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| The Reading Room |
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A Project-Based Life
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by Ann Pai
A manifesto is a reaction. This one is a reaction to how tired I am of watching time slide by. I'm tired. I'm
tired of and worried by a life that could be summed on an attendance chart. I'm tired of not doing the
things I think of doing because I am so occupied with being who I'm used to being.
I've had enough.
Life -- or the life that I know as a happy, joyful life -- is not about being. It's about doing. I don't know
about other people. All I know is that when I'm absorbed in a project, I forget time, I forget worry, I
forget myself. And the day seems to last longer. And I'm readier to laugh.
What do I mean by a project? A project is an act of creativity or organization or description. It could be
writing a poem. It could be launching a web site. It could be cooking a new recipe. It could be mowing
the lawn. It could be training to run a 10K. A project is not a passive activity. It is not centered on
consumption.
I dream of a project-based life, one where I wake up in the morning not with somewhere to be but with
something to accomplish. One where I move through my day from project to project, as many as
possible of my own imagination and design. One where I find ways to share my projects with others
and see their lives made happier or more satisfying or more thoughtful or readier to laugh because of
our work together.
To live that life all the time, or even a significant part of the time, my own projects have to make money.
And I want them to. I want to do projects that help support me and my family. I'm not willing to sacrifice
the security of health benefits. Retirement? If I could support myself with my own projects, I wouldn't be
able to tell the difference between that and retirement.
I suppose what I'm after here are ways to make my life as much like retirement as possible. Retirement
doesn't mean I stop working. It means I stop working for other people. Why do we think of retirement
as the time when we stop being productive workers? It's when we can choose the use of our time.
I dream of a project-based life. One where my activities are more than just ways to pass the time until I
die. One where no part of my identity, either as defined by me or as defined by others, prevents me
from participating in work that gives my life meaning -- or from working with anyone else, regardless of
their identity, if we can accomplish our work together.
Why do we define each other by our superficial differences -- color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation,
size? Because we are not working together to accomplish something. When you work together with
another person, you rely on that person's strengths and subordinate even critical differences to the
importance of your goal. And it becomes obvious how irrelevant are your surface characteristics.
I don't want to live a life of labels. I don't want to live a role-based life. Not even one of the more
affirming roles: writer, friend, co-worker, wife. I don't want to make decisions based on the outcomes
that will violate a role. It's too easy to talk myself into immobility, thinking that action will challenge my
or someone else's idea of who I am. It's too easy to spend my life protecting and defending my identity,
not in order to open opportunity, but instead fooling myself that the act of reinforcing my identity is itself
a meaningful pursuit.
I don't want to do things because of who I am. I want to do them because they are wonderful things to
do. I want a project-based life.
And I'm lucky. I have the luxury of choosing my dream. In my life today, moving to a project-based life is
mostly up to me. I have discretionary time. I have relative financial security. Even in my paid
employment, some of my work can be approached as a project (and I'm always happier at my job when
that's so). It isn't that way for most people.
You want to know why I won't say that a project-based life is the only happy way to live? It's because
of Edna Gillenwater.
When I was twenty-two, a college graduate who understood how poetry worked but not the
importance of marketable skills, I worked for three months on the sorting line at the Bush cannery in
Muskogee, Oklahoma. I stood on one side of a moving belt. Edna Gillenwater stood on the other. Raw
spinach, unloaded from trucks outside, passed between us on the belt. We sorted it to pick out rocks,
sticks, litter, dead grasshoppers, and the occasional dead mouse. We wore fingerless gloves and stood
on factory pallets so that the frigid water washing onto the floors didn't seep in through our ventilated
boots. In winter, we sorted frozen ropes of mustard. As it thawed under our hands, our eyes and noses
burned. We did this eight hours a day.
Edna Gillenwater had done this job for seventeen years. She had two daughters, and every day she
talked about how well they were doing in school.
I won't say my dream is the dream everyone should have. To do so disrespects the daily choices made
by good people. To do so disrespects the fact that millions of people live on this planet with no other
wage for a long day of body-breaking labor but the bare minimum of food needed for that day, then
cooking their food in water contaminated by human and animal wastes.
To ignore my own potential for living the most productive and useful life that I know how to also
disrespects those people. And I have not lived up to this. I have ignored my life. I have wasted time.
I'm sure I'll continue to do things that others consider wasted time. That doesn't bother me. But truly
wasted time does. I don't believe in self-flagellation for one's weaknesses. But I don't believe in
euphemisms for them, either, or in reassuring pats on the head.
I believe in a project-based life. I believe in it for myself as the way to stay most sane, most pleasant in
company, and most engaged with the world. And when I fail, as I likely will?
I won't say I've failed at life. I'll remember that a project-based life is a path, not a goal. And I'll
remember that my friends are not projects. The people I love, and who love me, are not projects. Love
is not a project. It's the reason to keep myself sane, pleasant, and engaged: so that I will be, with all
my heart, available to love.
