Week 38 - ending 9/23: Land of Opportunity

This week I had no ideas or stories that came to mind. Instead I have been stuck in my head thinking about different things and feeling the burn out of years and years of working. As a result, the following rambling is all I have produced.

When I was almost 8 we moved to the United States. We didn't move because we came from a poor country with little opportunity or needed to escape. We moved because my mom fell in love with an American man. I remember moving to the United States, specifically California, and falling in love with the weather and having a swimming pool in our backyard.

I was educated in the United States from grade 3 through university. One thing I remember is that what I was taught in the United States grade 3, I had learned in grade 2 in Canada. When I look back on that now I find it funny that the land of opportunity doesn't educate it's own to a high standard... but I digress.

As I said above I have been feeling stuck and burnt out. Years of working in the corporate work is taking its toll. My current boss is from Australia. He was telling me about what the work/life balance is like there. After working for a few years at a company you take one month off each year. That is on top of regular vacation days and shorter trips. All in all he said you get about 2 or 3 months vacation per year. In the United States the average vacation and sick time combined is anywhere from 2 - 4 weeks. In fact I worked at a job where we got 5 days sick leave and 5 days vacation per year. But, the United States is the land of opportunity. The opportunity to work yourself to death.

Lately I have been rethinking about what I want to do with the rest of my life. I have decided working part time, with a salary I could live on, would be ideal. I am not sure how I will or can do it, but I am trying, I am exploring, I am researching. For if this is the land of opportunity, shouldn't I have the opportunity to work less?