It’s time for a confession. Despite being a solid “homebody,” I’ve had a serious case of wanderlust for my entire adult-life. It goes completely counter to my equally strong desire to be frugal (read: I’m cheap!). It’s a super odd dichotomy that I’ve just learned to accept about myself.
I had a conversation a few years ago where my wife and I were talking out loud about our dream to potentially live abroad one day. The person we were talking with asked “why do you want to run away from your life?”
I was taken aback. I never viewed my dream in that light before…that I was “running away” from something. I’ve always thought of the dream as something I was running-towards.
You see, whether we want to admit it or not…whether it’s morbid or not…the “life” clock is always ticking. In our arrogance and hubris, we believe we can also see the count-down on that clock, but let me assure you…we cannot. All we can truly hear is the ticking. Is there a year left on our clock? Thirty years? So very often, we believe there is a lot more time left on the clock and so we choose to ignore the ticks.
My wanderlust is a product of me always hearing that ticking. It doesn’t cause me to be reckless, nor (too) pessimistic, but it forces me to think and talk about my dreams out loud (something we’re all a little scared to do).
Telling people about our dreams exposes us. Dreams are part of our identity; a part of who we are. Sharing our dreams makes us vulnerable. And what happens if we don’t accomplish our dreams? Will others laugh? Judge?
Will moving abroad happen for us? Will we ever make that move? I don’t have the answers.
But my wife and I love to sit on the porch and talk about it. Where would we live? What would we do? What would a day look like? Not to escape our current life, but because within those conversations we uncover what’s important to us.
And that’s the crucial part about dreaming and sharing our dreams. We’re sharing a part of ourselves and uncovering what makes life special for us. If you want to feel “successful” in life, you don’t measure it based on KPIs and goals and other corporate nonsense; you measure it based on how much you’re living the life you want to live on your terms.
If “family time” is a part of your dream…working 80 hours a week while knocking out KPIs will leave you feeling unfulfilled. If tinkering and innovating is a part of what fuels you…working in a large, corporate environment with a lot of red-tape is going to slowly kill you.
Talking about your dreams exposes what fuels you.
When I was considering joining a startup, I got some negative reactions. Startups are risky. At the time, I was working at Sprint and while not always the most “stable” company, it certainly sounded more secure than a startup. But the opportunity to create something from scratch, to dream big and solve even bigger problems was too big of an itch to not scratch. Knowing ourselves helps us in all areas of life, including work.
So, as we end another year…and another decade, we need to hear the ticking. If you’re unsatisfied with where you are in work, your health, your life…don’t think about a New Years resolution that you’ll abandon by March. Think about your dreams. Talk about your dreams. You’ll begin to uncover what it is that fuels you and where you’re wasting “ticks.”
To quote Peter Pan:
To live would be an awfully big adventure.
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