How I’ve Changed
WORKING TO LIVE
It’s Wednesday afternoon and I open up Google Flights. There’s loads of work stuff I need to be doing, but...Oh wow, round trip flight from Atlanta to Reykjavik for only €270, that’s like $300! I just need to fly out next Tuesday and then back the following Wednesday and… Yeah that’s not gonna happen with my PTO, projects, and, uh, I don’t even live in Atlanta.
*Snap*👌🏽What’s happening this weekend? I text the guys to see who’s getting together to watch the game, hosting a party, or going out. As the end of the week approaches, I focus on getting enough done so that I can feel like I had a productive week.
CLIMBING THE CORPORATE LADDER
Enough productive weeks and I’ll get a promotion. They weren’t actually a stepping block on the way to a big life goal, they were just to get more money and more vacation days: two important resources for escaping work even more often (ha).
This was me 7 years ago working in an office building in Chicago. This was life, yet there was always this undertone of…
“I’m just doing this so that I can do something else”
Life was the big trips each year, the weekends, family events, and Thursday evening dates. Life was getting more money, nicer stuff, a cooler apartment, and meeting more people.
It was about squeezing in as many concerts, parties, and activities as possible into the precious time I had outside of my work hours. I got so damn good at optimizing that time I probably could have taught a course about it.
WORK-LIFE INTEGRATION
Now in 2021, I still do love to spin the globe on Google Flights and daydream about travel. I still look forward to the weekends to go on dates with the same wonderful woman, see friends to share goals, go to concerts, and party (not until the sunrise, but I have a good time 🤪).
Life is different now because everything I do has been a conscious choice, so there’s nothing I need to escape from. However, I still don’t wish I was any different 7 years ago.
I see my past as chapters that needed to happen before I reached my current self. And to rip those out of the book of life would be to tell an incomplete story.
I’ve learned life doesn’t have to be what gets squeezed in the gaps. It doesn’t have to be about maintaining a balance between what you feel like you have to do with what you want to do.
I would love to tell you more, but first I need to go check on some flights...✈️
You might also be interested in:
Book a complementary Strategy Call with me
Get relationship tips on my multicultural couple podcast HumaNormales
Subscribe to my newsletter for bi-weekly tools & inspiration