Change your Routine, Do Something Else
A prolonged period of going back to the same job and doing very similar work day after day can mean that your career, ambitions and life become stuck in a deep groove. If promotion and career development are a long time coming, every worker runs the risk of being wholly defined and limited by their entrapment in routine. Think of all those actors who, after years in the same starring part, realise that they're stuck in a rut, prime candidates for typecasting. The choice to quit a career-defining role has often led to career oblivion and game show appearances, yet release from an eternity of humdrum challenges and carbon-copy days remains enticing.
For the rest of us, the choice is somewhat less stark. You want out of your routine? Away you go.
The French Foreign Legion
When I discovered that the French Foreign Legion is still accepting applications, I was shocked. You'd think that there'd be no room for a colonial army in the enlightened European Community, but the French military still has room for mercenaries. All you need to do to break from the routine is make your own way to the nearest French enlistment office. After an initial check-up, you will be transferred to the Legion's headquarters near Marseille for your initial training.
If you decide to sign up, do so in the knowledge that you'll be gone for five years. Joining the Legion is not a free ticket to a holiday in the south of France. Apparently, speaking French is not necessary, as you WILL pick it up in the course of your contract. The good news is that they'll take anyone between 17 and 40 years old, if they can pass the preliminary medical. Once you've signed the contract, there is an unconditional obligation to serve wherever the French Foreign Legion requires. C'est la guerre.
Here are some more things to consider: "The legionnaire is seldom an angel but never a criminal" and "generally, he has joined because of a personal or family crisis or an upheaval in his social or political life." He may join "under an assumed name if he wishes" as "the legionnaire enjoys an unequalled protection for as long as he serves, because of the anonymity rule. Only he can decide when to break it." You must, above all, "refuse to be mediocre" and become someone who "disdains idleness and routine".
A break from the routine should include risk and the possibility of adventure. If you want to place risk and adventure at the centre of your new career, the discipline and self-sacrifice of the Legion is for you.
http://www.ambafrance-us.org/america/embassy/legion/enlist.htm#proCrofting
Pissing rain and stone walls. Windblown wool tufts snagged in barbed wire. Sheep dip, gales and scrapie. Rotting tractors, septic tanks. Crofting - still appeal, does it?
Heather scented mists and hills softened by moss. Air so crisp and clean it flosses your lungs. Honest toil and fruitful labour. A crackling wood fire and homemade bread. Maybe you can make room in your busy schedule for this, after all?
There are currently around 17,000 registered crofts in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. What they all have in common, other than the rearing of sheep and cattle, is that they are located in the most difficult terrain and lashed by some of the worst weather conditions in the British Isles. Routine is regularly disrupted by high winds, blizzards and occasional isolation from the nearest towns. Few crofters can expect to make a proper living under these conditions, so routine is disrupted yet again by the need to supplement one's income with whatever work is available.
Read more about the diversity and physical challenge of crofting:
http://www.scu.co.uk/pubs/edgeland.htmlExploit your family's secret recipe
Here's my fallback in the event of global economic meltdown. I will set up a food stall. There will be one item on the menu and it will be Spagheggi & Bacon. Here's the recipe for one person - scale up as necessary:
Spagheggi & Bacon
100g of spaghetti per person
2-3 rashers of bacon, chopped, then fried or grilled
1-2 eggs
Black pepper
Dried chilli
Soy sauce
Tomato ketchup
Boil the spaghetti for 10 minutes while cooking the bacon within an inch of its life. Once cooked, drain the spaghetti and put it somewhere away from draughts. Right, you know those eggs? Mix and them with a good hit of black pepper, a dash of soy sauce and maybe, just maybe a dab of milk. Done? Pour a little oil into a large pan, followed by bacon and drained spaghetti. Add a little dried chilli if you wish and go to work on it with a wooden spoon. Is it hot yet? Don't go testing the temperature with a thermometer - it might break and there's no room for mercury in this recipe.
If it is indeed hot, pour the egg mixture hither and thither on the steaming, gritty tangle of bacon and spaghetti you see before you. Continue to stir. I find that it helps if you swear and shout at this stage. When the egg has cooked, it's ready to serve, but do not eat it, not yet. First you must drown it in tomato ketchup, tempered with a little more black pepper. Mix the whole sorry mess together. It tastes like nothing you've ever had before - a new gustatory experience that has a place in your palate alongside steak and chips and the English breakfast.
Healthy version: use wholewheat spaghetti
Vegetarian version: no bacon
Vegan version: no egg, no bacon
And the point of all this? If you have managed to find yourself in a seemingly bottomless career rut, it will take drastic action to clamber out. You may have to take your skills and knowledge and apply them to a completely different means of making a living. When it really hits the fan and you find yourself holding one of those 'GOLF SALE THIS WAY >>' signs on the high street, it's time to think back to the favourite thing your mum served up for you at dinner time: is there a secret family recipe that would appeal to hoi polloi and connoisseur alike? There usually is, so break the routine by introducing the world to the jewel in your family's pantry and do so on an industrial scale. Make sure that this plan includes washing your hands, or you'll have the food standards people 'all up your ass'.
Hibernate
Sniff the air. Oh Jesus, can you smell that? The baleful stench of rotting leaves, squashed chips and spilt Guinness - that's autumn. God's hand is poised over the dimmer switch, ready to cast our northern hemisphere into twilight and darkness, with no respite until next spring. Die now and never see the sun again. It is the lot of northern European humanity to toil through the year's long night. Some species, the frogs, toads, wasps, tortoises and hedgehogs can see what's coming and make other arrangements. If we were to scrutinise their tiny diaries, we would learn that the hibernating animals have cancelled all appointments until the sun begins to rise in the sky once more.
Think of all those millions that have been wasted propping up doomed dotcoms and financing ill-conceived Javaleptic squinterfaces for online shopping malls. Then think of the hundreds of thousands of lay offs over the last year. Now what if the aforementioned millions had been spent on putting these surplus employees on ice until the present economic difficulties corrected themselves? Voluntary hibernation would be an attractive option to many people. Willing hibernators and hibernatrixes could even be offered wake-up calls at times of national festivity such as thanksgiving and Christmas.
But, of course, a hibernation career break would not be good for consumption, and consumption is the very core of our economic and political situation. Things have changed so much in the last week that it's hard to judge where society is going to go next. With so much technology and capital in circulation, there's a nagging feeling that we could have had the planets and the stars but have had to settle for planning meetings and starter homes instead, if we're lucky.
These, my friends, are just some humble suggestions if you're sick and bloody tired of the same old same old day in and day out.