Living in Transitions

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I don’t want to make this a rant post, but there is something that has been on my mind the last few months that I can’t shake. It feels as if we are in a transition period in our country when it comes to the way that people look at work and how it gets done. What makes it difficult for me is something that seems to be present in my life all the time. We’re pushing into this brave new world of remote work where people can work from their home office, but not enough that employers are fully embracing the idea to make it workable for people like me.

For a long time now I’ve wanted to cast off the traditional life of dwelling in a house or apartment to roam the country in my travel trailer. The issue I’ve had is that it is very difficult to find a job that fits this kind of lifestyle. I already live in my trailer, but it’s parked in a permanent lot waiting for me to figure out how to set up an income stream that follows me wherever I go. All I need logistically to get where I want to be is to find an appropriate truck to tow my trailer, as well as some final equipment to make me self sufficient for things like electricity and internet on the road. I’m so close I can taste it, but the one huge and immovable barrier seems to be finding a job or other income stream that I can do from the road that pays enough to sustain me.

The part the frustrates me is that we are now living in a world where business appears to be shifting to the kind of remote work I want to do, but I just don’t seem to have the job skills that these kinds of businesses want. Even though my skillset is primarily focused on computer work, my career thus far has been shoehorned into the construction industry, which is full of very traditional employers who want people to be there in person ready to take up any random task they need to get done. This is not conducive to remote work and I have yet to meet a project manager who approves of employees working full time from their home office. They want you there and available.

The natural solution to this would be to switch career fields, but unfortunately I just don’t have the ability to take a huge pay cut to start over in another field. It is rare to find an employer who will hire someone to a mid-career position simply because they were successful in another field. They want a plug and play solution; someone who can simply step into the role with little to no training and start making them money.

I can certainly understand this attitude, but it is disheartening from this side of the fence. Being unable to shift gears railroads you into being stuck in a lifestyle you don’t really want. This is amplified by the current gig economy that we now live in that forces us to be stuck with the same type of job over and over, but still having to live with the uncertainty that comes with constantly moving from job to job. It’s all of the downsides with almost none of the good.

This isn’t to say that I’m not grateful for what I have. I could never complain that I don’t have enough or that I’m being treated unfairly. The job I have pays me well to do what I was hired to do, and that’s a reasonable arrangement. Still, the part of me that wants something more out of my life yearns to find a new opportunity that will allow me to use my skillset to find a way to make income on the road so I can find the freedom to escape the rut I find myself in. Like many things in life, it’s like a huge black wall that I can’t see past and I don’t know how to punch through it or get around it.

So here we stand, in the middle of another revolution in the business world, not quite out of the old way but not fully into the new. It’s very difficult to watch the world moving so very slowly into the kind of job market I would prefer to be in, but I understand that you can’t just force everything to move the way you want it to. Change has to happen slowly over time to get the best result. Adjustments are made gradually to ensure that we aren’t shocking things out of balance. Too many of us forget this and try to force things to happen much faster than they should.

This doesn’t change the fact that I’m yearning for an opportunity to jump into the new way of doing things. Finding a method of income that allows me to not be tethered to a specific location is one of the biggest goals I have in my life right now, and if I can figure it out I think a lot of things in my life will finally change. Sometimes you just need to press the reset button to get past some of the things that have been holding you back. So I’ll do my best to patiently wait for the opportunity to move forward with the life I’ve been hoping for.

What do you think about living in transitions? How did you handle it when it happened to you? Are you in the middle of one right now? Our life is full of transitions, and learning to handle them well can mean the difference between moving closer to our dreams and being pushed further away from them. Still, sometimes venting your frustrations can reset your perspective and help you to refocus on your goals. Don’t be afraid to embrace your issues and use them to put yourself back on the path to success.

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