A beginner's guide to blowing up your life

I’ve been a nomad before.

When I was 24 my girlfriend and I decided we could no longer work at the bookstore that was sucking our souls and making us hate literature and words.

We were artists, non minimum wage corperate junkies!

And after stealing a copy of On The Road I devised a terrible, terrible plan. If we don’t have to pay rent… we would technically be making a living as artists. So LETS TOUR AND LIVE OUT OF OUR CAR. (A Saturn made out of literal plastic)

I radioed for my girlfriend to meet me at the information desk. A center console manned by jaded broke artists in the middle of a store filled with books we couldn’t afford to read.

My radio plea was followed by our manager radioing that we, “Are only to use these headsets for work!”

To which I said, “This is work Eli!”

It was not for work.

In a glorious bout of irony I took my then partner behind the Costco sized shelve that held all the business books. With the spine or Rich Dad Poor Dad facing us, I declared we should quit, and live out of our car.

We choose Poor Dad.

For over a year we went from poetry slam to poetry slam (shut up) getting paid in guest room stays, and change from passed hats.

It

Was

Glorious.

Minus the occasional bout of food poisoning on a dirt road in Iowa, a snow storm with a blinking railway sign that ominously said GO BACK TO Cheyenne, getting rear ended by a drunk fire fighter, it was perfect. It was living.

Real living.

I have a chance to do this again and I’m terrified.

I’m sitting in front of my own bookshelf right now. Less excited. No partner. Wondering if I should put this shelf in storage.

As we get older we collect more and more memories of people telling us to tone it down. So we tone it down, leaving chance taking to be, “something you do in your twenties.”

When I quit the last job I ever had, I was in my 20’s.

I am now 44.

44 with a recent breakup. I gave my ex the car and the cat, and my lease is up in October. I don’t have anything holding me anywhere.

And yet….

This idea hits me hard, like someone threw a copy of Rich Dad Poor Dad at my battered face.

When I was 20 and broke my first thought was, “adventure will fix this” when you go broke in your 40’s your first thought is, “surrender will fix this.” Why not choose adventure?

I am smarter, braver, survived more, have less ego. I don’t even drink for christ sake. Adventure should be more of an option as we age, and yet….

Every good thing that has happened in my life has come from an insane chance taken. A chance that many smart people tried to talk me out of.

I don’t know what I’m going to do. Live on the road. Volunteer overseas. Move back to a big city. A lot of terrifying options.

But no matter what, if the Jamie talking shit to his boss on a dumb headset in the middle of New York City wouldn’t give up on himself then why would I?

Let me know what your riskiest move was…