Living on the fast track

I know a young woman who was zooming up the fast track, living life in the fast lane, working like a dog and found herself exhausted and in a life she wasn't so sure she wanted.  What did she do?  She jumped ship.  It took a shit load of courage and guts but she did it and the last time I saw her she was literally beaming as if the entire weight of the world had just come off her shoulders. 

She sent me this article that was in the WSJ this week, Single and Stepping off the Fast Track.  It isn't just women with children who are taking a step back but others as well.  This article is one of the many conversations I have been having over the past few weeks starting with what will the word career mean in the next 5 or 10 years.

I am looking at businesses such as 3rd Ward and Windowfarms where community as well as a return to our roots although with a 2012 urban twist is happening.  At 3rd Ward there are classes from jewelry making to sewing to photography to urban ecology.  These are classes that expand our creative genes and connect with a community.  At Windowfarms, there is a virtual community that discusses their own techniques and skills on how to grow your own garden. 

Perhaps people are looking around at the intensity of how we work and are constantly connected and are taking a step back wanting to simplify and enjoy their life through something that they are truly passionate about.  I am not so sure we are slowing down but we are shifting.  We are moving into the next generation post-2008 when the world imploded.  We might be slowly coming out of that time but the economy, the Internet, the world is a very different place.  The changes are subtle now but in a few years we will see them more intensely as the generation graduating from college now makes their mark on the world and the ones jumping off their career paths.

A bold move for someone to get off the fast track because they want a life style shift not because because they are having children or settling into family life.  The question is how they take that empowering shift and live their lives.