“If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.”
Denver, Colorado is a magical city, set in an enchanting landscape, and filled with extraordinary people.
After renting homes for six years, though, we still wrestled with questions like: Should we buy an older home, renovate, and remain in the city? Should we move toward the foothills, purchase land, and build? Or, would it be best to roll the dice and move to a small mountain town?
Over the years, we’ve lived in all four US time zones, and it turned out that we weren’t ready to settle down yet. Instead of picking up and moving to another city, though, we decided the best path was to sell most of our belongings, store the remainder, buy an RV, and travel the Western part of the country for a year.
So, on May 31, 2019, we leaped headfirst into full-time RV life.
Our Family’s Foundation
Other than a desire to travel, why did we make this decision?
We’re firm believers that time is our greatest gift. And combined with health, most of us have the opportunity and ability to experience, learn, and accomplish incredible things in our short lives.
But, it’s easy to believe society’s narrative that you must spend your days doing something that doesn’t light your soul on fire, spend hours each week commuting to your job, buy a home and pray that it appreciates over the next 30 years due to factors you have no control over, and risk your health by eating crap every day and exercising only while chasing your kids.
We think it’s even more ludicrous that modernity makes you believe you’re depositing something tangible while doing this — something you can accumulate and hopefully “cash in” at some point many years down the road. That’s if you live long enough and remain healthy enough, of course.
Bottom line: We’re not nine-to-fivers. We don’t want a big house with a white picket fence and a yard, multiple vehicles in a four-car garage, two weeks of paid vacation per year, and complimentary stock in a corporation that won’t give two shits about canning us a month before retirement.
Instead, we both own businesses that allow us to work anywhere there’s an internet connection, so combined with these foundational beliefs, we think the question becomes: Why not leap? After all, the biggest illusion is that we have time.
Why not leap? After all, the biggest illusion is that we have time.
Literally, all you have is this moment.
You Must Be Willing
Here’s the catch: We live in an age where this soon-to-be-outmoded way of thinking remains not just pervasive but is actually encouraged by society as a whole.
So, to break free and declare your time (your most valuable asset!) as your own, you must be willing to step outside of the mold, step up, and take control. You must be willing to do something you’ve never done before.
When you do, people will talk. Some will understand, some won’t. It’s OK. After all, what others think of you is none of your business.
But, you can help them find their happiness through your actions and the joy that living each day to its fullest — whatever that means for each of us — brings.
