I’ll Keep It Going

Well, now that I’m no longer hitch hiking around the country, the question remains as to what to do with this blog. I already deleted my Grad2Nomad twitter account as well as my Facebook fan page. I just felt like those were elements that I introduced mainly for people to follow me on my journey.Well, a new journey is beginning, but I’m returning to being me, Aaron Anderson, and not being known as a nomad anymore.

I think I’ll just use this blog as my personal blog from now on. In reality, I could still be considered a “nomad” in a sense, and I still feel like I’m searching for my place in life. Just because I found a job doesn’t mean that I have stopped wandering and looking for what will give me fulfillment in life. I think the URL still gives a pretty accurate description of my station in life. I’m still a recent grad that hasn’t yet found his place in life and so everything I do is still temporary at this point. Now the blog will be known as my nomadic journey in entrepreneurship. I really think that all of my decisions and jobs will be temporary until I successfully build a company of my own.

With that being said, let me update you on how this job is going. To be frank, I don’t really think I’ll ever be completely satisfied in a job unless I have complete ownership of it. I won’t ever have complete ownership unless I build a business around an idea that was mine to begin with.

Now, entrepreneurship excites me in any form. I get excited with the potential of building a business and being involved in the process whether or not I came up with the idea. But, I still feel like there is a missing element of fulfillment when I’m not working on something that I’ve created. However, I realize that I can gain and learn much by working for others and helping other small companies to grow and be successful.

In that case, this job is a great fit and I’m very excited for it. I have a lot of autonomy and I’m able to try and figure out the best ways of growing the business here in Las Vegas. I’ve already learned a lot and I anticipate growing and learning more with each passing week. I feel privileged to have a job that gives me so much autonomy and that will help me learn the essential skills and strategies to help a business grow from inception. Although this business has been around for a while, this is the very first office that we have opened(besides the Salt Lake office). Since the business grew organically in Salt Lake, the company has never had to learn how to open and grow the business in a new city before. That’s my challenge, and I’m loving the excitement of learning how to do that.

I think that’s all I’ll say for today, since I really need to get back into the habit of writing these blog posts. I have a lot to say about the challenges I’ve faced already and the strategies I’m implementing for going forward. I also have plenty to reflect about pertaining to the things I learned as a nomad and what I learned about myself from this experience.

Life Works Out

Ok, I know that it has been a long time since I’ve posted, so I owe you an explanation of what has been going on since then. Well, in my last post I talked about the different things that I didn’t like about being a nomad. However, the nomadic experience brought me about a great opportunity that I just couldn’t pass up. If you want to read up more on that job, go here.

So, after being in Phoenix for three days, I got a ride to Las Vegas on Sunday morning, the 3rd of January. That week I started working with Despain Craftsmanship, and that was supposed to be my trial week to see if I was a good fit or not. Well, by the second day I knew that I wanted to take the job and stay in Vegas. Although a part of me really wanted to continue on my journey, I got really excited about having a job that I would love. So, I’ve been in Vegas ever since. I know, I”m sure a lot of people were disappointed that my trip didn’t last longer, and so was I. But really, I always told myself that I would continue on the journey until I found something else that I wanted to do. That’s how life should be. Too often we continue doing something we don’t want to do for far too long, but in this case, I found a job that is a perfect fit.

It’s really funny how everything just seemed to work out. I mean, even the fact that I wanted to live in a warm climate. There are lots of opportunities that could have arisen that I wouldn’t have wanted because of the location. Also, a lot of people told me having all those jobs after graduation would make me less employable. I totally see why people would think that, because potential employers would get the impression that I’m hard to please. Well, the interesting part is that my employer was actually impressed with all the different jobs I had. He said he was impressed that I was able to get so many jobs in this bad economy. A different way to think about it, but, the point is that it worked out perfect.

It’s also cool how all the different jobs I had have helped me to bring a different perspective to the table. I think you learn the most in the first month or so of employment. Often, you’re being introduced to an entirely new industry that you had you previous knowledge about. So, all those experiences helped me learn some specific things that have been a great help in my current employment. I’m just amazed at how all the pieces have fit together so perfectly.

