The day I just decided to leave
That was yesterday, Friday, June the twenty-seventh, two-thousand eight. As many of you know, I’ve led an unusual life filled with sometimes tragic events and squashed dreams. I made it my primary focus in life to turn toward my dreams and focus all of my energies on becoming what I want, hopefully before it’s too late. Over the course of the last several years I’ve made great strides toward managing my private affairs and moving forward. I wake up everyday with a fire in my gut to continue down the path of the course I set myself on. I finally turned to blogging as a way to express my own understandings of personal achievement and motivation. I also blog in the hopes of developing a community of people who are also in hot pursuit of their own goals. At the same time though, I work an extremely boring job as an accountant that serves only as a means to an end. I do not want to do what I am doing as a career and never have. I have very few prospects for enjoyment throughout each day that I spend in my little cubicle where I plug away crunching numbers and other repetitive tasks. My prospects for self-fulfillment are limited only to a distant light coming in at the end of the very long tunnel I am in. But then I snapped.
Cubicle monkey goes mad
There I was, with my eyes briefly closed, focusing on summoning my energies to complete the day. My mind drifted toward my life, in general, and I began to think about how I’ve spent so much time and energy focusing on my own goals. Normally, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. There’s definitely a shortage of motivated people on the planet. But I also began thinking about how I was tired. Here I was, another day another task. It occurred to me that after spending so much time and energy on returning to school, and not being happy all the time about it, that maybe I was doing something wrong.
I must have divided by zero. At that point I had a small short circuit and an epiphany that could turn out to be a life-changing event. I thought, “What if, instead of focusing all of my energies on my own goals (something I was growing weary of), I did a complete about-face and turned to focusing all of my energies on others?”
The paradigm shift
What if I could revolutionize my actions, do something extremely useful for others, and enjoy doing it, all at the same time? That’s when I decided I was leaving my cubicle. I decided that I was going to ride a bike across the country, use the power of the Internet to tell the story, and raise money along the way for something or someone more important than I am, more important than my goals.
Blogger turned road-warrior
So here I am, day two. I’ve begun the initial planning, and training begins on Monday. To make this possible, I’m going to need lots of help from lots of people. If you’re a blogger, you can help by sharing the news. I’ve created a page on this site where you can direct your readers, if you would like to. I’ve already received lots of questions from people I know, and so I’ve begun a FAQ section for this. For more information, go here.
(Update): To see the promotional video about this event directly on YouTube click here. Please rate/comment on it if you can.
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Hmm. Not that I am cracking on roadbikes, but for such a long distance you need to be sure that you can handle the extreme posture that they require. DEFINITELY get arm rests. You can also use a more ‘hybrid’ style bike, especially if you are a novice biker.
Since you are a guy, MAKE SURE YOU GET A SEAT THAT PROTECTS YOUR MAN BITS. Your wife will probably be ticked if you injure your prostate doing this. They kind of look like a “V” and you will definitely have to get used to it.
One guy decided to walk across the country in a last ditch effort to lose weight (http://thefatmanwalking.com/), unfortunately he also ‘lost’ his wife. From what I gather it is very difficult to sustain one’s marriage through a process like this. For someone like you, I think that this knowledge would act as a challenge to strengthen it.
No matter what happens, I urge you and your wife to talk about this possibility. If either of you starts to have problems with your connection, you should be willing to ‘walk away’ from the bike thing.
I can’t tell you HOW EXCITED I am for you. #1, biking is awesome. #2, taking control of your life is even more awesome. I find it interesting that we both had similar ‘revelations’ about our jobs at the same time. Though I am, admittedly, toning mine down a bit compared to you!
The better people know you, the crazier they will think this plan is. If you have a good plan in place, however, you will triumph!
Holy crap, from the title I thought that this was going to be another Chris McKinstry, and I felt something close to despair.
http://www.alphabetsoup.cl/blog/2006/05/mindpixel-crashes.html
Best of luck with this project, it sounds like fun!
Alan!
@ Hayden - Damaging my relationship with my wife actually hasn’t even crossed my mind. Until you said that.
I better make damn sure she’s ok with this. Never heard of the fat man walking until your mention of him. Have I been living under a rock? It looks like it was a pretty big deal. I read parts of that site for about thirty minutes, but never found the part where his wife left him. Of course, it appears he was gone much longer than I will be. Also, about the bike seat, I better get a good one. I’ve told a few people I know; some thought it was pretty crazy, others were (surprisingly) supportive.
@Alan - Gosh, must have been living under a rock! Never heard of him either. It’s a good thing I’m not bipolar nor do I use LSD. So he checked out, huh? Wikipedia says he was tired of seeing the same old things. Hell, he should have gone on a bike tour
Yeah, it came up in the middle of his blog. If you notice his last ‘official’ entry, he gets back to town, sees his kids, then goes to a hotel in the middle of the night. I found it incredibly sad
“In the beginning of this journey my wife April wrote most of the journals; some where things that I told her and some where her own. If I have never thanked her for the tireless support I do so now.
“Well the last couple of weeks have been rough to say the least. April and I are at odds because of some personal matters and barely speaking at the moment. I have managed to anger most of the people that are helping with this walk because of my stubbornness and refusal to cooperate until certain things are taken care of and finally, I have been slowly descending into madness over the whole thing.
“April was fine and we final had a chance to spend some alone time and we had a lot of things to catch up on. Remember she is still “Not Happy” with me since Groom, Texas. So all in all it was a good weekend for family time and I am glad that I went.
“There is an article about me in the San Diego Union-Tribune today and in it the reporter has given his opinion and then shared that my wife and I are getting divorced. It is unfortunate that he decided to write about this now because I didn’t want people to get confused into thinking that the walk has caused us to get divorced. The truth of the matter is that we have been having some relationship difficulties for some time; this journey of mine as well as April’s own journey has actually brought us to a better understanding and appreciation for one another.
“05 15 06
I arrived in San Diego very, very late on Saturday night, thanks Jetblue, and I made it to my….old house….very late. Because of the hour I could only look in on the kids and then I piled into my car and was off in the middle of the night to find a hotel.”"
So obviously there were some issues before the walk, but the walk - I guess - brought them to the fore. If you guys are happily married and in love (which I deoutly hope!) your challenge will different, but I wanted you to know that it will still effect your marriage.
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It takes a lot of courage to make a conscious choice like this. Keep in mind that it’s not the action itself that is important, but the energy behind it. I also recommend you checkout this article by Steve Pavlina:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/11/2-mental-blocks-to-making-money/
The way he talks about purpose and value is pretty compelling for me, and I hope it is for you.
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