Time for a Revolution
This post might get long. It's going to be about how I'm going to change my life and start living the life I want to live. It's the first post of the beginning of a long journey. If you want to follow along, hit the cut.
I'm just going to cut to the chase: I'm not living the life I want to live.
That sounds stupid, right? I mean, I just fulfilled my lifelong dream of being published, and I'm on the cusp of starting a career as an author. I should be overjoyed and basking in this new direction. And I am. Doing both of those things. But I want more.
I'm still bound to conventions that I detest. I'm still in debt to my vehicle. Granted, I love my vehicle but do I love it enough to necessitate it binding me to a certain set of circumstances for years at a time? No. I'm bound to a job that I dislike. A job that leaves me weary at the end of the day. A job that gives me nightmares and cramps. Why? Because I need it to pay my debts. It's still expected that I'll sign another lease on an apartment or a mortgage on a house here in Florida or in Colorado or somewhere else.
But I don't want those things. I don't want a $425 car payment. I don't want a thousand dollar rent payment that binds me to a fixed point on this giant, awesome planet for a year. I don't want a mortgage that does the same thing for 30 years. I don't want to sit in this chair, the chair I'm in right now, for the next 30 years only to find out that some rich dude in NY has screwed up my chance to retire and that the government is unable to pay me back the social security monies that I paid in. I don't want to get up at 6:45 in the morning and go to bed at 11pm. I don't want to set my watch by what's on television and lust after every shiny new tech toy that some greedy company has put out.
I see what those conventions have gotten the people around me and I don't want them.
I want to live a life where I'm free to travel around the world. Where I'm free to live in Thailand and Singapore and Munich and Tokyo for as long or as short as I'd like. Where I can travel to 25 countries in a year.
I want to live a life where I don't know who Jon and Kate are, where it doesn't matter if the passengers of Oceanic 815 ever get off the island, where I measure time by the sun's position in the sky and not by how much time I have before The Office.
And speaking of The Office, I want to live a life where I can watch that show and not cringe at how pathetically similar my life is to that. I want my office to be wherever me and my laptop are. I want to do the things I enjoy and be paid to do them instead of being forced to do the things I love to survive and end up hating them.
I want to use my talents to enable me to see the world, but I don't want to stop there. I don't want to just be a passive visitor. I want to change the world in big ways and small ways. I want to write and show the world to kids back here, to show them that there's more than the internet and school and video games and malls. I want to bring those comforts from home to people in the rest of the world who don't have them. I want to learn the ways of other cultures so that I can be a better human being.
In short, I want to change my life.
Because this isn't a new feeling. This is me standing up and saying that I have never lived the life I wanted to live. I've never wanted an apartment and a mortgage and a litter of children. I don't want the American dream because the American dream is flawed.
So where do I go from here? Ideally I'd sell my Jeep, sell my belongings, and get a plane ticket anywhere. That might even work for a while. But eventually, after a few weeks, months, a year or two, I'd wind up destitute. What I have to figure out is how to create a sustainable lifestyle that allows me to achieve my goals. Writing is part of that. I can write from anywhere. In fact, traveling can only enhance my writing by giving me a bigger, better, more colorful palette. But writing, at this point in time, doesn't provide enough income. There has to be more.
As I began to think about this, it seemed so incomprehensible, so impossible, but the more I think about it, the more it feels possible. Maybe not today and maybe not next month, but soon. Soon I'm going to pull up the anchor and sail. And it's going to be awesome.
It's time to start a revolution. Time to storm the Bastille. Time to live the life I want to live. It's kind of the only one I've got.
I'm just going to cut to the chase: I'm not living the life I want to live.
That sounds stupid, right? I mean, I just fulfilled my lifelong dream of being published, and I'm on the cusp of starting a career as an author. I should be overjoyed and basking in this new direction. And I am. Doing both of those things. But I want more.
I'm still bound to conventions that I detest. I'm still in debt to my vehicle. Granted, I love my vehicle but do I love it enough to necessitate it binding me to a certain set of circumstances for years at a time? No. I'm bound to a job that I dislike. A job that leaves me weary at the end of the day. A job that gives me nightmares and cramps. Why? Because I need it to pay my debts. It's still expected that I'll sign another lease on an apartment or a mortgage on a house here in Florida or in Colorado or somewhere else.
But I don't want those things. I don't want a $425 car payment. I don't want a thousand dollar rent payment that binds me to a fixed point on this giant, awesome planet for a year. I don't want a mortgage that does the same thing for 30 years. I don't want to sit in this chair, the chair I'm in right now, for the next 30 years only to find out that some rich dude in NY has screwed up my chance to retire and that the government is unable to pay me back the social security monies that I paid in. I don't want to get up at 6:45 in the morning and go to bed at 11pm. I don't want to set my watch by what's on television and lust after every shiny new tech toy that some greedy company has put out.
I see what those conventions have gotten the people around me and I don't want them.
I want to live a life where I'm free to travel around the world. Where I'm free to live in Thailand and Singapore and Munich and Tokyo for as long or as short as I'd like. Where I can travel to 25 countries in a year.
I want to live a life where I don't know who Jon and Kate are, where it doesn't matter if the passengers of Oceanic 815 ever get off the island, where I measure time by the sun's position in the sky and not by how much time I have before The Office.
And speaking of The Office, I want to live a life where I can watch that show and not cringe at how pathetically similar my life is to that. I want my office to be wherever me and my laptop are. I want to do the things I enjoy and be paid to do them instead of being forced to do the things I love to survive and end up hating them.
I want to use my talents to enable me to see the world, but I don't want to stop there. I don't want to just be a passive visitor. I want to change the world in big ways and small ways. I want to write and show the world to kids back here, to show them that there's more than the internet and school and video games and malls. I want to bring those comforts from home to people in the rest of the world who don't have them. I want to learn the ways of other cultures so that I can be a better human being.
In short, I want to change my life.
Because this isn't a new feeling. This is me standing up and saying that I have never lived the life I wanted to live. I've never wanted an apartment and a mortgage and a litter of children. I don't want the American dream because the American dream is flawed.
So where do I go from here? Ideally I'd sell my Jeep, sell my belongings, and get a plane ticket anywhere. That might even work for a while. But eventually, after a few weeks, months, a year or two, I'd wind up destitute. What I have to figure out is how to create a sustainable lifestyle that allows me to achieve my goals. Writing is part of that. I can write from anywhere. In fact, traveling can only enhance my writing by giving me a bigger, better, more colorful palette. But writing, at this point in time, doesn't provide enough income. There has to be more.
As I began to think about this, it seemed so incomprehensible, so impossible, but the more I think about it, the more it feels possible. Maybe not today and maybe not next month, but soon. Soon I'm going to pull up the anchor and sail. And it's going to be awesome.
It's time to start a revolution. Time to storm the Bastille. Time to live the life I want to live. It's kind of the only one I've got.