I think about how different my life would be if I would have kept one of the previous jobs, decided to stay in Provo, or never had the idea of a nomadic trip. The fact that I was planning on the trip when I did, led to this job at just the time they needed somebody.

Anyway, I think that’s what happens when we just do stuff and have the faith that it will work out. Life just does sometimes. The eight months since my college graduation have been a very frustrating time for me because I felt like I really wasn’t accomplishing what I wanted to accomplish. It’s just amazing how all those experiences contributed and led me to do what I’m doing now.

So, now I start a new chapter in a book. My journey continues. I may not wander around like a nomad in the physical sense anymore. However, life will continue to have unexpected events, stops, and journeys that I could never anticipate.

First Opportunity

As I’ve talked to people about my trip, I’ve repeatedly said how I anticipate opportunities to present themselves as a result of what I’m doing. I always said how it’s hard to put a specific timeline on my trip because it could be dramatically changed based upon those opportunities. It could last a week, it could last a year. I just don’t know. However, I didn’t quite expect to have opportunities come to me until AFTER I’d started my trip. So, the phone call I got last Saturday came as quite a surprise to me.

In order to best introduce this, lets talk about what I’m looking for in an opportunity or in a new “life” for me. My main goal is to be an entrepreneur, and so any job I do get I want to contribute to this goal. I also want to enjoy what I do. By analyzing what I’ve liked/disliked about my post-graduation jobs, I think I’ve come up with a checklist of things I need in a job to really love it.

1. I want to live where it’s warm. I lived in AZ for high school and my first 2 years of college and so I got spoiled. Two years in Provo was enough cold for me. I just want to live where it doesn’t snow.

2. Performance-Based Compensation – I don’t really like working for an hourly or salary wage. I want to get paid what I’m worth. If I work hard, I want to get paid based upon that hard work. I think hourly jobs can lead to a lazier mentality. At least for me. Also, as an entrepreneur, this is a good thing to learn and get used to.

3. Authority to implement change – This one is big. A lot of sales jobs give me the ability to make lots of money, but don’t allow me to implement change. I like to be efficient. I like to fix problems. When I see a problem that could be fixed in a business, I want to have the authority to implement a solution. I want to be able to give feedback that improves the companies I work for. I often am excited about creating systems that will encourage more efficiency in business. This is one of the things I look for that is the hardest to come by as a “recent grad”.

4. Variety in task – If I do the exact same thing every day, I tend to struggle. The task can even be similar every day, as long as the situations and problems continue to change.

5. I want to avoid the application process – I know a lot of people might think this is unrealistic, but I hate going through the application and interview process. I want somebody to offer me a job because they know me and they can see the potential that I have. I don’t want it to be because I look good on paper and I interview well. Which, I do consider myself to be good at interviewing. I’d much rather work for somebody for free for a week or two and then have them offer me a job, rather than go through a series of interviews and applications to find a job.

So really, those are the main things I want. I’ve realized that all of these things are important to me. So, you’re probably wondering what the phone call was that I received. Well, I received a call from a cousin of mine last Saturday. Him and his dad had been reading up on my blog about my trip and my different ideas, and they thought I might be a good fit to work with them. I didn’t know anything about their company or what they were doing before we had this conversation.

So, their company name is Despain Craftsmanship. Basically, they do wood repair and restoration for commercial buildings. It was started by my uncle and was fueled mostly by word-of-mouth. Once my cousin decided to get into the business a few years ago, it has started growing much more rapidly. Well, they’ve expanded the business into Las Vegas, and they’d like me to be in charge of Sales and Marketing of their office down there. Also, they are wanting to create a replicatable business model that they can then franchise out.

It sounds like a great opportunity and appears to meet all the criteria that I’m looking for. There is a huge potential for the business in Las Vegas because of all the repair and maintenance that could be done on Casinos. They’ve already done work on the City Center and Venitian in Vegas, and they are getting great feedback from those projects. I like that with this job there would be a lot of flexibility to fix and improve things as I see fit. I would also be able to be an integral part of learning how to grow a business. Very valuable experience. It actually seems like with my experience, it’s a greater opportunity than I really deserve.

