The Beginning

Yes, I quit my job, terminated my apartment lease, and put my things in storage to take roughly a year off. What in the world am I doing, quitting a killer job at Amazon, and ripping up my life, to take time off? 

I walked into my current life from a mindset that I’d always had: of the options that are presented by society, which should I choose? But now I wonder: what if there’s another, more complex, path for me to take? Is it possible to construct a life that suits both my principles of why to operate as a human being, and how to operate as a human being? 

Below is the plan I’m starting with heading into my time off. Instead of looking at available life paths and choosing one, I’m going to figure out what I want out of life and how to construct a life around that, out of the possible options available. 

Stay tuned to this blog to learn more about what I’m doing, where I’m going, and what I’m learning! 

A Life Reconfigured

Purpose: determine what I want to do next, by deepening my understand of what I need in life, while taking advantage of the unusual privilege to own my own time.

Operating principles:

1. There are no sacred cows; I will be open & dynamic in how I drive towards the purpose. The guidelines below are guidelines, not rules.
2. If I’m not learning, or recharging to learn more tomorrow, I’m losing valuable time. Relaxing and having fun are vital components of life, but are subservient to learning in this particular journey.
3. Always think long-term. A life plan ought not be rigidly mapped out, but a life decision must always be cognizant of what it can and can’t lead to.

The plan: In order to further unpack my needs, I need to extricate myself from the variables of nurture, that influence what I’ve been and how I think: being the student, the business person, the coastal elite, the Bostonian, the Seattleite, the Amazonian. I will achieve this by removing my stakes in the ground: I will not have a job that dictates my day-to-day, I will not have a home that dictates my physical environment. I will only have myself & my suitcase. Here are the three key themes I’ll be thinking about:

The place: a physical environment that influences you, and how you and the people around you interact

The support: means that enable you to be in that place & lifestyle, like a job that pays for a place to live.

The people: others with whom you experience life, that enrich and define those experiences