pdxcyclist

The responses to the original post have been great-- a real variety of opinions and observations.

In my mind, this isn't an issue of money or possessions. Sprinkler systems can be a great thing, for example. Its a matter of "life out of balance" in relation to time, effort, comfort, identity and nature.

I liked RandyMcQ's response, because he defines a quintessential American ethic about pride in ownership and creation of new things. I've lived with that ethic all my life, and I've done more than my share of rebuilding cars and bikes and houses, etc. It is a good feeling.

My brothers and sisters religiously follow the same ethic. For any of them to suggest that I have a sprinkler system "installed" would be heinous. Really, they're suggesting I should install it, as have they, and realistically it would be a 2-3 weekend project. And, as Rykoala noted, there is peer pressure to conform on both the ethic and the posession/pride scale (i.e., they don't do things like riding bikes, but doing so could be bad or selfish if it interfers with something important like installing a sprinkler system).

And there's the rub-- I would achieve this sprinkler system, and show pride of ownership of my house, etc., but in doing so I would lose out on 2-3 weekends of cycling in the peak Oregon cycling season. Everything has a cost-- a choice to do something is a choice not to do something else.

So, I've been down this road before. For seven years I stopped cycling almost entirely because my wife and I had two kids. The only way to get back to cycling (just last Fall) was to what DnvrFox did: take the economic hit of my wife not working full time. It was overdue-- having two kids and both of us working full time was too stressful. The changes we made to move to one income were challenging, but the ROI (return on investment) of having her off for a year were enormous for the kids and us. This year, she'll be working 18 hours a week in a position she likes much more than what she had, and our lifestyle changes should remain intact.

As I roll along as a cyclist again, I'm protective of the time I put into it. Seven years was a long enough break, and using cycling to drop 40 lbs last winter wasn't a bad thing either. Overall, it's made me more critical of what we do for more income and possessions, as opposed to what we do for ourselves and as a family to enjoy our lives. We were partially inspired to do this by a book called The Shelter of Each Other by Mary Pipher.

As noted in Pipher's book, modern families can suffer under the onslaught of 24/7 connectivity and work obligations. As Buzzbomb noted, Americans can see their jobs as defining their identity, even if the jobs pretty much drain their lives and harm their families. As a friend in DC noted, we "spend" our lives through the choices we make, and nearly all of us have more choices than we realize. The film "American Beauty" dealt with some of these issues.

In terms of "comfort addiction," it seems like an individual’s connection to nature becomes their connection to individual comforts. When you exhaust yourself hiking in the woods, for example, it's not just just seeing the trees that is your connection to nature. It's really your connection to your own body. Cycling is the same way-- a lot of cycling will not only improve your health, but make you more in-tune with the needs of your physical self (food is fuel, for example).

So, people who devote themselves to work and then "wind down" for hours at home in front of the computer or tv at night (as Nolageek noted) do have a connection with nature, but it's an unhealthy one. Their bodies like the comforts, but everything becomes increasingly abstract and uninformative. Adding pounds doesn't hurt, for example, until they contribute to a related system failure.

Anyway, "life in balance" to me means being much more critical about work, possessions, investments of time, and attention to one's self. Maybe in a year I'll decide I'm over-doing it, but for now it seems like everything is recalibrating well. I have lots of projects waiting for me at home and in the garage, but when I critically compare the ROI between doing them and doing a strong club ride on the weekend, guess which one wins.


p.s., the ad-bot ads for the sprinkler systems also crack me up. It's not just family pressure to go out and buy and install all this stuff, and all the other things we're supposed to buy and use.