Although it looks like a great opportunity, I still want to gain experience from traveling and having this adventure. So, I’ll be working with them for a week or two so we can see if it’s a good fit for both of us. I’m going to hitch a ride to Vegas and start working for them next Monday. If it’s a good fit, then there is potential for a long-term position in the future. It’s just funny because I really didn’t anticipate finding an opportunity so quickly that I was interested in.

So, now that I’ve started this blog and got my hopes all up to travel around and experience life, I don’t want to give it up for a job so soon. If it really is a great fit for both of us, I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out so that I can still have the experiences I’m looking for. I’m really hoping that Vegas is just the beginning of my journey…

Cost of Dreams

I haven’t been thinking too much about my trip lately because I’ve just been enjoying family and the Christmas season. I’m not sure why, but even though I don’t have places to sleep all planned out for next week, I’m really not worried. I have this feeling like things will just all work out. It’s kind of weird. I keep thinking I’m going to feel pressured to find places to stay and what not, but so far, I haven’t. Hopefully things works out as optimistically as I think they will.

The main reason for me wanting to write tonight is because I just watched the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life”. It’s kind of a tradition in my family to watch either that or The Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve. Well, tonight as we watched “It’s A Wonderful Life”, I was really touched. So much so that I actually cried. I tried to hide it, but, I definitely cried. And, for me, that doesn’t really happen too much. If I would have watched the movie alone in my room, I would have been bawling.

I think the reason I was so touched is because I feel like I can relate a lot with the main character – George Bailey. He’s a very ambitious young man that wants to get out and change the world. He wants to do important things and travel and see what the world has to offer. He has his life all planned out exactly how he thinks it will be. However, even though he has all these dreams of the life he wants to have, he gives them up for others.

I have a lot of the same desires as him and I’ve been thinking a lot lately, as I’ve been getting ready for my trip, how we shouldn’t give up on what we want out of life. We should never just settle for a life that is sufficient to get us by. I don’t want to live a life where I have regrets or where I struggle to get out of bed in the morning. I don’t want to get a job just to “pay the bills” yet doesn’t challenge and engage me. I don’t want to coast through life having never taken the risks to go after my dreams.

However, this movie has shown me the courage that it takes to give up what you want for others. I would really struggle with that, and I think that’s why I was so touched by the story. He sacrificed his life and dreams to help others live better lives.

Now, I also have greater appreciation for others who do jobs, “just to get by”. I always kind of looked down on people like that because I was disappointed that they weren’t pursuing their dreams. However, often, they are sacrificing what they want for somebody else. We hear of a father who gets married much earlier in life than planned. Rather than continuing on the career path he wants, he drops out of school in order to get a job to provide for his family. He doesn’t love his job, but he is doing it because he wants to take care of those he loves more than he wants to take care of himself. That takes great courage and great character.

I’m sure there are plenty of women out there who had great desires for an education and career, and they sacrificed those things to be a mother to their children. Maybe there are those who have to give up their life-long dreams because it isn’t a practical path to take to raise a family. I shouldn’t look down on these people, because, in reality, they have much more courage than me. They are giving up what they want in order to help others. I’m not sure why I never really saw that before now. I’ve seen this movie plenty of times, but tonight, it taught me a great lesson. Just one more thing that is showing me how I can learn from everyone.

Why am I REALLY doing this?

Ok, now that I’ve had to talk to more and more people about what I’m doing on this trip, I keep feeling unsettled with my ability to explain it. I feel like people are confused by my intentions, and to be honest, I’ve been a little confused myself.

So, I’ve done the work to try to figure myself out, and I think I got it. I went back and read my oldest blog entries as well as just tried to reflect on what I’d regret not accomplishing with this trip.

I think the reason it has been so difficult to explain myself is because I started with an original idea for the trip. Then, as time progressed, I kept seeing byproducts and other things that I would benefit from by going on the trip. As I tried to explain my reasons to others, I kept getting my byproducts mixed in with my main goal or reason, and so it was never very clear. The problem is that I’m excited about the trip for lots of different reasons, but, I’m going on the trip for one main reason.

