Taking the Scenic Route

Sometimes my life feels like a poem, or a movie, or a twenty-three act play.  Sometimes my life feels like a road trip and a neverending stream of new adventures.  It feels beautiful and entertaining and sublime.  This is especially true when I convince myself to get off the beaten path.  

I love it when I can remember to stop and savour, relax and enjoy.  I appreciate those simple precious moments when I remember to stop and smell the pretty proverbial roses.  

I worked on putting together my resume over the past few days, and although I have loved my life and all my adventures and I sincerely appreciate any life lessons I have learned, I realize that my life path has been a bit irregular in the eyes of the world around me.  

I am supremely grateful for any wisdom I have acquired along the way and give thanks for the freedom I have been granted as a wife, a mother and a community volunteer.  I feel blessed to have been able to craft a meaningful life that has brought me much joy.

Even so, one pesky thing keeps rearing it's head and staring me in the face as I work on seeking some kind of employment that will afford me the opportunity to get that long sought after campervan.  One inconvenient truth reminds me that securing a means of financially supporting myself (ie. getting a job) so I can be out there traversing our nations most beautiful lands might be... well, difficult.  

As I sift through memories of jobs near past and not so near past, my employment history seems so assorted and so long ago.  In fact most of my paid work experience was over twenty years ago, and as I am cobbling a resume together I fear that I have so little to offer employers.  

As I struggle over what outstanding skills to highlight and I grapple with what amazing expertise I can bring to the table, it feels like I don't have enough of anything that I need, and what I do have isn't very current.

It also occurs to me that I feel as if creating and building my own businesses means very little, especially since those businesses didn't bring me the financial freedom I was seeking, only more headaches and debt.

What I realize after much time and reflection, however, is something different.  I remember that my life has value.  I remember that I am a beautiful person.  I am brave and compassionate and smart.  I have experiences, I have life learning, I have heaps upon heaps of courage and resiliency...but it sure is difficult to make myself look good on paper.

I recently finished "The 4-Hour Work Week" by Tim Ferriss, a classic lifestyle design book from the mid 2000's. My takeaways:

I have never been lazy or idle.

I have never let my primary role of housewife define me.

I have always been pursuing something greater than myself and my surroundings.

I am happiest when taking calculated risks and living outside the boxes. 

I long for a way to translate my work input into personal financial gains.

Coincidentally, the Ferriss philosophy basically aligns with my own philosophy, and perhaps explains why mine has been a very unique and experientially rewarding life. 

Because I possess a willingness to learn and try new things, because I am not afraid to "fail" forward, I have the ability to approach an unknown opportunity with open eyes and an open heart. I'm willing to give it a shot. I'm willing to do my best.

The past 20+years have allowed me an unprecedented opportunity to build and grow and share my talents and my love for others with not just those closest to me, but others in my community and throughout the cyber world as well.

I have been blessed to be able to travel and be a highly involved parent in my child's life. I've led art classes and chaperoned nature outings, baked cookies, carpooled and chauffeured to scores of lacrosse practices and games and clinics, all with gratitude and a bliss for life in my heart.  

My son and I have collected food, packed backpacks and delivered them to children in need. We've mucked horse stalls and led horses for therapeutic riding sessions for special needs children. 

I've painted multiple murals and made puppets, planned galas and served on boards of multiple community nonprofit organizations. I've served our family's home roasted coffee and donated my handcrafted artwork as well as hours and hours of my time to these same organizations. I've opened my home and my garden and facilitated goat yoga classes for several local groups as well.

At home I built a garden, then another garden. I planted fruit trees and flowers and figs... lots and lots of figs. I raised chickens and ducks and dogs and goats. I've built it all and now I'm letting it go. (Please see my YouTube channel, or this blog or my new website that I built this spring for further details and my vision of moving forward in serving the world.)

This letting go comes on the heels of building a brick and mortar business, loving it and letting it go during the Covid pandemic of 2020 that lasted longer than we ever imagined. This letting go comes with the hope of a new and bright future, one imagined through the lens of freedom and authenticity, contribution and community. This letting go comes with the hope of living by a Timothy Ferris-like blueprint and a handful of 4-Hour philosophies. 

The world has changed significantly since the expanded and updated 2009 edition of The 4-Hour Work Week, and it is definitely leaning in favor of a digitally nomadic lifestyle that allows ambitious, caring, creative individuals like me to contribute greatly to the betterment of humanity and the world we live in.

This essay is the most forthright and clearest way to share a revealed understanding of my seemingly sparse work for pay resume, what I have come to understand as I built something to share with employers who are looking for people to hire. In truth and hindsight, I have been working diligently without pay for a significant portion of my adult life.  

While the rewards have been many and I am greatly appreciative for them all, I now need the independence that comes from earning my own source of income. I now require that money be received for my energetic output.  

I have a tremendous ability to learn quickly and I am eager and willing to get started on the next and best opportunity that awaits me. I look forward to speaking with someone about these possibilities soon.

What else I have realized:

I am a wonderful creative but a less wonderful business person.... that doesn't mean I can't get better.

I am a spontaneous sort and I have no problem functioning that way.  Last minute opportunities are highly appealing to me and I almost have an inability to plan things too far ahead. Take for instance the trip to Paris I want to take in the spring of 2025.  Nothing is planned thus far, but I am not giving up on going and also taking a group of people with me.

I'm not giving up, I don't give up, but if I do miss an opportunity and need to move on to the next thing, the next idea, I am flexible enough to do so without feeling inept or guilty for missing the boat (or the plane) on the opportunity that seemingly passed me by. 

My persistence won me an opportunity to have my Art on display on the Downtown Greensboro informational kiosks.  My artwork "Peony" will begin being displayed this month for a few months and I will receive a compensation/award check, a step forward in my money making endeavors as well. 

And the goodness keeps coming.  June 25th marked the first purchase from my art website and I also have two subscribers to my new website who are not my family and although this might seem like small wins to most of the world, they are wins, nonetheless and I am supremely happy and grateful for them.

And I am not sure where my self insecurities began so many years ago, and I don't know where I got the idea that I rarely win.  Others around me don't see it that way and after winning a game of Phase 10 again tonight while playing with my family, I realize that I DO win, a lot.  

Even as an unemployed homemaker and mother, my life was full of meaning and memory making.  I was winning and winning and winning, at life and consciousness, at compassion and learning and at the expansion of my soul.  I was creating and growing and contributing.  I was continually becoming the best version of me... and I still am... becoming.

I'm so excited to see where this new phase of my journey will lead.  I'm in the process of creating my itinerary now.  I am planning my routes.  I am sending out beacons and invitations to the Universe and my guides to take me where I need to be, exactly when I need to be there.  I'll use my itinerary as a blueprint, and will construct it with plenty of flexibility built in.  Wherever it goes, however it goes, whoever it goes with...I know it will be beautiful.