I still haven’t even settled into home since my Newfoundland trip ended and am still dealing with all the re-acclimation issues that follow a long trip. It seemed to hit me harder this time — but that’s a story for another day…

The October 2008 Issue of Sea Kayaker Magazine contains my article, “Lost in Iceland” — about my record-setting circumnavigation of Iceland in 2007 with German kayaker Freya Hoffmeister.

I find most trip articles (travelogues) difficult to read, so this article was meant to be something very different. It is a very personal account of my struggle to bust out of my safe but confining “cubicle” in the corporate world, to seek a life that I am more passionate about. I found it a very difficult article to write.

I have received some very good feedback from readers about the article. Initially I wasn’t quite sure if people would “get it”, or if it was too personal and too honest to be relevant in a kayaking magazine, but the following short review from  Mark Rainsley in the UK Rivers Guidebook forum eased my mind and made me laugh out loud; (thanks Mark!)

“It’s a Totally Scientific fact that all sea kayaking articles are Incredibly Boring, albeit each in their own distinct way.However, I’ve just read Greg Stamer’s account of that trip (in Sea Kayaker Magazine), and it’s great! Riveting stuff, highly recommended.”

I hope that you enjoy the article!

The Exploration Within?

Posted by Greg on March 23, 2008

Early Morning Fog on Lake Destiny. Photograph by Greg Stamer (click on image to view enlargement)

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time”. — T.S. Eliot.

I must admit that I generally don’t enjoy reading kayaking travelogues. You know, those blow-by-blow accounts where someone describes their trip — what they ate for breakfast, how many miles they paddled, what they ate for dinner, how they smelled on day fourteen, and so on. I have a hard time reading them. The reason being, for me, the trip is only the canvas on which a broader and more interesting story is told. For example, in the case of my Iceland circumnavigation with (ex) partner Freya Hoffmeister, I’m currently writing an article for Sea Kayaker Magazine. In it Iceland is just a fascinating backdrop to frame my struggle to create a new lifestyle for myself amid the pain of how the stresses of the trip accelerated the demise of the relationship that Freya and I shared. It’s a very difficult article to write well, and balance, but hopefully the result will be worth the effort — if I have the courage to be honest enough.

Following a trip blog is much more interesting than most published travelogues, precisely because the action is “live” and therefore, as in life, unpredictable. But even so, for me the interest is not so much the trip itself, but the circumstances behind the trip. Any sea kayaker of modest ability has the physical strength and probably the camping/weather/sea knowledge to complete an “expedition”. After all, an expedition is but only a series of daytrips (although in remote areas the price of failure can be a steep one).

What I find most interesting is not the trip around something but the much more difficult and challenging trip within. Why is that person doing the trip? How are they coping with leaving lovers, friends and family for so long? What kind of lifestyle do they have where they can go off for months at a time? Why are they choosing solitude? Why are they choosing to put themselves in harm’s way? What are they searching for? What are they running from? What are they running toward?

Heraclitus) of Ephesus (c.535 BC – 475 BC) Greek philosopher wrote: No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.

I cannot answer for anyone else. I’m sure that some “expedition” kayakers are looking to “make their mark” or be “the first”. I think that pushing yourself and achieving a record is an interesting goal, but the ego-boost, if any, is fleeting. Personally, I feel that any trip that I have ever taken, whether it’s a lazy day on a local lake or battling a fast tidal race in Iceland, is a first. A first for me, anyway. But we are all driven by vastly different winds….

Long trips in the wild, whether they be kayaking, backpacking or other pursuits, reduce life to simple terms. While doing them, I feel a razor-sharp sense of purpose, and the joy and exhilaration that arises from living fully — truly living every second of every day — rather than just trying to “get through the week” (the feeling that I often felt during my corporate life). Each day seems packed with more life than weeks of “ordinary living”. Perhaps this simply reveals a character flaw. For example most people apparently get this same sense of purpose from being husbands, mothers, fathers, providers and such. Other people feel trapped inside the very same roles. Are these people satisfied or are they leading lives of quiet desperation? Are expedition paddlers, as a group, taking long trips around the globe in search of something that is right in front of their noses, or to complete something from their past?

I imagine the answer is as varied and as individual as each of us who explores both distant (and local) shores and the depths of our own soul, from the seat of our kayak.