Be More Jack

I never met Jack, but from what I hear, she was extraordinary. She was barely four and half feet tall and fearless. She had quit her job at a bank in Billings, Montana about a year ago. She was traveling alone around the world, working here and there, exploring remote places and generally being awesome.

Everywhere she went, she inspired fellow travelers to break out of their comfort zones and really explore the wild edges of the map. So when a few of her travel buddies came up with the phrase Be More Jack to describe awesome activities, it fit very well.

I heard the phrase Be More Jack as I was telling someone to quit their job.

I tell a lot of people that they should quit their job.

And that is because I have to listen to so many people tell me that they hate their job.

“I just want to quit my job and travel.” They moan as they contemplate returning home.

Nothing seems to ruin the second half of a two-week vacation faster than the dread accompanied with returning to the normal schedule.

And so I politely tell them what they want to hear.

“Well then just quit.” I say.

To which they laugh at the thought, take a drink and move on with the conversation.

It’s easy for me to suggest it to them, because that is exactly what I did last spring.

Looking back, I am surprised it took me so long to make the decision, but at the time, I was floundering. I had been in a funk for a several months. I’d overworked myself, burned out on the social scene and was increasingly scared that I was committing myself to a career that would burn through my twenties before I could say “I remember back when...”

Everybody I talked to over the age of 30 kept telling me that they missed “the good ol’ days” and that that wished they had “taken more time when they were younger.”

“Get out and see the world!” They said, “while you still have some pop in your step!”

At the same time, I had a bunch of peers and friends who were working hard on the job hunt, determined to find employment that would set them on the track to comfort in their older years. I was simultaneously furious and jealous of them at the same time because everyone was immersed in the future and the past but no one seemed to care about right now. And it was driving me mad.

But then, one day, I had an epiphany. I remember it clearly, because I don’t have a lot of epiphanies. I realized that I couldn’t have both lifestyles. I couldn’t enjoy my youth and set myself up for the future. So I had a choice to make.

After about a minute of pondering, I decided to listen to what the old folks said simply because they had the benefit of hindsight.

So I shut down my small woodworking business. I evicted all of my roommates and best friends in a friendly yet abrupt manner, sublet our house, filled about fifteen dumpsters with the junk of my former life, and bought a one-way plane ticket to the Southern Hemisphere. I was that cliché character that dumped everything and ran away.

It has been the second best decision of my life (second only to the decision to teach myself guitar when I was twelve).

Everywhere I go, I cross paths with people who bemoan their situation and dream of another way to get through the day.

When I heard the slogan “Be More Jack,” I latched onto it right away because it seemed to describe exactly the lifestyle that I pursue.

“That’s gonna be my new slogan!” I shouted and pounded the table.

I was sitting at a bar in Wanaka with two English friends. Henley was an old travel buddy who lived the vagabonding lifestyle like me. Jesse was Henley’s longtime friend from the UK who had taken a couple weeks off from her health insurance management job to get a taste of the southern hemisphere.

The two girls had been on a whirlwind New Zealand adventure, trying to pack as much into Jesse’s visit as they could before she flew home and returned to work. Along the way, they had crossed paths with the mysterious Jack, who had made a lasting impression on them.

Now they were commiserating about Jesse’s return to London tomorrow afternoon, but I didn’t want to hear it.

“Be more Jack!” I hollered. “Just quit and stay here!”

“Yeah, I wish I could but…” Jesse said.

But just like everyone else, she couldn’t finish the sentence. She just had never considered the alternative.

The conversation moved on to other topics and the night passed too fast.

I said goodbye to Henley and Jesse and headed off to the mountains. By the time I returned, Jesse would be long gone to London, and her New Zealand trip would memorialized in Facebook and Instagram.

Fast forward two days.

I popped online at the Arrowtown library to check my messages and tell Mom that I was still alive. The top message in my inbox from from Jesse.

It read, “#BeMoreJack! I quit my job and am staying in New Zealand!”

I read it again.

Wait, what?

She had sent in her resignation from the airport, then cancelled her flight and applied for a work visa so that she could stay.

My first thought was “Awesome! Someone actually listened to me!”

My second thought was “Oh Shit, I just wrecked somebody’s life!”

She had just given up a salaried job and a London flat for an uncertain country on the other side of the world. It sounded so vivacious and romantic and totally unprecedented. She would be walking on the wild side, living in the present, born to be wild!

But at the same time, it was terrifying, and I felt responsible.

It is one thing to make my own choice to quit my job and tackle the unknown world. But when someone else did it because of what I had said, it made me feel guilty.

When I am swapping stories over beers and having a good time, quitting a job to travel sounds like a great idea. All we ever discuss is the upsides, like “never having to wake up to an alarm” or “every day is a Saturday” or “yeah, I’ll have a beer, I have nowhere that I have to be!”

But what we never discuss in the bars is the downsides of being a vagabond. I have come to accept them as the price I pay for my freedom, but they are only lessons that can be learned alone.

Such as

 “I am out of money, I have nowhere to stay, nothing to eat, and it is raining,”

“I just want to sit back and watch a movie, except I don’t have a couch, a TV, or a living room to sit in.”

“I could really go for a hot shower, but there are no showers out here in the mountains.”

Or the worst one,

“I want to go home!”

That one is the worst. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it hurts the most.

And Jesse was about to find all of that out the hard way.

But she was also about to find out just how amazing it is when you are brave enough to let go of your lifeline and go exploring.

She was armed with the phrase “Be More Jack,” so I was pretty sure that she would be okay. She had other vagabonds like me and Henley to help her survive. And I would be more careful in the future whenever I was suggesting that people quit their jobs to travel.

Note*

Jesse survived. She enjoyed several months in New Zealand before heading back to England to see her family and take care of the stuff that she abandoned when she decided that sometimes, quitting your job is the best thing that you can do. She is plotting her return to New Zealand.