I Don’t Really Know What I Want
I don’t really know what I want out of life.
Some days I want to continue to be a corporate executive, make a lot of money, and spend my career gaining status and rising the ranks. Other days I picture myself living in a beach town somewhere, waking up without an alarm, spending my afternoons playing golf, and not caring what day of the week it is. Then there are days when I think I’d enjoy teaching or doing something completely different. Which I am almost certain teaching is the career that I will “retire” doing.
The more I’ve thought about it, though, the more I’ve realized that none of those things are actually the main goal.
What I Really Want Is Freedom
Not freedom from responsibility, but the freedom to choose. The freedom to wake up one day and decide that I want to live somewhere else for however long I want to. The freedom to leave a job because I want to, not because I have another one lined up. The freedom to spend more time with family and friends, travel when I want, or simply slow down without worrying about how I’ll pay my bills.
The problem is that freedom comes with a price. For me, that means paying off debt, building savings, and creating enough financial stability that work becomes a “How much do I need to make pay for the roof over my head and for food?”. I’m not there yet, but I’m working toward it.
So Why Start a Blog?
I don’t have life figured out, and I’m not pretending that I do. This isn’t a blog where I’m going to tell people how to live or act like I’m an expert. It’s simply a place to document my life as it happens.
I’ll write about major decisions, career challenges, travel stories, random thoughts, mistakes, successes, and probably a few failures that I’ll laugh about years from now. Some posts may have a lesson. Others may just be a story that I think is worth telling.
I have no idea where this blog will go. Maybe nobody ever reads it. Maybe it turns into something much bigger than I expect.
Maybe one day this blog makes enough money to give me a little more freedom. Maybe it doesn’t. Either way, I don’t want to spend years wondering what would have happened if I had never started.
– J