Most of you reading this website are here because you want more.
Tried and true may be comfortable, but boring. The traditional life path may be safe, but uninspiring. The status quo is average, but nothing extraordinary.
You know there's something missing, but you can't pinpoint what, exactly, it is.
We've essentially been told for years that hard work pays off. You've gone and done everything the way you've been told you were supposed to do it. We've been under the impression this whole time that as long as we put in our dues, we'll be rewarded, and handsomely. This was the model of reality we've built up in our minds, assuming that by following the rules, eventually the right of passage would open its doors to us, and we'd saunter on through in our Armani suit, whistling show tunes and brushing our shoulders off before asking someone to pass the Corvasier.
Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that right now, you're lucky if you even have a job, let alone an Armani suit. Maybe you happen to be in that crowd. If not, then chances are you're probably looking for a job. Or maybe you're one of the brave, who's elected to try and build an unconventional business & lifestyle. Regardless of the circumstances, you haven't been able to quiet the small, nagging voice in the back of your mind that says, “Is this it? Is this what I've been working for my whole life? This?”
But you make every attempt to silence that voice, because now that you've put so much time and effort into X career or Y life plan, you feel obligated. You tell yourself that you're just going to have to stick it out. And so you do. But it doesn't get better.
The small voice eventually becomes a bigger one, reminding you that you deserve more. You start to resent that voice, and then start to resent yourself. This is your one precious life, after all.
But just as soon as the thought pops into your head, you immediately hit a brick wall; you wouldn't know how to change it if you wanted to. What's a person to do? Go back to school? Up and quit? Stay and start a business on the side? Exile themselves from the country? Just say screw it, and sit at home eating buckets of fried chicken and Twizzlers all day long?
I've been in that position. Not the friend chicken and Twizzler position (usually), but the lost and confused and crushed position. And man was it unsettling. Frustrating. Disillusioning. Heartbreaking.
Others have asked themselves these same questions, too. Take Colin Wright of exilelifestyle.com or Andi Norris of instigationology.com. Both of these cool cats started out doing out doing something entirely different than what they're doing now. Yet somehow, all of us have managed to jump oh-so-gracefully over that little disheartened hurdle, and leap into something that, after taking some inner inventory, made more sense for us. We're now doing things that we like to do, because, well, we like them. And isn't that the point?
But more importantly, we're doing things we like to do because we gave ourselves permission to go ahead and do so. To not be afraid to scrap it all and start over. To teeter on up to the edge of something new, poke it in the side and say, “Hey. Let's take some risks, you big, Santa Claus – esque imaginary metaphor, you.” To put ourselves out there, recognizing that the universe can never say yes, if we never ask anything of it. It's a go big or go home mentality, and it's literally saved our lives.