Dreaming

Escapees - 

My hope is that these early newsletters are providing some motivation to start your journey to life beyond a 9-to-5. Now let’s look ahead three or five years. If you are less-than-satisfied today, it will take work to accomplish a different outcome.

If you track my logic, perhaps this newsletter can provide some inspiration. Being proactive is hard, especially with inertia toward the status quo (stagnation). From personal experience, changing my mindset had to precede everything else. So, let me share our dreams a bit and how that drives me through my transformation.

Initially, for me, my journey started from a place of fear. I was bouncing through jobs in my forties, largely feeling someone else had more impact than me over my own life. So, my first steps provided some insurance against decisions outside of my control. With a little success, I started thinking about how my next chapter could look. 

About two years ago, things started getting interesting. Jen and I started talking about our plans for the future. Not retirement so much as a departure from our current lifestyle. We started traveling to would-be destinations and tried to visualize what life would be like in each. As we gained some wisdom, we started crafting our criteria for what a next-level location would look like. It was, and is, good for our marriage, as we unpack our individual and shared goals. 

If memory serves, we have now purposely visited Oregon a few times, Washington, Colorado, Tennessee and I have scouted Eastern New York and Vermont. Talked to realtors, the whole nine yards. We are getting closer with each visit. Next up, Eureka, California, and back to Washington. It’s fun, romantic and informative. We’ve talked to family and close friends about joining us. It takes time.

Location is only part of the equation. You quickly realize that you need to also visualize daily life and what you will be doing for work and leisure in this future. Hell, you could stay where you live today and fundamentally change the rest. That’s your call, not mine. For us, Santa Cruz is cost-prohibitive for our next chapter. We have a million dollar home, and that $4000/mo+ mortgage doesn’t make sense if Santa Cruz isn’t the number one priority (over health, income required, etc).

As an example, let’s talk about our life into the future. Jen and I have come up with a few scenarios, and how we have coalesced around the one we are most actively pursuing.

Scenario 1 - Small City Urban Dwelling

I grew up in a college town, population 25,000 year round residents. In one scenario, our first dream may be to live in a place like that. Live within walking distance to an organically-minded grocery store and a cute coffee shop. Maybe a garden, run an AirBnB. Some hiking trails nearby, a progressive community. Sounds great, right? I mentioned several trips we’ve taken, almost all of them are targeted toward this plan. Wala Wala, Washington, Ashland, Oregon, Knoxville, etc. all are places we’ve explored.

Scenario 2 - Puttering Around a Lake

Jen’s dad retired to a lake in Missouri. He and his wife had a power boat and some other water-based toys, perfect for adult children (and grandkids) to visit. We can both see this as a great option, although it is generally expensive to have waterfront property in the US. Also, after your coffee and putt, what else happens that day? A walk, maybe run an AirBnB, a garden (again). You have to admit, lake life sounds fantastic.

Scenario 3 - Disappear

I’m in my fifties, still a few years away from access to my retirement accounts. But, given the real estate we do have, could we move somewhere cheap and sell a property on demand? Let me be precise, just so you get the big picture. What if we sold our house and used the equity to buy and live on a sailboat in the Caribbean? Live there for a few years based on that equity. Most of us are just treading water financially, anyway. Downsides, it’s pretty boozy, small amount of space, and my sailing skills are not at this level yet.  

Another example, an article came out this week that small towns in Italy have resumed selling houses for 1 euro. Uh, yes please.  I have a hard time writing about potential downsides to this one, because of my views of the political climate. But, there are some based on disruption to our kids.

Scenario 4 - A Farm

 In my future (and present) version of myself, I’d like to be more physically active. A gentleman’s farm provides that. Chickens, fruit trees, maybe a few cows? A few acres with a productive garden and pasture. Lord knows I love to putter on little projects. For now, this is the vision that Jen and I share.

We have taken classes at the local community college in beekeeping and Chickens 101. I took a welding class. We installed gravity-fed irrigation and now have a few fruit trees in the back yard. My lemon tree is even producing- which sounds simple but has been a struggle. We have looked at acreage in a few states, and are starting to hone in on what we are looking for financially, geographically, topographically (if that’s a word), and more. The point is that by dreaming about the future, we can take the steps required to achieve it.

Are there setbacks? You bet. I think one of my apple trees died, though I haven’t figured out why. I know a fig tree did last fall, likely from a miscue in my irrigation system. But experience leads to knowledge, and wisdom (usually) doesn’t grow on trees.

Summary

Looking ahead can be truly inspiring. It’s a journey and often a slog to get from where you are today to something better. The first step, of course, is visualizing that future and using that dream to push you through the sustained effort required to achieve it. 

Test drive that future! If you can name that goal, you can prioritize experiences that confirm or deny that this vision is as good as it seems. That said, and take this as a caution, changing your future does not happen overnight. We have been at this transformation for a few years, and still are a few years away from (intentionally) taking a big leap. This is work, don’t think that a better future will fall into your lap.

Newsletter Performance

In my hopes and dreams, my core people, you, would be loving this newsletter and referring everyone you ever knew to sign up. Organic growth would have doubled the number of readers by now. No organic growth has happened yet, and that’s ok. My hypothesis was wrong, but that’s just part of this process.

Financially, still sitting on my $1.00 total revenue. So, clearly not doing it for the money at this point. I’m not up to $0.20 / hour yet. 

On the upside, I enjoy writing and am passionate about how this process can help my friends. Sitting down to a blank screen is no fun, but once the sentences start flowing, I’m reminded that I think I have something to offer. Maybe this content can be repackaged in the future. It’s just an experiment after all.

Erik