Tag: Lifestyle

Follow Your Yellow Brick Road – Part 1

The American Dream

For a long time in our developed society, we have been programmed to believe that our path in life is linear.  There is only one golden yellow brick road to fulfilment and success.  If we checked off the boxes on that yellow brick road; we will lead a good life.  We will be happy or at least satisfied.  This was the simple navigational guide.  Our companies, education system and government… were designed to support this narrative and guide us through life.  Sometimes the path looked more like this with hills and valleys.

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Hills and Valley

Born→Primary School→College→Linear Career→Marriage/Kids→Retire→Die

Don’t forget to accumulate lots of stuff while you are during the above♥

Was everyone happy? No!  However, the majority of the population knew what was expected of them.  So there had to be something wrong with you if you did everything on the list and was still not happy.  Per my parents; what does happiness have to do with anything.  Believe in God, get a job (college was a privilege), care for yourself and family, deal!  That should make you happy.

Find Your Passion & Than Choose Your Own Path

Well mom and dad, I want to do more than just deal.  I drank the Kool Aid (cherry).  I bought into the “Find Your Passion” movement.  I want to travel through life on MY yellow brick road not THE yellow brick road.

I expected at this point in my life that I would have it all figured out.  I would know my ultimate truths and would be actively living them daily.  As much Oprah and Brene Brown I listen too, I should have an honorary doctorate in my truths by now.  Unfortunately, I do not.  Scratch that – I know my core truths.

  • My core truth is that I am a creator
  • I want to bring significant value to the world
  • I want to help others realize their greatness too

Wow, I said that out load!  However, I have been afraid to acknowledge and live that best life.  Creators and people who bring significant value to the world are super heroes to me.

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When I was a kid, I dreamed of being a dancer.  Dancing was my happy place. I came alive on stage.  I am an introvert and as a child I confused that with being shy.  I was not shy.  I also had a speaking impediment.  Dancing was my creative outlet and the way I communicated to the world.  I told life stories through my dance and through the bond of human emotion people understood what was being said.  I did not have to verbally speak.

I was the youngest of six kids.  I was the first child with the opportunity to graduate from university.  My parents sacrificed and worked really hard to give me this opportunity.  I took many dance classes in College but I could not bring my self to major in dance.  I majored in business.  It was my choice.  I just could not justify having my father who had to drop out of college to support a family and my mother who did not graduate high school during manual labor to pay for a degree in Dance.

This was just one of many choices that veered me from my creative path.  Or so I thought.😌  These choices do not change my ultimate destiny.  They just interrupt how I am getting there.

This post is titled Part 1 because it is Part 1 of many.  How many, I don’t know yet.  As many as it takes to get this thing right.  Or right for me.  What did Trump say, he did not know that Healthcare was hard.  Well, this whole live your life purpose is hard too.  I want to use the “Follow Your Yellow Brick Road’ series as a place to explore how to live my Purpose in this capitalistic Digital Age always connected world.

I hope you stay with me on my journey.  If you already got this Purpose thing figured out.  Please leave a comment below and share.  I would love to hear your thoughts.

 

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Stop Trying to Convince Me That Working Until I am 70 years old Is The Best Thing Ever.

As I am navigating through this thing called life and trying to decide what’s next (move to a new city, country or explore a new career).  I have been thinking a lot about retirement.  People say that once your work is your passion; your work no longer feels like a job.  You will never have a desire to retire.  Well, girlfriend is not at that place yet.

My career has been successful so far.  I have truly enjoyed all of my many work opportunities and the people whom I have worked with over the years.  However, Monday has never been my favorite day of the week.  Unless a holiday falls on a Monday.    Sunday night comes and I realize week after week that there never is enough time to explore all of the other important things in life I enjoy but do not generate an income.  So even though I am not near traditional retirement age.  And I am open to the idea of discovering a new passion and earning a living doing it until the day I die.  I have been DREAMING a lot about RETIREMENT and during it early.

In my super hero mind I am this spontaneous and bohemian carefree person who moves fluently through life but at the core I know I am a planner.  Although, I veer from those plans sometimes.  A girl still likes a good plan.  A starting point.  Thus, the researching, goal setting and planning began.

DREAM, SET A GOAL OR VISION, PLAN, EXECUTE, REVISE!

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I always like to start with questions. Will I ever be able to retire? What will it take for me to retire?  I forgot to share with you that these questions are being ask by a recovering workaholic.  A person who missed her flight to Spain because I was at home working instead of getting to the airport on time.  Yes, my sister who was meeting me in Amsterdam so we could catch the flight to Spain together was PISSED!

First Question: Will I ever be able to retire? YES!
Second Question: When do I want to retire? TODAY…LOL not possible.

You see, I just discovered the FIRE (Financially Independent Retire Early) movement.  I will not be able to retire at the new TRENDY age of 30.  I am a Gen. Xer and 30 has come and gone.  However, I know that I do not want to ‘HAVE TO’ work until the age of 70 either which Social Security and most old school financial advisors recommend to maximize investments.  I want to retire somewhat early which for me means around 55.  More importantly than the exact age of retirement is achieving the financial independence to do so if I so desire.

I am not going to go into financial steps to retirement here. I am not a personal financial expert.  There are a ton of sites that can walk you through the roadmap to retirement.  I simply want to start the dialog on the desire to retire early and being okay to live in that truth.  You see, I am often taken back by the amount of people who look at me crazy when I say that I want to retire early.  Yes, surprisingly I get negative comments, doubt that it is even possible and ‘eye rolling’ like who do you think you are.  But the biggest surprise is when they ask

“What would you do with all your time?”
“Aren’t you going to be bored?”
“I mean, how much traveling do you really want to do?”

PEOPLE, I agree work is important!  You gotta eat.  And it does bring some satisfaction to the soul.  But there is more to life than just working .  Why is our identity so attached to career and work in this society?  This is something that I am asking myself because I am guilty of it.  So, a question that began with how can I retire early has led me to a bigger question of how can we start identifying ourselves by who we are instead of what we do to make money.

When you meet someone for the first time and they ask you to tell them a little about yourself, do you automatically lead with your job title?  If so, why?  We are so much more.  We are captains of our own universe, stewards of this beautiful planet and so on….

I am curious, what your thoughts are on this subject?

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