A famous quote by the late, great Hunter S. Thompson takes one of those life passage moments and reduces it to the now well known quote, "Buy the ticket, take the ride." In its simplest terms, it means just that -- purchase the admission and go on the journey instead of sitting around thinking about it way too long because the time will zoom right past you as you ponder your navel.
An interesting series of boutiques called "The Island Company" have taken Thompson's notion a step or two further. They took a mantra and made it into t-shirts, or maybe the t-shirts made the words into a mantra, it's possibly reached a point where it's now in the same league as which came first, the chicken or the egg scenario.
All that aside, the shirts are selling like the proverbial hotcakes perhaps because of the sweet appeal of what it says on the back.
Quit your job.
Buy a ticket.
Fall in love.
Never return.
How many of us in our deepest dreams have conjured up such thoughts? Escapist thoughts aside, the mantra speaks to an even more hidden level than the patently obvious -- in an era when people spend more time in front of some kind of electronic communications device, the need to disconnect and just live is all but forgotten.
Notice it does not mean quit your work, as in the reason or purpose why you are alive -- but instead the job, the job, a nasty three letter word which has few positive connotations, an activity that while it may put food on the table rarely feeds the soul.
What a world it would be if we all found our work, bought a ticket, and took the ride.
Amen, and pass the mustard.
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