Tim
I can still remember what my life was like back in 2014. I worked 60+ hours every week at a job that wasn’t fulfilling to me. I would leave home before the sun came up, and some days, I didn’t get back home until after dark. My nights and weekends were empty and mainly consisted of worrying about work and drinking to try to break up the monotony in my life. All week at work, I looked forward to the weekend, and then when the weekend came I was so bored that I couldn’t wait to go back to work on Monday. I basically had nothing real going on in my life.
All this started to change when I discovered minimalism and simple living and started to declutter my life of all non-essentials. This allowed me to get a new outlook on life, and I realized that instead of working at a job that paid well but didn’t fulfill me, I wanted meaningful employment that would allow me to achieve some of my dreams, dreams that for so long I had been ignoring because I thought that they just weren’t possible.
One of these dreams was traveling. I am a firm believer that we as humans were not meant to live in the same place for our whole lives. I believe it is in our very makeup to be nomads. Think of the most enlightened people you know. I guarantee that they have done some traveling in the past or are traveling now. So I always wanted to travel, but I was always working and didn’t think I could ever balance the two.
Discovering seasonal work was a huge game changer in my life. I somehow came across a video on Youtube where this guy was talking about getting hired to work at a National Park. This intrigued me because I had always wanted to visit a national park but thought it was too expensive. I realized that if I worked there it wouldn’t cost me any money, especially with the housing being provided. A light bulb went on in my head. When he mentioned that the application process wasn’t that hard, I decided to give it a go.
Fast forward a few months later, and I was employed in Yellowstone National Park, working at the iconic Old Faithful Inn! I could literally look out the window at work and see Old Faithful erupt. Here was a national landmark that I had been hearing about all my life and now I was experiencing it on a daily basis. That, combined with all the other beauty of Yellowstone, changed me as a person. It made me want to see more. I never wanted to go back to that boring, 9 to 5 (in reality, more like 6 to 6) existence. I was no longer content to be just another face in the crowd in an overcrowded city. I wanted to travel more and see more of the beauty nature had to offer.
Fast forward a few more years and I am still doing seasonal work, and I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. Thanks to Coolworks, I am able to find jobs in some of the most awesome places in the U.S. For example, last year I got to spend the summer in Alaska which was a dream come true and an experience that I will never forget. I’m currently based in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. I feel blessed every day to be able to do work that I enjoy in locations that take my breath away. I feel alive on a daily basis and in touch with my path in life.
If anyone who reads this is contemplating quitting the rat race to take up seasonal work I say: “GO FOR IT”. The rewards are well worth the risk!