Now, when I look back at why I’ve had a hard time committing to different things, post-graduation. I think that most of it stems from one main problem: my location. I never really planned on staying in Provo too long after graduation. I had only been there for two years, and I liked it because there are lots of new startups and I’m somewhat acquainted with people in the entrepreneurial community in the Utah Valley. So, I thought it would be a good place to stay. However, I never really saw it as a long term location, so every job that I got I also saw as a short-term gig. That translated into my inability to really love what I was doing.

I might be able to enjoy doing b2b sales, but when I saw that some deals would take 6-8 months to close, I wasn’t even sure if I’d be around long enough to close them. How could I patiently work and put everything into a job when I never really intended to stay there too long? So, as I went from one project to another, I didn’t really analyze and weigh my options, because I never considered any of them to be long-term. That’s not the best phrase of mind when going into a job. Most of the time I went in with the idea that I didn’t know how long I planned on staying, but that I would just wait and see. But, I think deep down I really was never planning on staying in Provo too long.

Part of the reason I didn’t want to stay in Provo is because I’ve had an itching to get out and explore the world while I’m young and single and still capable of having no commitments. I think I was trying to fight that urge some because I felt that I needed to “get on” with my life. So, I was continually having this inner struggle where I was trying to get jobs in a place I didn’t want to stay, and fighting that urge to just go out and see the country.

So, that’s really why I want to go on this trip. I’ve never been anywhere and I feel like I’m really sheltered and have a limited perspective on the world because of my lack of traveling and seeing things. So, I really just want to go on an adventure so that when I do decide to settle somewhere, I’ll be able to do it without this gnawing and restlessness in the back of my mind.

However, there are lots of other things that make me excited about the trip as well. I wanted to hitchhike because it will maximize the amount of different people I interact with. I think there’s a lot to learn from others who have been there, done that, so, I’d like to interact with different people daily. I’d like to learn about careers and what people do so that I might have a better view of where I would excel in a company. I want to have a blog and learn about social media. I want the experience of facing all of my most basic fears and overcoming them. I want to learn entrepreneurial skills. I want the ability to get up and go wherever the wind is blowing.

I think the byproducts that I view as potential for the trip come with my experience with door-to-door sales. While I was out and about, talking to people every day, I gained opportunities and met people that I otherwise would have never met. I got random job offers and learned about the things that people did. However, my purpose was to sell these people so I wasn’t really focused on learning about what they did or learning from them. So, I thought that if I was out and about and had more of a focus to learn about careers and jobs from others, that I’d probably learn a lot. Also, I’ll probably get some opportunities for work or learning that I would never have gained if I wasn’t out and about, talking to people every day.

So, there really are lots of different things I hope to get out of this trip, but they aren’t the reasons I’m going on it. If the only thing I accomplish is having a fun adventure and going places I’ve never been, I will feel fulfilled. So, I’m not going to worry about marketing my blog. I think that has contributed a lot to my confusion. I was trying to create a story that I thought would be more interesting for media and people to follow. In reality, I don’t care. I’m doing this trip for me, not for anybody else. So, sorry if that’s disappointing to anybody, but I’m sure glad that now I know EXACTLY why I’m going this trip.

My Reaction To Others’ Reactions

Well, Deseret News published a story about me today. You can check it out by going here: http://tinyurl.com/ygh2h9k. That’s the first press attention that I’ve gotten, and I anticipate getting more press as I continue on my journey. However, I thought it was very interesting to read some of the comments and reactions to my trip.

Most of all, I was surprised by the negative comments that were posted. I’m not sure why, but I never really expected those types of reactions. I mean, it makes complete sense to me that some people would look down on my trip and my idea to do it. I guess I just realized today that I’m going to have some people who really don’t like what I’m doing. Just like the comments, people might think that I’m a spoiled brat who is hard to please. People might think that I’m a mooch just living off of others’ kindness and generosity. There will also be those who think I have this feeling of self-entitlement, and that I should be grateful for what I have.

