I keep choosing the uncertain thing.

The short version

I’ve been a lot of things in a short amount of time. An assistant manager at Panera who got laid off in 2020. A college graduate, finally. A hostel volunteer in Costa Rica and Panama, sweeping floors in exchange for a bed. The owner of a refillery that sold shampoo by the ounce.

Then a guy who closed that store, filed for bankruptcy, and put everything he owned into a Nissan Altima.

For ten months I worked seasonal jobs out west. I waited tables at the Lake Yellowstone Hotel with elk outside my window. I spent the winter at a ski lodge in Alta, Utah, during the snowiest season the place has ever recorded. I showed up not knowing how to put on ski boots and left skiing blacks.

Canyonlands National Park, Utah, in the gap between seasons.

I didn’t have much money. I didn’t need much either. Looking back, it was the freest I’ve ever been.

Then I did the normal thing

After five more months on the road in Asia and Europe, I came home, got into sales, and got good at it. Better apartment, better income, the start of a business plan. Everything pointed the right direction.

But one question kept showing up and wouldn’t leave: if this all works, then what?

I couldn’t find an answer I wanted. So I’m going back to the version of my life where the answer to most things was yes, except this time on purpose.

I just figured out what I want a normal Tuesday to look like. Now I’m going to go find it, and write down what happens.

What this isn’t

This isn’t a bucket list, and I’m not going to tell you to quit your job. I don’t hate the United States, and I don’t think anywhere else is perfect.

A few other things you should know

I’m a Texas country boy who learned to ski in his late twenties. I’ve never checked a bag and I’m not going to start. I will happily walk 40 minutes to save four dollars on a taxi. And I lost about 45 pounds this year, which should make carrying two bags up Albanian hills a lot less dramatic.

And there’s a line I’ve been telling myself, and anyone else who needs it, for well over a decade: everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.

Where I’ve actually been, I’ll tell you what happened. Where I haven’t been yet, I’ll say so on the page, and you’ll know the difference.