“What are you doing now?”…

Current location: Stockholm, Sweden

...Is a question I have been receiving frequently lately. This question can be answered differently depending on how you choose to interpret it. Most who ask it refer to my immediate living and working arrangements. That is what most mean by “doing”– where do you live and how do you get your money to keep yourself alive. Sometimes extracurricular activities can be included in the answer, but offering them is optional and an addition to the answer that is sought. I don’t regard having a roof over my head and getting food on the table the purpose of my life and the things that I do to ensure these comforts is not what I’m “doing” with my life. But nevertheless, it is a valid question and I will answer it. I am working as an English teacher at a high school, to get my money for food, and I am temporarily living with my folks another month until the weather allows me to move into my boat. In April I start working as a firefighter during the summer, and after that, well, I have no idea of what I’ll be “doing”.

If you look at the question from the other perspective, the one I see it from, I am “doing” exactly the same thing I have always been doing. I am working to accomplish my dreams and setting up a living situation that generates happiness rather than security. I am still working toward being able to sail around the world, and I’m figuring out how to set it up so that I can do it with the comforts that I want and need. It is a difficult thing, separating what you need and what you think you want, and it takes time. “What does having a master of science in environmental toxicology, a past in sailing and scuba education, high school teaching, and fire fighting in common?” they ask me. To me it’s crystal clear. I do things that challenge and inspire me. It’s as simple as that.