I got another thrill of excitement today when I started looking up information on Burning Man* -- the feeling that I could do something potentially exciting and life-changing and it could happen soon. It's the same feeling I had, all those years ago, when I wrote this.
It was when I reread that old Livejournal post that I became inspired to change my thinking about my life and really try to make some radical changes. I had fallen into a rut: went to school, found out that I was good at making and designing websites, took classes to support this and landed a job. I am still at that job. And why should I change my lifestyle? I'm making a fairly good salary, living in a beautiful rented house on the Bay Area peninsula, and I have a fairly good group of friends.
Why should I change this? In short, because I am simply existing.
I'm not saying that this shouldn't be the goal of some groups of people, to get to a point of comfortable-ness and simply stay there. If I was to keep along this path, I could get married, buy a house, upgrade to a higher paying job, and have some kids. There's the next decade, all planned out. And I was certainly heading along that path.
But then I realized that I had dreamed of a different life. I, at my core, want to explore, discover, travel, be awed, and become something in this planet's history. And while my job as a web-page designer isn't something I regret --- quite the opposite; it's a job I can essentially telecommute from anywhere, provided I position myself accurately --- I'm not sure anymore whether I want to put down roots immediately.
I want to have the freedom to move to LA, take a couple acting classes, and see about trying out a couple movie jobs. Sure, this is completely illogical; I know that I can't act (yet?) and getting into the movie business is extremely hard to do. But I've always been facinated by actors, movie sets, movies as a form of storytelling, and why should I give up on that dream?
I want to have the freedom to move to London/Dublin/Loire Valley/Berlin/Bangkok/anywhere, live for a few months to experience the culture, and move on. To spend every weekend seeing something new.
I, essentially, want to have the freedom to do anything and I've found that I have already been tying myself down to a lifestyle I wasn't sure I'd be happy with. I could survive, but I'm promoted by a fear of death: I do not want to die unfulfilled.
So while life-lists generally recommend crossing off a couple goals per year, I want to fast-track the process. I need to get myself into a position where I have a great amount of mobility and income security. And that's what I've switched myself to doing.
Lifestyle changers:
- Lose weight. I'm not going to kid myself and say that being overweight/obese isn't costing my anything (other than my health). To be a doer and an achiever, I also need to have a better first impression to those I need to impress into helping me. Manipulating my physical appearence WILL open up more doors (as sad as that is).
- Push myself into a successful income-generating niche. This means building a business/products that I can automate into automatic income as well as making sure my current job ends successfully. I'm working on automatic-income now, but it's slow and tough work.
- Accept that, for things to change, I'm going to lose a LOT of security and add on a lot of fear. I am naturally a shy and withdrawn person, prone to anxiety attacks. A lot of mental preparation has to happen.
This post is essentially a cheer-leading post for me. I can do this, I SHOULD do this, and I WILL do this.
But for this instant, planning to go to Burning Man will do.
* My daily surfing habits tend to spiral out of control; I wasn't intentionally looking up information on Burning Man, but was inspired/reminded of it by Tim Ferriss (my lifestyle-crush object) on this post. Seriously, is there anything I want to do that he hasn't already done?
