More Doubts and Fears

I’ve started having some worries today about my trip. As I’ve been pondering and trying to figure out what my fears are about, I think I’ve come to a better understanding of why I’m nervous. I’m scared that I’m not going to accomplish what I’d like to accomplish with my trip. I’m scared that I’m going to get out on my trip, and start having second thoughts about what I’m doing. Like, with every job that I’ve had with graduation. I can see myself questioning my motives for doing what I’m doing, and not having sufficient motivation to carry through with it. I really don’t want that to happen. I mean, I’ve been having doubts with every decision I’ve made with graduation, and this is something that I’ve felt really good about and have been really excited to do.

I think one of the main reasons for this fear is the fact that I’m pretty sure there isn’t any job that will excite me. I want to be an entrepreneur, and I really don’t think I’ll feel satisfied until I’m successful in my own venture. So, is the purpose of this trip really to figure out what occupation I could enjoy? Hmmm, now that’s the question. Although I would like to be able to find an occupation that I could enjoy and learn from while I work on my own business, I know that any occupation I have will be seen as a short-term solution to help me accomplish my long-term goals. So, really, I don’t think the purpose of my trip is to find an occupation I would enjoy, although I do think that would be a nice byproduct.

I guess I just really want to be sure of what my purpose for this trip is, because I’d hate to build a blog around a certain idea, and then want to change it half-way through. So, I think my real objective and purpose of this trip is to gain a breadth of experience. I want to understand how things are in the real world. How do people do certain jobs and feel fulfilled doing them? What kind of places are out there that I haven’t experienced? What kind of people can I meet and learn from? What do the big and small companies of this country look like, and how do they operate? What kinds of problems exist in the lives of people all over the country that could be fixed by businesses?

I really think that no matter what I do on my trip, I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished my goal if I learn and grow from my experiences. So, really, I can do the same things I’ve been thinking about. I can try to go to work with different people. I can try to tour different businesses across the country. I can stay with a different person every night. Because, in the end, I just want to have a lot of experience and find out what my next step in life really is. I guess I shouldn’t end my trip until I have a specific plan for the future. I can see myself stopping in a city, seeing a good opportunity for a business, and staying there in order to bring it to fruition.

Now, that’s definitely a hard purpose to portray to other people. It’s been hard enough to tell people what I’m doing as it is. Just saying that I’m hitch hiking across the country really doesn’t do the trip justice. Whatever, I’m not doing this for other people anyway.

On another note, I’ve been trying to establish a schedule that I can maintain while I’m on the road. So, I’ve started doing exercises that I should be able to do, no matter where I stay. I’m doing calisthenics every night and running every morning. It feels great when I’m consistently exercising. How come I ever let myself not exercise regularly? I love running. Every time I go running, I feel so good and I wonder why I’m not 100% on doing it every day. I guess that’s just life. Constantly trying to do what you know you should do.

Well, that’s all the thoughts I got for today. There’s a funny video clip from the new twilight movie that I’ve been showing to lots of people that I’d like to share:

Commitment Issues

I talked to my little brother Matt today on the phone and he asked me to be his best man. I’m pretty excited about that. I’m not sure why, but I hadn’t even thought about the fact that I would probably be his best man. Anyway, we started talking, and I told him about my plans to be a nomad. It was kind of funny because he sounded SO nervous for me. He didn’t say a whole lot, and I knew that meant he was thinking this in his mind: “Whoa, what’s wrong with Aaron? He’s going A-wall. He’s never going to get married with the path he’s taking. I don’t feel so good about his plans.”

His silence basically came off like the same response that I got from my Mom. Worried that I’m throwing my life away and running away from something. Well, I’d probably think that if I was somebody else. I mean, usually when I hear somebody is doing something kind of different, I am jealous of them. But, I think most of my siblings are just wondering what my long-term plans are. I don’t blame them for worrying, but I just think it’s a waste of their worry muscles. Worrying never does anybody any good.

While I was talking to him though, he brought up kind of a good point about what I’m doing. I was telling him how I just lose interest in things pretty quickly, and it seems like I have an interest in something, but then I lose interest, and I move on to something else. He mentioned how that was kind of like my Dad. That was something that bothered me about my Dad growing up. He would get interested in something, spend a bunch of money on that hobbie, but then it just wouldn’t last. I always thought the use of money on the Hobbie was a waste if you weren’t going to stick with it. Well, I see the same kind of patterns happening in my own life. It’s not even the fact that I lose interest completely, I guess I just get bored and I’m ready to move onto something new.

For example, I remember when I wanted to learn the guitar. So, I got a guitar, I learned a few songs, and then I lost interest. I mean, I still like to play the guitar once in a while, but now that I basically learned it good enough so that I can learn a song whenever I want to, I just don’t enjoy it enough to pull it out every day. See, the question is how that tendency will translate to my professional life. Am I just going to need to switch jobs every year to keep things interesting?

Well, after thinking about it a while, I’ve realized it’s not all that bad. I mean, I have an eye for opportunity. I really think I do. I have a few entrepreneurial friends who just feel like once they get a good enough idea, they’ll be able to start their own company. For me, I feel like I have pretty good ideas fairly regularly. So, for me it’s not about having the idea, it’s about execution of the idea. I love having a new idea and trying to go after it. I could see myself being a serial entrepreneur, but I need to pursue my ideas further, until they are successful. So, this kind of goes back to what I wrote about before: I should never drop something before I am successful at it.

After thinking about all this, I’m wondering if my travel idea is just one more of those ideas that I need to get out of my system so that I can move onto the next one. I wonder if once I get out and I’m on the road traveling around, I lose interest, and I only travel for like 2 weeks before feeling like I’m done doing that. I could see that happening, and I wouldn’t put it past me. That’s why I need to make the decision right now, that whatever I decide to do, I need to stick with it.

If I decide to travel around and have a blog and what-not, I shouldn’t be done with my trip until I have created a successful blog and I’ve seen some of the things that I want to see.

I also wonder if my desire to move has affected my ability to finish some of the ideas I’ve had. If I know that my location isn’t permanent, and that I don’t want to stay in a place for much longer, then it doesn’t make sense for me to start any sort of sustainable business. Like RateMySummerSalesJob.com, I would probably want to stay around in Utah somewhere to make that a success. If when I’m working on that project, I have a feeling that I don’t really want to stay in Utah for much longer, it might be hard to actually push through on the project, because I know it’s something that just won’t last. I think that’s also true about the other jobs that I had. When I worked at Qualtrics, I knew that I would need to be there for at least a year if I wanted to be a successful B2B salesman. Well, I didn’t really want to stick around in Provo long enough to be successful there, so that’s probably what led to me quitting my job.

It seems that my desire to live in a certain place is strongly connected with my ability to see things through to the end. The more I can plan on living someplace long-term, the more I will be able to start businesses that will endure. So, it seems that for me to be able to find a place that I can see myself living long-term for, one of three things needs to happen. First, I get married. Then, I make a decision with somebody else involving where we want to settle down. Second, I just make a conscious decision about where I would like to live for a year or two. Third, I make some sort of long-term commitment in a location where I feel obligated to fulfill my commitment. I guess this would be like a job or something.

Basically, this analysis has helped me to see that I do think it would be beneficial for me to travel, because I think it can help me to make a decision about where I want to live next. Once I have made that decision, I think it will help me buckle down and follow through on the ideas that I have. Besides, if I don’t follow through on this travel idea, it will be perpetuating my bad habit of having a great idea but never following through with it.