Going stir crazy grounded in the MidWest in cublicle-land

[Squatch]

I've been wondering when you'd check in with this. A little perspective. I grew up not far from where you did. I've been stuck in the wretched east for years. I made a trip to Missouri and Arkansas in June. The open space did my soul a lot of good!

http://www.wanderthewest.com/forum/topic/14747-5-more-nights-in-the-camper/

While I was out there I stayed here. pretty quiet while we were there.
http://www.southforkresort.com/


While I was there I was running some canoe shuttles after I hurt my foot. Just down the road from the resort I found this huge and I mean miles of a development that sorta never happened. Huge retirement place called Cherokee Village. If you look it up on the web it's the greatest thing since sliced bread in the places that got developed. But where I was there was just miles of degraded roads going to nowhere. I had a Gazettier and some roads were in there or on my GPS some were not. Just a crazy place of a whole lot of nothing in the woods. I saw a million places where one could just park the camper and chill in the woods at the site of a driveway that never got built. It's a place I'd love to go back and explore. Maybe someone out that way could clue you in a little better.

in general I loved driving through the Ozarks. Lots of cool places there.

 

[OpenSpace]

Hoyden,

Start looking for remote work now, set yourself up with the tools you'll need to carry such work out, reduce debt/bills to the greatest extent possible, and before you know it you'll be casting off once again!

Alternatively, sell the truck and camper, buy a good older van and build it out yourself, get out of all debt, build emergency fund and cash for road, and take off. With no debt the world's your oyster. Of course, it's a pretty nomadic lifestyle.

 

[hoyden]

Thanks, y'all! I should start getting set up with tools....

As for debt... I really only have the truck payments and some school loans. I hate owing, so don't normally have any credit cards. I got one when I went on the road as a "just in case I lose my wallet". So that's good. This paying rent thing is for the birds though.

OpenSpace - that's a big part of why I'm considering selling the rig. I bought the truck - with payments - specifically at the time to keep myself in one location for a period of time. I didn't anticipate getting such harassment at work that I'd become so unhappy there. I really liked the work I was doing, but the environment got really toxic (not just for me, and apparently it got even worse after I left. Long corporate take-over story)

ski3pin :
"How do we make ends meet and still live a life that gives us meaning and freedom?"
<rant>
I wrestle with that question daily. Hourly. It's a constant for me. I'm have a very difficult time working this corporate jobby job where I feel I'm not contributing anything good to the world.

And volunteering and helping out after work isn't enough for me. I spent time at the food bank a couplea weeks ago, do volunteering through work when that shows up, but it's not enough for me. I'm not a person who can spend my life volunteering, but I find that I need my work to at least be contributing.

I worked IT for a college and that was good because I was helping the college function so that people could learn and grow. I worked IT at a hospital and as much as I hated the 24/7 aspect, it was rewarding because I got to make sure computers in the NIC-U and surgery and Emergency Department worked properly. I set up the new Infusion Center. That's helping people, albeit somewhat indirectly.
But helping a department store with their purchasing or managing their project to install new servers before the Thanksgiving rush?
Meh.

I am merely a replaceable piece of machinery for a corporate giant.
One of my coworkers just came back from a huge project. They were working 16 hour days, 7 days a week. He got no overtime pay cuz salary. And while he was obviously not pleased, he was putting on the happy face and saying all the right things about "learning experience" and "will look good on my resume" for climbing the internal ladder.

Hearing that made me sad. I know that a lot of people think this is what you have to do in this world, but all I hear is "corporation taking advantage of workers, and workers feeling they have to suck it up cuz that's the way it is."

I'm a depressed and fatigued idealist, which is a bad combination, and I get bogged down in over-thinking and overanalyzing and apparently over-sharing
</rant>