BND

I published this post elsewhere but thought it interesting enough to republish it here. It is a further introduction to who we are as people and the specific challenges we will face. Challenges that most others would not.

So here it is, Buy Nothing Day, and I'm sitting in a mall.

A mall filled to the gills with shoppers straining under the weight of their purchases.

Loaded down (looking eerily like pack mules) looking to make their next purchase.

Looking to "save" more money!

It is Black Friday.

It is the busiest shopping day on the American consumer's calender. Credit cards are melting from the non-stop swiping. Consumer debt will continue to grow today as shoppers will find those things they must have.

They can't live without.

Their homes are already full but they will find more room for more stuff.

I just spent $3.

On Buy Nothing Day.

I'm mad.

But I showed up to work at the same time as another optometrist. He wasn't supposed to be there today but everybody forgot to tell him. So being the patsy I am I volunteered to come back in a few hours and we would split the day.

So I bought a cookie.

And a drink.

I had no where else to go.

And I sit in a mall on Buy Nothing Day and ponder all of the things I've purchased in my life.

All of the things I don't need.

Like this computer.

Although I use it I'm sure Swell and I don't each need one. Yet we both have computers and all of the associated computer paraphernalia that I needed.

Ipod? Check.
PSP? Check.
External hard drives? Check.

I shaved yesterday.

If you see pictures of me throughout my adulthood you'll see stark changes in my appearance.

The less I'm enjoying "life" the more homeless I let myself look. (I'll forgo telling the story of one of the proudest moments in my life. Most of you have heard the story of the concerned couple asking my sister if she knew me, and if she thought I needed a warm meal and a place to stay. Awesome!)

Its my pseudo-rebellion against the man. I may have to participate in Western society but I won't look the part.

After a few weeks of this I invariably realize how stupid I am and clean myself up a little (although I refuse to cut my hair more than twice a year. I HATE getting my hair cut).

Swell and I have both been unhappy with where we are. Money hates us.

More accurately knowing what to do with money is difficult for us.

Do we pay loans back more quickly?
Do we give more away?
Do we give money to distant poverty stricken relatives or spend money to send them stuff?
How much do we set aside to pay our taxes?
Are we going to go to jail because our tax situation is going to be a nightmare this year (thanks in no small part to our employers purposeful misuse of us as independent contractors)?

Furthermore, we have no strong desire to be optometrists. We have no passion for optometry, although we enjoy it. It isn't our lives. It doesn't give us a great deal of purpose in life although it is quickly consuming our entire lives.

Between Swell's hideous commute and our longish work days we've become the fabulous wake up-go to work-come home-eat-sleep duo.

No friends (me=Thank God, Swell=boo hoo).
No hobbies.
No family nearby.
No direction.

I think that's why this Nome opportunity is attractive to us (edit to add: there is a part-time OD position in Nome that we have expressed interest in. Two weeks there six weeks away.Position is temporary.) Its something different. It will break us out of our doldrum.

But it does nothing to further our lives.

It doesn't help us move forward.

We've done a lot of lateral movements in the five years we've been married. Hopping from thing to thing without any long term direction.

We're trying to gain that long-term direction by opening/buying our own practice but in our selfishness (that's not really the right word...) we don't want owning a practice to cramp our other opportunities. Its a catch 22. We can't continue to live here and work for others but we can't move anywhere else and work for others as we'll go broke.

So we'll devote our lives to owning a small business and this will make the pursuit of money (not necessarily in a bad way) become a central theme of our lives. We, after all, will have bills to pay, payroll to meet, etc.

This raises a whole bunch of other questions that is difficult for us to grapple with.

Do we open on Buy Nothing Day?
Will there be a market for an optometry practice dedicated to helping eradicate poverty, injustice, and inequity? (We plan on setting aside a certain percentage of income/profit? to give to yet to be determined NGOs. We will advertise (internally) this fact.)
Is it possible to find fair trade spectacle frames? Lenses?
Will we be able to pursue other interests outside of a small business without killing ourselves or the practice?

These and other questions weigh on our hearts and minds as we scrounge to survive a life we dislike. While we continue to work for money rather than enjoyment. While we continue to live lonely lives.

So in rebellion I became homely homeless looking.

What did that accomplish? Nothing. But it felt good to rebel.

We will continue our rebellion in our Christmas gift purchases.

We will continue our rebellion by refusing to participate in the busiest shopping day of the year (aside from my cookie and drink... I suck).

We will continue our rebellion by being small business owners who own a business that treats employees fairly and desires to leave lasting change in the world.

We will continue our rebellion by trying to forgo the trappings of wealth.

We will continue our rebellion by...?

Location, Location, Location

Things are moving very slowly.

