Aloha

I always thought having a great job doing what I loved was too good to be true. I’d just do a job to get out of debt on my credit card or to be left alone after work so I could drink. Any job where I could clock out and not take my work home with me was just what the doctor ordered. Work hard and party hard was my unspoken mantra. Some of the hardest jobs seemed not to pay much, but if I could work overtime if need be, and lower my expectations of ambition, I’d be in like Flynn.

I got rid of my pickup truck and tools and started riding the bus, so I didn’t have to worry about parking and break-ins. Several nights when I was sleeping in the camper shell, someone tried to break into my ‘sleep room’ and steal stuff as I was sleeping. I sold my truck for a move-in deposit on a studio apartment and my stress reduced dramatically. I didn’t have to worry about a big ticket item being left out on the street out of my sight, my control.

I knew I liked to drive and was good at it. But how could I drive without a car? I enjoyed meeting people and showing them around my new city and its treasures. I saw an ad for being a driver guide, and the idea that my joys and my job could be together, ignited a great plan for purpose in my life I followed for three decades!

I stopped going to the bar during happy hour and joined other drinkers for support in getting feedback on how to live without wasting time and money on alcohol. I lost my fear of drug testing and was told I could build ‘trophies on the wall’ in Alcoholics Anonymous for clean times and clean testing. I had no more fears about a drug test.

A big secret about not having enough qualified applicants for hiring these days is because of having to pass a drug test! This started in the USA around 1991 with the Department of Transportation mandate after severe Amtrak derailments revealed blood alcohol levels in those on duty during the crash were elevated, to say the least. The movie Flight, with Denzel Washington encapsulates the fallout from this shift, whereby many safety significant employees lost their jobs in the nineties, and never came back.

Now I’m reading and listening to others’ stories about how they found purpose and service helping others with the spirit of Aloha in Hawaii. I stayed at the same job for over twenty years and never missed a paycheck. I found a good job I enjoyed with the peace I always searched for: except for when the shit hit the fan! But I figured that out by acknowledging I was one with those whom I thought were the problem.

‘Da bus in Honolulu is hiring, and this is a great service sector job that pays well, especially when hourly wages don’t match the cost of living in many jobs on the island. Because there are very few tech employees earning north of two hundred thousand dollars a year in Honolulu, such as in San Francisco, the cost of living is lower without the flood of venture capital money being pushed into the Bay Area. The mantra here on Oahu is the drop in Japanese tourist spending since they heydays in the Nineties. One could say that the end of unlimited bounty from Japan due to aging demographics, has led to lower wages and less job growth on Oahu.

Much of the shock of those long term residents living in Boise, ID, Phoenix, AZ, Austin, TX, and Orlando, FL, is because the diaspora of work-from-home migration departing Silicon Valley has now led to the shockflation* effect where demand-pull rises all prices. We San Franciscans saw this happening beginning in 2010 and continuing until 2020, only to see the bull whip of inequality soak into other parts of the country with competition for housing. I don’t wish that on anyone anywhere at anytime.

It doesn’t take a genius (just an alcoholic) to see where spending on housing for the homeless is a never ending story. One has to be willing to admit defeat and ask for help. So many addicts will go back to using if there are no consequences to their behavior. All the mommy (money) in the world isn’t going to wave a magic wand to end their denial. Only a surrender to listen to those who’ve been there, can God’s will take hold and change their attitude and outlook upon life. If a single boot on the neck of an addict can spark fires faster than wildfires in California, that system must be a fragile one, lacking the consensus of what has works.

*shockflation: a word I just made up to describe the influence of seemingly unlimited monies being thrown at a certain cohort group without regards to the unintended effects this has on others not in the group.