Charging Through Life

When Alice was making her way through Wonderland and came to a fork in the road she asked a cat,

"Will you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the cat.
"I don't much care where –" said Alice
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the cat.

I have spent a year standing at that fork in my life looking down a few different paths, unsure which to take; having just come from a horrible land of corporate life that I don't much wish to return to. One of life's paths takes me in a bit of a U-Turn back to corporate life but promises to be better, different, safe, and an all-together better experience. The other path, which I've tapped my toe on a couple of times, is dark and menacing with absolutely no road signs or promises of a destination.

I've written about this impasse before and the choices I need to be taking seriously in my life right now. The luxury of time is quickly becoming impatient with my inaction and luck will inevitably run out on the things in my life I have placed in limbo during this Time Out of mine.

When I ask my friends, the people I most trust, which path of life to take, they almost all say to me, "Just Get A Damn Job Already!!" And they are right, it's time for me to be earning some real income again. But as I pointed out last night, a "job" isn't the only means to earn income. It's just the easiest.

There was an Ah-Ha moment this week while reading a cool blog, "Smart Passive Income." The realization was that, unlike with most "jobs" if I were to find my own ways to earn income on my own, I'm not limited to just one source. I could have many streams of revenue. And actually, I had better have multiple streams of income because any home-based internet business is going to take time to build and pay low in the beginning. So relying on just one would be setting yourself up for failure.

Once again I'm back to the thought process of building my own businesses and relying on myself instead of taking the advice of my friends to just go get a job already. But being practical, I am thinking about all the what if's. What if I don't make any money? What if I am not creative enough? What if I get bored or distracted? What if I don't earn enough to handle emergencies? What if I fail?

Life isn't in the to-do list or the fear of "what will happen if" or the longing of "I'll be happy as soon as..." It isn't in your dreams or plans or goals. Life is in the spaces between those things.

That was from a book I'm reading, "Zero to Zillionare" and it drives an important point home. Life is happening now whether or no you are participating in it. Life doesn't really happen later - it happens now. So being mired in indecision only cheats you from all that life has to offer.

I'm about to make a decision and I'm going to put everything I have into that decision once it's been made. Is there a chance I'll be wrong? Yea. But in order to be a Man you sometimes need to make the best decision you can at the time - regardless of what others say - and stand up for how you feel.