I guess it’s good for me to realize right now that I’m going to have some negative feedback. I’ve actually struggled in my life always being open about my goals and plans, because I never want to sound over-ambitious. I know sometimes when people have huge goals, that others like to tear them down so they feel justified in their own mediocrity. So, I a lot of times am not open with my ideas because I don’t want to open them up to the criticism and negativity of others.

This trip will help me out, because I’m being extremely open with everything I do. There will be naysayers and critics for what I’m trying to accomplish, no matter what I do. I need to get used to that and not back down from what it is I really want out of life.

I think what really bothers me about negative reactions isn’t the fact that people disagree with me. I just don’t like the feeling of being misunderstood. It was the same as a missionary. My biggest pet peave was ignorance. a lot of people were ignorantly opposed to something they knew nothing about. That’s the same way I feel about any negativity people have toward me and this trip. About the article, people were making these assumptions about the type of person I am, based upon my actions reported. In reality, they have no idea what type of person I really am, and so they are ignorantly opposed to what I’m trying to accomplish.

Well, it’s a good reminder to me to never be quick to judge others’ intentions or actions. The great thing about going through this trip is that it’s going to teach me a lot about people. Some people are going to love what I’m doing and are going to support me wholeheartedly. Others are not going to like it, but, you can’t make everyone happy. That’s why you gotta just not care and do what you feel is the right thing for you.

Parallels Between My Trip and Entrepreneurship

This is a topic that I’ve been thinking about for a while now, and I have finally gotten around to writing about it. One of the main reasons I’m going on this trip is because I want to be an entrepreneur, and I think this trip will help me develop entrepreneurial skills. So, in this post I’m going to talk about how this trip is similar to entrepreneurship.

1. Thinking vs Doing – This is one of the big challenges for wanna-be entrepreneurs. A lot of people talk about ideas they have for businesses they want to start, but they just talk about them. In order to be an entrepreneur, you have to get into the habit of DOING stuff, rather than just talking about it. Well, with this trip, it could be the kind of thing that I just talk about and never do. Lots of people think up cool ideas for trips or other things, but they never follow through. That’s why it’s important that I actually get out and do it.

2. Don’t Have to Have Everything Planned – This is similar to the last post, but there’s an important distinction. The reason lots of people struggle with doing things, is because they want to have every possible problem solved before they face it. When people ask me about my trip, they often ask what I’m going to do in certain situations when they come up. Now, I’ve thought about lots of different things, but there is no way I can plan for everything. There will be experiences that I couldn’t anticipate or plan for. As an entrepreneur, that’s something I’ll have to get used to. You have an initial idea, and you make plans on how to execute that idea. Then, you just start doing stuff and learn as you go along.

3. Adapt – These parallels are kind of making a progression because they build on one another. When an entrepreneur has an idea and starts doing things to make that idea a reality, he needs to be open to adaptation. Many successful businesses came about after an entrepreneur saw an opportunity, and adapted his existing business idea to go after that opportunity. I have a specific plan and purpose in mind. I’m going on my trip to explore cities, jobs, and companies. However, maybe once I get out there, I’ll realize that my survival is taking up a lot more time than I thought. Well, then I’ll have to adapt my purpose and goals for the trip based upon that experience.

4. Risk – We all know that entrepreneurs take risks, and they have to get comfortable with that. Their taking financial, emotional, and personal risks when they try to start businesses. Well, on this trip I’ll also be facing a lot of different risks. I’ll be facing the risk of not having a place to stay, not having enough to eat, not having any friends, and not being able to get to where I need. These are risks that scare a lot of people, and I’ll be honest, I’m scared of them too. However, I also think that where there is a great risk, there is also a great reward. As I get comfortable with risks on this trip, I think it will help me be able to face risks later as an entrepreneur.

5. Creativity – As entrepreneurs face different challenges the have to continually adapt and think of new solutions to problems. Lots of times, this requires a great amount of creativity on their part. An entrepreneur can face funding constraints, talent constraints, and time constraints. They have to learn how to be creative in order to accomplish their goals. I will face very similar challenges on my trip, and I’ll have to be creative and think of ways to overcome them. How will I make money? How will I find places to stay? How will I get to where I need to go? I may find that my initial ideas on how to accomplish these things may not work. Well, then I’ll have to be creative and think of quick solutions to my problems. Especially since I don’t have a home to go to at the end of the day.

