Today

Epilogue

And Now For the Rest of the Story

 

 

I suppose it would be a terrible thing if a journey like I completed a month ago didn't help me grow into being a better person in some way. Not that I embarked on the journey for that specific purpose, but you'd think that it would have SOME impact on my life, right? I mean it wasn't like this was my 20th bike tour or something. It was my first. And, it occurred at a huge juncture in my life. I'd just left my job AND my divorce finally...finally!...came through.

 

Well, as it turns out, this bike tour changed my life. Changed it in ways I could never have imagined when I first set out from my driveway the day after Christmas. The solitude and time to think brought me clarity about my life...and about myself...that I realized I desperately needed.

 

Realization 1

My old life had not been making me happy. Not at all. Now, there was a time when I thought that I had "made it" in life: I had all the requisite "stuff" one should acquire: a beautiful home, a corner office, expensive toys, loads of money to travel or buy more stuff...whatever. But increasingly during the course of 2016 I began to feel a sinking, hollow feeling. The "stuff" and symbols of status that I'd acquired...now that I had them...weren't bringing me joy. Sure, my life was comfortable in every way; but it was NOT fulfilling.

 

Realization 2

I needed a new life that was focused on experiences...living a full rich life...and NOT on acquiring more "stuff." My life for decades had consisted of climbing the corporate ladder to get higher and higher salaries to get more and more stuff. But over the course of my ride I finally...like many other have before me...figured out that I was on a hamster wheel that wasn't getting me anywhere. More money meant more stuff. More stuff necessitated more money. Round and round.

 

Now, it is all well and good to learn that your old way of doing things wasn't working. I feel lucky to have learned that. But the trick, of course, is figuring out how to live one's life going forward. So, over the past month since the end of my tour I've spent a great deal of time figuring out an answer...or at least a few possible answers...to the question of "what next?"

 

Right now, I'm working with these three resolutions as the guides to my new life:

1. I want to live what I'm calling a "flexible" life. By that I mean not having income that is dependent on reporting to a specific location each and every day and working a relatively set schedule each day all year. My goal is to be able to be mobile and work from anywhere if I wish.
2. Some day I want to earn income from a business that I start. It is something I've always been afraid to try (primarily out of a fear of failure), but it is also something I would like to say I've done. What kind of business I don't know, but I have some initial ideas :)
3. I want to earn money...somehow!...from writing. I have so thoroughly enjoyed this journal-writing experience (and have received such a strong amount of positive feedback and interest in my journaling efforts) that I want to keep going.

 

I am going to try to do all I can to avoid having to go back to corporate America in order to provide income for myself. And the first step in that effort is to seriously "Minimalize" my life. To that end, over these past weeks I've been home I've begun the process of selling pretty much all my stuff. I'll keep only those items I absolutely need in order to live my life and everything else goes. I've included pics of some of the main items (my house, my Harley), but I'm going down to a tiny fraction of the "stuff'-filled life of my past.

 

There are many benefits of this plan, but the primary benefit is to reduce my costs down SO MUCH that I can afford to live that "flexible" life. I can afford not to have to go get another big corporate job in order to fund all this "stuff" in my life. My goal is to reduce my expenses so drastically that I might be able to earn what I need to earn for the year in, say, the summer months, and then use that money to power my life throughout the rest of the year so that I can...like Iris who I met on my journey...could bike tour during the winter months if I wished.

 

So...with this new two-pronged strategy (new income streams AND significantly reduced living expenses) I hope to achieve the new goals I have in life.

 

I have no illusions that this will be easy. In fact, I expect to feel total panic on an every-other-day basis. For instance, when my house sells I'll be homeless...and I currently don't exactly have a plan for where to live when that happens (though I have some ideas). That has already produced some bouts of terror let me tell you!

 

But I'm just as committed to turning my life into one more full of joy as I was committed to finishing my ride to San Diego. I hope this next journey turns out just as well as my last one did :)

 

 

 

 

 The Harley I loved at one point, then stopped riding when I got my bicycle.

I've now sold it.

 

The home I'm in the process of selling as part of my massive "downsizing" effort so that I can live a simpler, more fulfilling life.

 

This is me the day I bought my road bike in early 2014. That simple decision was the start of a new path in my life.

 

In early 2016 I decided to try and get in better shape. My goal was to be able to "go out and do" any activity I wanted to without having to worry...at all...about whether or not I was in shape to do it. This photo is of me, in early April of that year, finishing the first 5k I've run since I left the Army in 1992. This decision made it possible to decide to go on a 2,300 mile bike journey and then depart one week later.

 

Compare this pic of me the day I rode into Austin Texas to the other two photos! There is no way to overstate how terrific cycling has been for me.