The power of a decision
"You can never connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking back". Steve Jobs
If 12 years ago you had told me that I’d travel the world with two small children, I’d have laughed. Yet, looking back, EVERYTHING we did led us to this adventure.
Several times in the past 10 years, we talked ourselves *out* of buying a house, even though family and friends advised us to, “Why do you keep throwing money in a rent?”, they asked. Yet, it never felt right, it never felt us. So we swam against the flow.
I wanted to become the next Fernanda Pivano and translate literature, but literary translation was a niche, there was a lot of X to get in it and I wanted to be the owner of my schedule and my time. I reluctantly closed the door to translation and jumped into the unknown, creating a local business from scratch, my first baby: I taught English to kids and adults in Marbella and I loved every moment of it, it gave me so much in eight years that I can’t even put it in words.
But then came a time when working locally made me feel trapped, not because I wanted to leave Marbella — Marbella is and and always will be home — but because I became fascinated by the idea of being able to work like my husband does: with a computer from anywhere in the world, at any time of day, full owner of my time.
It was a huge change and it terrified me. If change is a dark cave you need to enter to find the treasure, I stood in front of that dark cave for two years before finally going in — two years in which I tried not to change, delegating the classes to other teachers and only managing the business. Then, one day, it was enough: I left my language school and invested in this blog and in my online courses.
Today I am writing this from Helsinki, the first stop on our journey around the world.
All our big and small decisions in the past 12 years unknowingly led us here: with no roots, free to choose to take off, and travel the world while being able to keep working.
Never underestimate the power of a decision, any decision: even when you don’t know where you’re going, know yourself, listen to yourself, and live by what feels right to YOU!
Life is way too short and unpredictable to wear the dress society has picked out for you, if you don’t like how it fits.
