Feelings are funny. You can feel something so deeply, only for feelings to go around and casually change their mind the next day. I just wrote the adventures of adulting a couple months ago about the Type 2 fun that is taking care of yourself and I meant every word. Then, there are days like today that happen more often than is comfortable. Days where I am unsure if I have tricked myself into grateful complacency settling for things I do not dream about. I never want to be ungrateful for how much I have in my life or for a job that has provided me with enough, but I cannot help but feel there is more to life than spending most of my day in a cubicle.

Commuting to work each morning, I cross over this bridge. It is when the express lanes dip below the 1-5 Freeway and suddenly your view on one side is a pink tinted Lake Washington, a water colored Mount Rainier, and the snow capped cascade range. The other side sits the city of Seattle with the Olympics Mountain Range in the distance. I witness the sun’s daily greeting and sometimes the sky is so clear that when the sun starts to rise, the sky erupts into cotton candy colors of pink and purple.  I am a born and raised Seattlite and this never ceases to inspire me and take my breath away. Like actually takes my breath away and makes want to cry a little. It’s beautiful but is this what my life is now, a 30 second shot of inspiration and awe? I am unsure if my feelings are simply the ebb and flow of life or if there is something greater out there willing me to get off my grateful little butt and demand more of myself. I don’t know, but I do know that I crave more than a moment.

More. What a packed little word that is. But I do, I want more. I demand more. I demand more than just enough to scrape by even though it has taught me the value of my time, my energy, and my investments. I demand more travel in my life even though I have built an amazing tribe at home. I demand more freedom, financial freedom and time freedom even though the burdens of both have taught me where my priorities lie.  The open road calls to me endlessly. The one way ticket, the tiny dream home in the mountains, the #vanlife, the surfers paradise. If you’re anything like me then we all obsess over instagram feeds dripping with coffee on mountain tops, feet kicked out the back of a van, and dinner (and/or wine, whiskey, tequila, pick your poison) next to the campfire. So what the hell is stopping me from living that every damn day? Not just for moments, not just for the weekend or an extended vacation, but truly living it. What the hell am I doing being such a big scardy cat?

It is terrifying leaving behind what is comfortable, and I know because I used to make a sport out of it. Don’t get me wrong I do love my job and the blessings it has given me, but it is not what gets my blood pumping or my creative juices flowing, it is not what I would spend my free time doing, and I refuse to believe that a job is something you do to pay for the life you want to have. I was watching a video on Duct Tape Then Beer recently and it said something in this video that is stirring a beast inside of me. It said, “The average life span is 78 years|938 months|28,560 days| 685,440 hours | 41,126,400 minutes.” That does not seem like enough to me especially if you break it down to the basics.

We sleep 25 years|300 months|9,125 days|219,000 hours|13,140,000. So that leaves 50 years left over for living while you’re awake.

We work 26 years|314 months|3,765 days|90,360 Hours|2,246,400.

So that leaves us 24 years without work, but don’t forget about school, or grocery shopping, or the time we spend stressing about the life we think we are supposed to be living or how much money we don’t have, or the time comparing our lives to instagram feeds of others. When you break this down, I am not sorry to say that I refuse to settle for work that does not light me up, inspire me, and make a difference in my life and the life of other poeple because I literally cannot afford it. I can not afford to fork over 25 years of my life for work I do not love. The cost is too great, so what the hell am I waiting for?

I want to write and take photos, I want to make short films and save the environment and inspire other poeple to care, I want to explore the planet and try my damndest to understand every inch of this earth in every way that I am physically capable of doing. I want to build my dream tiny home in the woods and turn my property in to a retreat center, I want a sister center in Costa Rica, I want to create an all women’s outdoor adventure magazine and give women a place and voice in an industry I love. I want to build an empire of inspired and powerful people to fight for the planet, fight for the little man, for the adventure of life.

So is it better for me to find the power and positivity in my current circumstances, or is it better to recognize my power is in the fact that I created every aspect of my current circumstances and that I have the power to change them?

Gratitude overwhelms me for the life I have. AND there is this thing inside me that aches so deeply it actually physically hurts my heart. This thing that I have to comfort at night. This thing that fights back tears when it reads articles about nature, travel, and people who I witness living such big lives. This thing that says go before it’s too late, what are you doing in that cubicle? That cubicle is not the point, that cubicle is not your life, it doesn’t use your talents, it doesn’t enrage you to passionate action, it doesn’t stir light into dark places in your soul, what are you doing just sitting there on your gratefull little butt?

So mark my words I am going to make it happen because down to the basic math of it, I cannot afford not to.

**EDIT

I started writing this article in December 2017 and found out recently that I am getting laid off in a company merger. I have a little over 8 weeks to figure out my next steps. The Universe is always listening and when I wrote this article I wrote it with so much intent and passion that I was crying when I wrote this. You get what you ask for, so here is my opportunity to make it happen. I am terrified, I am inspired, I am excited and stressed out and it changes every day, but I know one thing and that the road ahead is going to be hard and totally worth it.