What is Quality of Life (QOL)? The definition from Wikipedia is the general well being of individuals and societies. After the workshop I sat back and thought about this question and the different stages of our QOL.
When our kids where young, we had a great QOL as we both had a job where we were able to spend weekends with our girls. My job also allowed me to attend the many activities the girls were involved in, and make that time up. During this period of our lives, we had a great QOL as we had quality family time.
Once the kids left for college, our QOL changed to unsatisfactory overnight, as our jobs did not satisfy our needs. So we started searching, and trucking was what we knew we wanted to be involved in. We made a couple false starts before finding what we needed to improve our QOL once again.
Our lifestyle does not fit everyone, and each person or family needs to explore his or her needs. We figured out that we like waking up in a different areas of the country, and we like having time while away from home to explore an area where we are stopped. For us, the ability to see sites we would never have seen if we were to take a weeks vacation made up for missing the Sunday BBQ or the many family birthdays we miss.
Family members often ask how can we stand never knowing what we are doing the next day or even with in the next minute. My answer is it does not matter to us, if we are not under a load, we are always ready within a few minutes to put the truck in gear and take off across country. When we are moving, we are making money so that is incentive to always stay prepared.
If we are pre-assigned on a load, we have free time that we can plan out to fit into what we want for our QOL. Sometimes we see the sites and other times we stay in the truck and get caught up on work and cleaning the truck inside and outside. Our truck is no different then our home and it takes a lot of upkeep to stay shiny and clean.
The idea for either of us, Bob going back to punching a clock, and me going back to a desk job is abhorrent to both. When working our former jobs we were often looking forward to Friday and dreading Mondays. Now the days we dread are holidays (no freight), snow, ice, and wind days.
Everything is a balance and we have to have enough income to meet our current needs and to put away for the future, enough time off to enjoy life, and control over our daily life to determine if what we are about to do is safe, or if we need to wait the weather or conditions out.
Quality of Life is very important and one thing that we are careful of is to not "Wish our Life Away". Living in the moment and enjoying how we make our living is what keeps us excited about getting up ever day to see what is over the next horizon.
Since we have to work we have found what fits our overall needs for the current time. Could our quality of life be better? Sure but I am not going to waste my time wishing for something that I do not have. While I do not waste my time wishing we do constantly strive to improve and enjoy what we have today.
Reminds me of the saying I use often to explain us:
Expediting isn't just trucking, it's a lifestyle;
Expediting isn't just a lifestyle, it's an adventure;
Expediting isn't just an adventure, it's a job;
Expediting isn't just a job, it's a business.
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| Friends on East Coast |
Earned trip to the Bahamas |
Friends on the West Coast |