It’s become my mantra for my time in Portland.  My to-do list surges and recedes, and my social calendar makes the BNSF yard across the street seem quiet.  Great problems to have, no doubt, but I don’t think I ever expected unemployment to be so damn busy.

There’s a selfishness that pervades my activity.  I’ve long since made peace with the idea that my travels are a way of investing in my experience (so that I will have more to give to the world later).  That said, the intermittency of my time in Portland has seen me neglect friends and miss out on cool opportunities.  The past few days, the reality of this has been heavy on my mind, but I didn’t set out on this path to lament about opportunities missed in Portland.

It’s a good sign, my actions are a validation of my decisions.  I didn’t quit my job to be a bum, I quit my job to chase dreams that I couldn’t while dedicating myself to a desk for 50 hours a week.  The fact that I am so busy means I’m not wasting my time watching TV or playing video games.  I like being on the road, and the majority of my activity is focused on allowing me to continue to being on the road.  In some ways I’ve had more time in Portland than I expected, and in some ways less.  The time here is valuable for planning and preparing.  While the point of being unemployed has been to allow myself to be spontaneous, even the spontaneous decisions require work and effort to enable.  There is nothing I’d rather be doing.