Responsibilities

TriGreyhound posted something today that got me thinking. He spoke of enjoying the fact that he has the station in life of a 42 year old, with the advanced state of his work and income. But he rued having missed out on starting triathlons in his twenties and thirties.

I am frequently reminded of how lucky Amy and I are here in Vancouver. We have the most incredible group of friends that I can imagine who we train with many times a week. We have a spectacular climate that allows us to train almost 365 days of the year if we want. We are in a financial situation where we do not go wanting for any of our true needs nor for many of our simple desires. Yet for the last several weeks I've been waking up every day thinking about friends Nic and Wolf. The two of them are the same age as us. I met Wolf while we were getting engineering degrees together, though we then diversified our educations with me getting a masters degree in business while he got one in education. The biggest difference between us is that when we both started triathlons nearly ten years ago, he was actually fast! While Amy and I head in to the office every day from 9 to 5 (or more often 8 to 5:30 or later), Nic and Wolf now race as professionals Ironman triathletes. They also do a lot of coaching and balance off the remainder of their expenses by picking up whatever work they can find, be it giving speeches, organizing training camps, substitute teaching, or anything else that fits in the schedule.

What I'm curious about is the "grass is greener" phenomenon at work here. I know there are have been times when we've had Nic and Wolf visiting and Wolf has wished for some of the stability and some of the frivolous stuff that Amy and I have (like the ridiculous coffee maker that is going to make him want to settle permanently in our kitchen next time they come). On the flip side, there are a lot of days when I really wish that we could make training and coaching what we do, rather than something we just manage to squeeze in after all the other responsibilities. And that all brings me back to Greyhound. While Wolf and I look at each other approaching 30 thinking that the other really has it good, we both desire some of what Greyhound has got to make it all perfect. Obviously, there's no realistic way to have it all. I just keep dreaming that one of these days I'm going to come up with the solution to brings in all of the cash we need to support this lifestyle without all the responsibilities that get in the way!