It was some time this summer. I'm not really sure when it really sank in.
I knew I wanted to quit my job. It's not a bad job. It's challenging, not too stressful, pays pretty well. But I have been there long enough. I never intended to be doing it this long. So I started poking around, and seeing what else was out there.
To my initial relief, there seemed to be plenty of work out there. But as I looked through the descriptions of work, I tried to imagine myself packing my stuff up from my desk at this job, and unpacking it at another desk. I would end up doing some new version of what I was doing now.
That's not a terrible thing. I like what I do. But somehow it wouldn't really seem like I was making a real change. I knew I would want to at least have some kind of break between jobs, to do some of the things that a "job" usually kept me from doing.
In May, my coworker and friend Jonathan left his job and decided to move back to New York. But before he started working again, he decided to take a month long trip to Argentina to snowboard and spend some time in Buenos Aires as well. He asked me to come along, but I came up with reasons why I couldn't or shouldn't go. I have already been to the Andes. I just finished snowboarding all winter in Lake Tahoe. I can't afford it. I don't have the time off. I really wanted to go though. It seemed like so much fun.
Around the same time, I started reading a book called The Four Hour Work Week. The title has an obvious appeal, especially to a lazy guy like me. But the book wasn't so much about laziness as it was about making your life the way you want it to be today, and not waiting for the proverbial someday. It was the story of how one fairly young guy claims to have done this for himself, and all of the tips and tricks to make it happen. The book is full of glamorous accomplishments, but mainly I was intrigued at the underlying lifestyle. One of the concepts he introduced was that of the "mini retirement". Why wait until you're elderly before you use some of your hard earned money to take a break and do what you have always wanted?
The book gave me sort of a mental road map to go from cubicle to hammock without feeling like I was risking any substantial piece of the lifestyle I have worked so many years for.
So considering these ideas, and taking a look at my current financial situation, I came up with a budget I was willing to spend on a break between jobs. Then after remembering what some friends had spent on long international trips, I came to the conclusion that I could take many months off, have a great travel adventure, and then come back to the life I love back in San Francisco.
What possible reason could I have not to do this?