A manifesto is a reaction. This one is a reaction to how tired I am of watching time slide by. I'm tired. I'm
tired of and worried by a life that could be summed on an attendance chart. I'm tired of not doing the
things I think of doing because I am so occupied with being who I'm used to being.
I've had enough.
Life -- or the life that I know as a happy, joyful life -- is not about being. It's about doing. I don't know
about other people. All I know is that when I'm absorbed in a project, I forget time, I forget worry, I
forget myself. And the day seems to last longer. And I'm readier to laugh.
What do I mean by a project? A project is an act of creativity or organization or description. It could be
writing a poem. It could be launching a web site. It could be cooking a new recipe. It could be mowing
the lawn. It could be training to run a 10K. A project is not a passive activity. It is not centered on
consumption.
I dream of a project-based life, one where I wake up in the morning not with somewhere to be but with
something to accomplish. One where I move through my day from project to project, as many as
possible of my own imagination and design. One where I find ways to share my projects with others
and see their lives made happier or more satisfying or more thoughtful or readier to laugh because of
our work together.
To live that life all the time, or even a significant part of the time, my own projects have to make money.
And I want them to. I want to do projects that help support me and my family. I'm not willing to sacrifice
the security of health benefits. Retirement? If I could support myself with my own projects, I wouldn't be
able to tell the difference between that and retirement.
I suppose what I'm after here are ways to make my life as much like retirement as possible. Retirement
doesn't mean I stop working. It means I stop working for other people. Why do we think of retirement
as the time when we stop being productive workers? It's when we can choose the use of our time.
I dream of a project-based life. One where my activities are more than just ways to pass the time until I
die. One where no part of my identity, either as defined by me or as defined by others, prevents me
from participating in work that gives my life meaning -- or from working with anyone else, regardless of
their identity, if we can accomplish our work together.
Why do we define each other by our superficial differences -- color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation,
size? Because we are not working together to accomplish something. When you work together with
another person, you rely on that person's strengths and subordinate even critical differences to the
importance of your goal. And it becomes obvious how irrelevant are your surface characteristics.
I don't want to live a life of labels. I don't want to live a role-based life. Not even one of the more
affirming roles: writer, friend, co-worker, wife. I don't want to make decisions based on the outcomes
that will violate a role. It's too easy to talk myself into immobility, thinking that action will challenge my
or someone else's idea of who I am. It's too easy to spend my life protecting and defending my identity,
not in order to open opportunity, but instead fooling myself that the act of reinforcing my identity is itself
a meaningful pursuit.
I don't want to do things because of who I am. I want to do them because they are wonderful things to
do. I want a project-based life.
And I'm lucky. I have the luxury of choosing my dream. In my life today, moving to a project-based life is
mostly up to me. I have discretionary time. I have relative financial security. Even in my paid
employment, some of my work can be approached as a project (and I'm always happier at my job when
that's so). It isn't that way for most people.
You want to know why I won't say that a project-based life is the only happy way to live? It's because
of Edna Gillenwater.
When I was twenty-two, a college graduate who understood how poetry worked but not the
importance of marketable skills, I worked for three months on the sorting line at the Bush cannery in
Muskogee, Oklahoma. I stood on one side of a moving belt. Edna Gillenwater stood on the other. Raw
spinach, unloaded from trucks outside, passed between us on the belt. We sorted it to pick out rocks,
sticks, litter, dead grasshoppers, and the occasional dead mouse. We wore fingerless gloves and stood
on factory pallets so that the frigid water washing onto the floors didn't seep in through our ventilated
boots. In winter, we sorted frozen ropes of mustard. As it thawed under our hands, our eyes and noses
burned. We did this eight hours a day.
Edna Gillenwater had done this job for seventeen years. She had two daughters, and every day she
talked about how well they were doing in school.
I won't say my dream is the dream everyone should have. To do so disrespects the daily choices made
by good people. To do so disrespects the fact that millions of people live on this planet with no other
wage for a long day of body-breaking labor but the bare minimum of food needed for that day, then
cooking their food in water contaminated by human and animal wastes.
To ignore my own potential for living the most productive and useful life that I know how to also
disrespects those people. And I have not lived up to this. I have ignored my life. I have wasted time.
I'm sure I'll continue to do things that others consider wasted time. That doesn't bother me. But truly
wasted time does. I don't believe in self-flagellation for one's weaknesses. But I don't believe in
euphemisms for them, either, or in reassuring pats on the head.
I believe in a project-based life. I believe in it for myself as the way to stay most sane, most pleasant in
company, and most engaged with the world. And when I fail, as I likely will?
I won't say I've failed at life. I'll remember that a project-based life is a path, not a goal. And I'll
remember that my friends are not projects. The people I love, and who love me, are not projects. Love
is not a project. It's the reason to keep myself sane, pleasant, and engaged: so that I will be, with all
my heart, available to love.