In the beginning… I always wanted to be free. I think we are innately born with a desire to be free. To run and feel the wind in our hair, to go fast and not be tied down to possessions or places. Somewhere between then and now I got a little sidetracked.
I think the wanderlust started when my cruel parents forced me to move to Scotland from Texas. I remember the sheer terror at the thought of having to learn to speak with an accent. Looking back now I remember those days as the best of my childhood. They are filled with excitement, adventure, romance and I was heartbroken to have to return to Texas.
Fast forward to my teen years… It was kind of hard to really get up to speed in a Nissan Sentra but I made up for that with shear miles. I drove to California several times, got lost in the Gila National forest, made it all the way to Texas and then turned up in Key West after I got tired of the cold. Upon return to normalcy I got a job at a restaurant and lived the fast life for a while in an attempt to save a stash for a trip to Europe. I eked by and made the trip happen, thanks to cheap railroad travel and a good exchange rate. The bottom line was I was addicted to the freedom of the road and I entertained the notion of making travel my life. At the time, short of writing a travel guide that type of lifestyle just didn’t seem possible.
Enter College…. It was everything that High School wasn’t. Coupled with the fact that I had swiftly been kicked out of public school but still managed to come out on top I was happy to leave that part of my life behind. The limestone buildings of the University of Texas glistened in the unrelenting sun the only relief being the shade of the ancient oaks littering the campus. Austin was a new place with new ideals, new attitudes and a flashy exterior. I loved it and still do. If you have never been to Austin you should go, just not in the summer. It was around this time that I also started to notice the first crop of people with what would now be called lifestyle businesses. They weren’t the digital nomads of today but the first of the telecommuters and the typical Austinites that just don’t really need much cash.
I wanted in but I also wanted to make a good living. Start college – I started with a little more age and perspective than the average college student and my wisdom lead me to a conclusion. I determined that in order to get the most out of my college experience I should do something that I love, I should pursue a passion in lieu pursuing higher job training. I had witnessed too many people obtain fancy high powered degrees only to get professional high powered jobs that beat them down every day. In hindsight I still don’t really know if this was the right approach. I had a great time in college and loved pretty much every minute of it but I stopped following my own advice. I compromised my desire to do something that I really liked for a big solid paycheck. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Now here I am… A decade in, a ‘made’ man by many standards. I have a pretty wife, a good marriage, a stable job with a big paycheck, upward mobility, but it just doesn’t feel right. I don’t hop out of bed eager to start the day, I start to dread Monday on Friday afternoon, I take calls on the weekend, and I work really hard to make someone else very wealthy.
I want in to the lifestyle design movement. I want my time back. I want to be a man of action, I want to work when I want and from wherever I want. I want my son to admire me because I really am an amazing person, not just because I’m his dad. I want to be able to spoil my wife and surprise her with lunch in Paris. I want a lot of different things but above all else I want my time back. I have never been happier than when I had very little but loads of time. The world is primed for a takeover by savvy entrepreneurs, digital nomads abound.
This blog will be a bit of a historical account of what has brought me to this point and how exactly I am able to escape. Hopefully it motivates others to do the same, hopefully my having a family inspires someone else that doesn’t feel like they can do it just for that reason. Hopefully in my feeble minded digital wanderings I am able to stumble off of some of the right cliffs and take my family to new heights.