I know there are people out there who find a career they love.  Every day, they go to work (unless they have found a way to not work) and enjoy that they do.  I’ve heard about these people.  I know I’m not one of them.

Many years ago, I decided to try to love or at least tolerate the work I do mainly because I was making decent money, had just bought a house, and didn’t want to “start over” in a different career.  So I took classes and convinced myself that things were swell.  It worked for a number of years.

After I was laid off the end of 2003, I really thought it was my chance to do “something else” although I had no idea what that would be.  I decided to become an insurance agent thinking that would be an almost natural progression.  It was pretty hateful, not for me at all.

So I landed back in claims, where I felt most comfortable and kept plugging away.  Tried to escape again in 2009 but almost went bankrupt to back to claims it was.  And now it is 2015.

It’s not the company I work for now, that I know.  I work from home, have a great boss, make my own hours, and am making more money than before.  Clearly it is the work.  The thought of doing this every day for the next 15 years makes me slightly ill.  Burnout is a real thing.

The minimalism / simplify thing is one of the reasons I want to move into a smaller place but a smaller mortgage is another significant reason.  Smaller mortgage means less pressure to continue making a significant income.

I figure there are three general options:

1. Make no changes, suck it up, save money and figure out a way to retire early while staying in the same house.  Meh.  This is clearly the easiest option with low risk
2. Keep going with the plan to downsize and find a smaller place with a lower mortgage and less upkeep.  Then figure out employment options.  Lots of work with this option.  Sort of a halfway solution.
3. This is the most radical, and one of my more faithful readers will recognize it 😉 Live like a vagabond in an RV, travel the country and find work (this is an actual, real option, not made up). Clearly this is the most frightening and the option requiring the most work.  But I dunno, there are so many things that are enticing about it.

As I was thinking about these things, I read a blog post The Itch to Leave Everything Behind and What’s Stopping Us.  I should really stop reading stuff like this.

I dreamed of a place where money became something I used to get me by yet didn’t define the life I wanted to live.

A place where experiences, moments, f*ck-ups and adventures were how I measured success.

A place where a richness deeper than financial wealth became a synonym of culture, family and history.

A place where I didn’t care about anything except what I wanted to care about.

Yet I came to realize over the years that following my heart didn’t come with a set destination. It was scary.

I had to take a step forwards and then two or three back, trusting that I was lost in the right direction. I had to learn to be okay with letting people down—especially when it was people I loved the most who didn’t understand my path.

For a long time I knew deep down in my soul what I wanted and I knew what I had to do. But I kept finding excuses not to do it, asking the universe for a sign and reading the daily horoscope for tips on how to live my life. 

In the meantime, my heart, gut and instincts remained as clear as still water. All I had to do was trust. Either that, or convince myself that perhaps the life I lived and dreaded would get better.

In the end, what transformed my life was action.  

I decided to walk the unpaved road, shedding off the layers of fear, uncertainty and self-doubt discovering along the way to a place no one ever told me existed.

It’s funny how easy it is to forget and get comfortable in a routine we dread. Yet comfort doesn’t always translate to happiness.

And we have a lot of stuff holding us back from complete freedom. The more things I owned, the harder it was for me to take off when I wanted to. The less I had, the richer and freer I became.

I found that memories and stories were enough to carry with me as evidence of a life well lived. I understood that spring cleaning was not something I did for my closet but for my soul. I shed layers as I went.

All we have to lose is time. Yet, what we have to gain is far richer than words can describe. The path of the heart is a blank slate—the only artist is its carrier.

This is a scary place to be in at first. But it’s even scarier to stay somewhere where all that connects us to our dreams is the hope of “one day.” If we don’t make it happen now, then there is no point hoping for a journey we have yet to embark on.

Right now is the best moment we will ever get.

It doesn’t get better later, tomorrow or when we have made more money.