6. Leverage – Entrepreneurs learn to leverage others time, money, and talents. An entrepreneur really is a master at finding the right talents, people, and abilities to make a business happen. It’s not uncommon for entrepreneurs to get people to work for free for a long time. Now that’s some impressive leveraging ability. I’ll also need to learn how to use leverage on my trip. I’ll try to leverage the power of my own network, of the people I meet, and my followers online. Almost every day I’ll be relying on my ability to leverage others and their assistance on my behalf.

7. Sell Yourself – If there’s one thing I hear a lot, it’s that as an entrepreneur, you have to sell yourself. Leverage has a lot to do with your ability to sell. You need to convince people of your idea, your ability, and your vision. Only by successfully selling yourself will you get the help you need. I’ll be doing the same thing. My survival is completely dependent on my ability to sell myself. Every amount of assistance I get will come from my ability to sell me. I’ll try to convince businesses to come let me shadow, people to give me rides or couches to crash on, and somehow convince somebody to give me money, for whatever I decide to do to get that.

8. Have a vision – Entrepreneurs have to have a vision of what they accomplish and be optimistic through their challenges in order to succeed. They will face many setbacks and challenges, and only if they have a vision and the optimism that they can be successful will they be able to make it through. I will definitely face some hardships and struggles on my trip, and it is only through my optimism and my vision that I’ll be able to keep going in spite of them. I can give up anytime I want, so it will really be my vision of what I want to accomplish that will keep me going.

9. Overtake Your Life – I’ve heard that starting a business can be extremely overwhelming and often takes over your life. You eat, sleep, and drink your business in order to make it a success. Well, my trip will be the same way. I’m basically eliminating all options to ever get a break from my trip. I won’t have a car, a house, or a regular job. I will always have to be thinking and trying to come up with ways to make my trip work. So, I guess you could say I’m jumping in with both feet.

Ok, well, I’m sure there are other parallels, but I think that is sufficient. These are just some of the main parallels that I’ve thought of, and it can give some insight into why I want to do this trip.

Want to know how?

As I’ve been telling people about my trip, I continually get asked how I plan on doing things. People ask me how I’m going to find places to sleep every night. How am I going to find rides and get where I need to go? What am I going to do if I can’t find rides or places to sleep, etc. So, I intend to answer those questions in this post.

In reality, I do have some ideas about how I’ll accomplish my goals. I’m of the opinion that as I meet and talk with different people and I tell them about what I’m doing, they will want to help me with my journey. The more people I can get to follow my blog, and the more people I meet, the larger my network will be to pull from. Every person I stay with, will probably know somebody else that might let me stay at their place, an so forth. However, I don’t intend to plan every single thing out about my trip.

Sometimes, you just have to act, and things will work out. If I waited until I had everything figured out about how to survive on this trip, I might never go. There is absolutely no way I’ll be able to plan everything that is going to happen. I know it will be hard at times, but I just plan and expect things to work out.

I see this trip a lot like I view entrepreneurship. I mean, a lot of people will talk about their good ideas and talk about how they want to start businesses, but then they don’t do anything about it. Really, you’ll never learn until you get out and start DOING stuff and learning from your mistakes. Too often, people are held back by their fears of the unknown or not having everything figured out.

That is what has bothered me about trying to figure out what to do with my life. I’ve had a variety of different jobs, but in addition to my jobs, I’ve also taken personality profiles, read different career assessments, and looked at job profiles online. But, we learn so much more through our experiences than we do sitting on a computer. I feel like the best way to learn what kind of things I might enjoy doing is to get out and DO stuff. The more people I meet, the more opportunities I’ll find. I can also learn from all of the different people I’ve talked to. I’m sure a bunch of people have gone through my same situation, and unless I get out and talk to them, it’s hard to learn from them.

So, no, I don’t know exactly how I’ll do everything on my trip. But, I think that if I just go out and do the trip, I’ll learn a ton from it. There will be so many cool experiences that I can’t foresee at this time. That’s the great thing about action. Just do stuff, and things will eventually work out.

