“When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It!” – Yogi Berra (Photo by dno1967b)

Back in August I made the potentially life-altering decision to leave my full time job, minimize my life and start traveling the world. This is something I had been itching to do for some time, for many reasons, and yet, it’s not exactly an easy thing to just up and leave without much of a plan. Well, I did have a rough idea of what I wanted to do, but finding another job right away was not one of them.

So what led me to do such a thing? Let’s just say it was the convergence of a bunch of internal and external factors that became so strong that they overrode all fears I had of making this change.

Internally there were two factors at play. One was my long-standing unfulfilled desire to travel the world slowly (i.e., not just taking a week or so here and there whenever I could find vacation time at work). I know many people will backpack for months or take a gap year in their late teens or early 20s, and I always regretted not taking the time to do it back then. In my mind there was a sort of responsibility clock in my head telling me that as the years go on, it will only get harder and harder to travel like this. The other was my desire to work for myself. I have freelanced part-time, but I never really took the plunge to attempt to make a full-time living working on my own.

External frustrations included feeling stalled in my career while also wanting a change of scenery. It’s very possible I have sabotaged my career in this respect given the internal factors above – that, while I worked my butt off at my jobs over the years, perhaps I was subconsciously holding myself back from advancing too far. That or maybe I just fell into the wrong situations. My commitment to my job was certainly there in the present moment. Deep inside, however, I was pissed at myself for repeatedly making this sacrifice while ignoring my desires.

Three years ago when I started my previous job, I felt that it was a company I could see myself at for a long time. Things changed for better or worse and halfway through my feelings also changed. I wasn’t growing and I wasn’t optimistic that would change any time soon. It still took a while to get to the point of leaving however. Part of it was planning, which took a lot of time. A lot of it was fear disguised as practicality. Fears such as, what would I do about money? What would this do to my ‘career’? What would friends, family and colleagues think? Am I crazy? What if this, what if that?

Believe me, the closer I came to taking the plunge, the louder these fears became and they nearly derailed me completely. Thankfully I regrouped, got inspired and was able to push past those fears. That and having already put a financial commitment behind my intention by purchasing a mistake fare back in May helped nudge me forward. I couldn’t pass up this opportunity. The time was now.

Even in the moments leading up to my walking to my boss’ office I was doubting myself, and yet as soon as I told her it was like the weight of the world came off my shoulders and all those fears vanished right away. That feeling confirmed what I somehow knew all along, that this was the right decision for me. To my surprise, the response from others has been overwhelmingly positive too. I was bracing for an onslaught of second-guessing, but I guess my newfound confidence was projecting through.

There’s still a lot of uncertainty and a lot of work ahead of me to make this journey a success (perhaps it already is?). Either way, I’m trusting my intuition on this one.

Photo by vandinglewop