We spoke with our main consultant, the one who will know our situation inside and out and will be our main source of information.

She wants us to start narrowing our desired location down.

That is a tough thing to do.

We only have a vague area of the world in mind, yet she wants us to start looking at communities.

I'd be happy if we decided on a city.

We want to relocate from the SE USA to the Pacific Northwest.

Why?

Simple reasons.

That part of the country is closer to family. A lot closer.

This is important to us. Probably the most important reason to relocate. We want to be able to visit family, have family visit us without it being an ordeal. Just hop in a car or on a plane and be there quickly.

That part of the country suits us more. We love the outdoors and will spend weekends hiking/camping. The people in the NW are more our style - more laid back. We encountered a lot less attitude when we were living over there. Here. Everyone is important and is aghast when you don't bow to their importance. There. Everyone is more of a regular Joe.

The Pacific Northwest is a large area.

We need to narrow it down.

The first thing that narrows our search down is that there are two of us. Two optometrists. It will be very difficult to find a rural community that can support two brand new optometrists so we're limiting our search to more metropolitan areas.

Also I'm looking for opportunities outside of optometry that are more available in metropolitan areas. So we're basically looking in the greater Portland area as well as the greater Seattle area.

Why not Spokane? Ummm... yeah. We're not big fans of Spokane. My micro bus broke down outside of Spokane forcing my brother and I to wander around Spokane looking for something to do. We ended up at the library.

The library.

We were then stopped at the Canadian border and searched.

Searched.

Even though amongst them many stickers on my bus I had a drug free sticker.

Swell and I interviewed for a job in Seattle shortly after graduation as well. One of our first experiences with an optometric interview.

Most interviews in the world of optometry center around the hiring optometrist bragging about how successful they are. Rarely they will ask you a question. Even more rarely is the question about your skills or interests.

Our interviewer in Spokane was quite conservative and very outspoken about his political aspirations. We, on the other hand, are politically liberal (but socially conservative - another dichotomy) and not into seeing 8 patients an hour so we passed on that opportunity. Or more accurately he passed on us.

Thank God.

So that leaves Seattle and Portland.

When I say Seattle I mean the Greater Puget Sound area and all the way south to Tacoma

And when I say Portland I mean the Greater Portland area including Vancouver, WA, Beaverton, Gresham etc.

Why these two cities?

Federal Way (Greater Puget Sound area) is home to World Vision and I wouldn't mind working for them. There shouldn't be much trouble finding enough work in the area to support two optometrists and we just really like that part of the country. Although we have never lived further north than Vancouver, Washington (since we've been married. We've both technically lived further north than that but that is another story) we have spent a fair amount of time in the Seattle area and have always enjoyed our time there. We also have friends in that part of the world and as I've said before family is nearby.

Our consultant has basically nixed any hopes for Seattle-Seattle saying due to the cost of living that it is very difficult to make a go of it there. So if we want to do Seattle-Seattle it will be via a practice purchase. (If you're selling a practice in that part of the world message me. I'm interested.)

So we'll be looking South of Seattle.

We're open to just about anywhere in the Portland area and are certain we can support ourselves (i.e. pick up work outside our practice especially with Pacific University being so close). Medical Teams international is also in the Portland area and I could be happy working there.

So we're in the process of narrowing our search down. If you have a practice for sale in the general area we're looking let us know.

We're also in the process of contacting a couple of commercial realtors to get the feel of the areas from a business standpoint because we may love the area but if it can't support us there's really no point in going there.

So that's where we stand.

We're not very far into this at all but as everyday passes at our good for nothing jobs we're more and more anxious to pack up our lives and leave this town. And we're more and more excited about heading out on our own.

Short Update

I told you this would be update sporadically at best.

We spoke with the consultant again yesterday. We're just trying to figure out how to proceed. Although much of this is common sense we want to be on as solid of ground as we can when we open our doors. One of our cities of interest was shot down yesterday as being "very difficult". We'll keep looking for a practice for sale in that city but will probably avoid opening cold there.

While it is still our intention to purchase a practice we are going to start laying the groundwork for a cold open. That groundwork will begin by speaking with commercial realtors in a couple of cities that we are interested in going to.

We know people who know people so hopefully we can find some trustworthy people who will give us the low down on communities and leases.

In terms of a location we want to be as professional as possible. To us this means no malls. A professional strip mall would be acceptable. By professional we mean there should be at least a few other professionals in the building. Realtors, lawyers, insurance agents, etc.

The ideal situation for us would be a medical building but I don't see that as being a practical choice in the areas we are looking at.

A free standing building with good exposure would also be nice.

We'll see.

Every day here is more fuel to get this done. We just really aren't enjoying living in this part of the country.