Now or Later?

The other day at work, I was talking with a guy who had signed up for coaching. Now, when people sign up with a coaching company, they usually make goals for why they want to make extra income. This guy had a goal to go golfing in all 50 states. I thought it was a cool goal, so I talked to him about it. The interesting part is how he thinks his goal is contingent upon making extra money so that he can afford to do it.

See, there is a saying that comes from Robert Kiyosaki that I really like. He says that you should never say that you can’t afford something. Rather, you should ask the question, how can you afford it? By telling ourselves we can’t afford something, it requires no further work or thinking on our part. Whereas if we ask HOW can we afford something, it inspires creativity and forces our brain to work and think of solutions.

So many times in life, we find reasons as to why we can’t do the things we want to do. We often look forward to when we can “afford” the life we want to have. It’s easy for us to always look forward to the future when times or situations will (we hope) be better for us. Unfortunately, postponing actions usually leads to never accomplishing those tasks. We continue postponing them till the time is right, but the time is never going to be perfect. But, if we force our brains to try and think of how we can do what we want right now, we can often accomplish our goals without waiting for something that may never come.

That’s part of the reason for my trip. If I had a million dollars, there are two things I would do with my time. I would want to travel and experience different places, and I would want to build businesses. Before, I always thought I wanted to work hard to make enough money so that I could have the freedom to travel and do what I wanted. But, then I realized that this is the best time of my life do something like that, and that I should try to figure out a way that I can explore without having the financial means I thought were necessary.

Now, I know the path that I have chosen isn’t necessarily feasible for everybody, but the point is that if we use our brains, we can think of ways to do what we want to do now, rather than in the unforeseeable future. So, I guess the question that remains for all of us to answer is what things in our life do we keep postponing because of financial or other limitations, and how can we overcome those limitations to do what we’d like to do with our lives?

Living the Dream?

While I was at work today, I overheard my boss use the expression, “living the dream”. This is an expression that I hear a lot, and I’m slightly confused at to what it’s supposed to mean. Most of the time, people say it in a somewhat sarcastic or facetious way. When somebody says it in that manner, it seems to me that they are saying that their life is less than interesting.

For example, you see a friend you haven’ t seen in a while, and they ask you what you have been doing. A common response in this scenario can be that you’re “just living the dream”. This response seems to be said when someone feels they don’t have anything too noteworthy to report. Now, I may be reading into this statement wrong, but that seems to be the underlying meaning of the statement. You know, they aren’t doing anything that exciting, just going to school, going to work, dating, blah, blah, blah.

It’s funny because I’ve heard this statement in conjunction with the lifestyle of a college grad that still lives in Provo. As I’ve tried to explain to people what I’ve been doing, my friends have sometimes pointed out that I’m just “living the dream”. Basically implying that I’m doing nothing with my life by still living in Provo.

So, why is “living the dream” not a good thing? Don’t all of us hope that we’ll go after and achieve our dreams? I think that most of us do. However, “the dream” is often associated with societal norms and expectations that we’ve been raised with all of our lives. So yes, “living the dream” should be a negative statement, because if we’re living “THE dream”, we’re not living our own.

My dream is not to graduate from college and go work for a big corporation in New York, Boston, or D.C. My dream is not to find a “career”, and work for somebody else for my entire life. My dream is not to go to medical school, law school, dental school, or get my MBA. My dream does not align with a lot of the normal, predictable, and expected post-graduation plans of college grads. So, when I say I’m “living the dream”, I’m doing just that. I’m not doing what I want to do, rather, I’m doing what I’ve been taught I should want to do.

That’s really why I’m going on this trip. Too many people settle for “living the dream”, because it just seems too risky or scary to go after what they really want. Even then, often times people have a hard time deciphering between what they really want and what they’ve been taught they should want. I kept quitting jobs without having any other plan, because I never wanted to just get comfortable and settle for life. I hear people all the time say that they don’t love their job, “but it pays the bills”. That, to me, is living the dream.

So, are you living the dream?