Greetings from New York City! I am in the middle of a 2 week travel blitz that will take me to four states (Massachusetts, North Carolina, New York, and Maryland) and it looks like I’ll be turning around in mid-April to head for Michigan. I work from home, or the airport, or any bus with wireless internet, which makes traveling easy as I can work on the go. But what if you have a job with a physical location and a commitment to work during the week? Are you confined to ten days of vacation and tied to your house for the rest of the year? You don’t need to be. Before I quit my job, I still managed to travel often and efficiently.
You can too. The secret? Figure out how travel hacking, even while employed in a “traditional” job!
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It is a common desire to “be a voice for the voiceless.” Nonsense. Everyone has a voice, if we can not hear some voices, it is not because they are not speaking, but because we are not listening or we are too busy talking over them. On Wednesday, I was reminded that everyone has a voice–including me–and that I know what is best for myself. This entry is an excerise in claiming my voice where I have it, and learning to cede it where I do not. I invite you to find your own voice and to listen to the voices around you–together with me.
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Welcome to the official start of Work In Progress. For the past six weeks I have been clarifying my focus, creating the design, and developing content. Today, I am excited to press “Publish” on this post and begin spreading the word.
I thought to myself, “the world doesn’t need another blogger.” I wrote a blog for about a year–a few years ago–and it petered off. Since then, I read a lot (and talked a lot) about gender, race, sexuality and privilege. I scaled back my ambitions in an effort to not take up less space. But I forgot what was right under my nose, a motto I recite often: “We live in a land of abundance.”
So why am I starting to write again? For one, I love my life and I want to have a record of it. If nothing else, this new project is an endeavor to keep track of the bliss that is living my dream. Why else? Folks–friends and strangers alike–say, “Wow, that’s really awesome!” And yup, it is. I want to share that.
Some basics
- I work from home and set my own hours
- I took a 50% paycut and nine months later, have more in my savings account then when I left my job (and I bought an HD video camera).
- I give away more money (and stuff) than ever before
- I am not part of a multi-level marketing scheme
We live in a land of abundance.
The most interesting part is that I’m not in an exclusive niche position, I am self-taught at my income generating work. I build up, rather than tear down, others around me. I try as best I can to resist racism, sexism, elitism, imperialism, ablism, homophobia, transphobia, and any other individual or systemic oppression in myself and in the world at large. I fail, sometimes gracefully and sometimes terribly, but I keep going. And I watch as the world changes.
One need not hoard wealth and take advantage of others to live abundantly. And one need not drown oneself in self-righteous simpleness and self-deprication to live justly.
There is enough for me and for you and there is enough right now. In September 2008, a friend challenged me to “set a date and make it happen!” By December, I was already well on my way out of a job at a national television network and into a new era.
This is my story of ditching my 9-to-5, embracing radical love, practicing thoughtful resistance to the status quo, and realizing that it’s not as difficult as it looks. It’s also an invitation to join me on this journey. To share with me of yourself and your life. And to grow together.
So What’s the Plan?
My plan for Work In Progress is to share stories and best practices, connect with friends and strangers, and document my life and process. What does that look like?
- I will post articles regularly, twice a week for now, which touch upon my can-do approach to life, work, finances, and society. Sometimes they’ll be personal, other times they’ll be educational, mostly they’ll be things I would want to hear about and which I think will be valuable for others.
- I will also post pictures and video once a month.
- I will share resources on a variety of topics for personal development, social change, and web/social media design. First up is a Menu of Small Things which, as the title suggests, is about small things… specifically small things you can change
Let’s get something out of the way upfront: I am a white, middle-class, college-educated, debt-free, American male. I have a lot of privilege to own up to. Questioning my own privilege can make people uncomfortable, even when I don’t ask them to question their own. How much of my “can do” ability comes from hard work, talent, persistence, and quality and how much comes from personal tutors, familial economic stability, college education, and parents who were available after 5:30 PM?
If another way is not possible for single mothers, high school dropouts, and citizens of the world, another way is not possible for me either, as such a system is unsustainable.
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What do you want to do? Who do you want to be?
I want to propose a specific way of answering these questions and approaching life. My mom has been helping friends make “Dream Lists” for decades (long before Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture). The idea is simple: make a list of ten dreams.
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