Quality of Life

This week I had to make a pretty big decision and for the past couple of weeks this impending moment has been keeping me up at night. It had to do with a job that I applied for that would have meant an over 20% increase in salary. Major decision when you are the primary breadwinner in the family. The problem with this job was that it would have meant giving up my Fridays and commuting off island 5 days a week instead of 4. My Fridays are when I get to hang out with my kids and have lunch with them at school. It is when I do my volunteer work at the church and school. It is when I have some time alone to take a walk, pray, meditate, write and maybe meet a friend for coffee. Fridays are what I like to call my “soul refresher” days.

$14 K more a year is hard to pass up but I did. I told the HR rep to pull me and that I would not be doing the second interview that had been set up. Crazy - well maybe but when I reflect back over the choices that I have made in life and the choices that Meghen and I have made together, well we always seem to choose our quality of life and since we have had kids, the choices have all been with their best interests in mind.

For me choosing quality of life started early on. I always seemed to follow the things that I loved rather than what would bring me security or financial gain. I took the LSATs, was accepted at UC Hastings Law School but chose a liberal arts masters program in early American Literature instead.

15 years ago, I was in the middle of chemotherapy treatments for Hodgkin’s lymphoma that had re-occurred. I had only been in remission for 4 years so having it reoccur so quickly was a bad sign. I got to a point that my quality of life was suffering to such a degree that I made the decision to stop treatment and to take a trip across the United States. I spent almost 5 months on the road traveling the US, visiting national parks, art & natural history museums, and thinking. I spent time with friends that I had not seen in years and I rediscovered myself. I also came back cancer free. I do not know how but it was gone and it has remained so.

Over 9 years ago, Meghen and I decided that having a parent at home with our newborn daughter was important enough to us for her to quit her job and for us to figure out how to survive on my income.  I found a second job and we made it work. Then when I was laid off from one of my jobs, we made the decision to pick up and move to Vashon so that our kids could have a better childhood.

All of this is to say that I firmly believe that money is not everything. I can say that as we have our basic needs met and are able to scrape by. I know this is a privilege that some do not have. I feel lucky that I am in the position that I could freely make this choice and that I was not forced to choose out of necessity.

I know there are some that would say I am foolish for these choices, that I have just gotten lucky and they could be right. I may end up never being able to retire or living in the woods in a shack but I believe that we get one shot at this life and we should make the best of each day that we are given.