Back in high school, we were each given a big thick career guide.  The guide listed all our possible career choices.  There must have been thousands of them.    Flicking through the guide, your mind would flicker with inspiration – the choices seemed endless.  Surely all the choices meant nothing but freedom.

Yet there was something fundamentally wrong with this guide.  Where was the option for “entrepreneur” or “nomad”?    Where was the option to invest all the waking hours of your life in a startup, move to some foreign country and live off meagre salary?

Its seems everything had been decided for me.  A “successful” life was mapped out.  School, College, 9-5, Promotion and then retirement. This is the “norm”.  This is what’s expected.

And then you turn around and tell people you’ll be spending the next couple years as a nomad.   There is no set deadline for return.  No set itinerary.  Only to have the doubters tell you “you’re wasting your life.  Why don’t you get a real job”.    These are the same people who at the end of the week, without fail, proclaim “thank f***k its friday”.  And wake up Monday morning wishing that it was still the weekend.

What’s the Plan

I don’t have a plan.  I haven’t set anything more concrete than the goal of not being miserable.

But what if I was working 9-5.  What if I had set myself the end goal of being promoted to the boss.  Working 9-5, what could be better than being the boss?  It seems to be the perfect goal.  Really? What happens when I get there?  Have I finished?  Is my life complete?

So I say to the doubters – your “steady career” goal, is no better than my goal.   In fact, in achieving your goal, how much misery has to be endured?

I’m not saying 9-5 is wrong.  You can find satisfaction in a cubicle (I’m told) and you can be happy working for the man – I know many people who are proof of this.  But…

There is No One Set Pathway

There is no right way.  There is no wrong.  There is your way.

Spending a few years overseas with no set deadline to return to what you call a “normal” life, isn’t me running away.  I’m not putting real life on hold.    I’m not avoiding life

What’s not real life about opening your mind to new cultures, discovering new foods, learning new languages, meeting incredible people and being part of incredible adventures.   To me, this seems more like life than a sleep deprived, fear intoxicated, cubicle dwelling existence.    That seems incredible unnatural.

It’s Ok, You Don’t Need to Get It

Did you read the above and think I had no clue?  Think I”m just on a quest to avoid the real world?  That’s ok. You don’t need to understand.

If everybody got it, I wouldn’t be able to outsource to India, run a startup like I do, or travel to incredible locations.    Everybody would be travelling with….just imagine the mess.

So don’t hate the guy who goes against the grain.   You can live your life and I’ll live mine.  I’m quite ok not doing the ordinary, in fact I’d like to think what I do is extraordinary.   And that ain’t too bad a goal to aim for.