As I write this, I’m sitting on a balcony overlooking the Caribbean Sea in Jamaica. Not a bad place to work. In a few hours, I’ll be watching a good friend of mine marry his wonderful bride, and we’ll be celebrating well into the night. All in all, I’m having a great day. I want more of these days.
Floating in the water, I asked another friend how we could do this more often, as it had been years since the last time I felt so relaxed. We brainstormed for a few minutes, and came up with a few plans that did not involve winning the lottery or launching the next Facebook (only slightly more realistic than winning the lottery). We thought of creative approaches to getting more time away from work, other places that might be almost as nice, but cheaper to travel to, and other possible solutions. The more we discussed the thought of living this type of lifestyle, it quickly became one of my goals.
When you have big dreams and audacious goals, rarely is there a straight path to get from where you are to where you want to be. There are of course twists and turns, and times when you’ll have to take a step or two back to move forward. Most importantly, you will need to develop creative approaches to stay on track when life takes a quick left turn.
The world is not actively working against you, but it’s not working for you either. Generally, the world is pretty indifferent to you and what you want. So when that perfect job opportunity falls through, the love of your life needs to move to a different city for a while, or you develop a health issue that starts to hold you back, it’s going to take a creative mind to overcome these challenges and keep pushing forward. Maybe you’ll need to find a new path to your goal, or change the specifics of your goal slightly. So, if you hurt yourself training for that marathon at the end of this year, perhaps you can run it next year. Or, maybe compete in a different activity all together if the injury is severe enough. But, don’t give up on your goal; just harness your creativity to come up with a new strategy.
Great post, Ryan. It’s so true that when we are passionate about our next step, we will do more to get there, and sometimes that means getting more creative with things. Have a fun trip!