The First Step

Today feels like the first day of the rest of my life. Of course, every day is that, but today I really feel it.

It's been three weeks since I left CBS, freedom I had been longing for. It was great that first week to go hiking in the mountains instead of working in an office, but there were a lot of little tasks that needed to be taken care of and then my mom showed up and everything went to hell. Instead of reveling in my freedom, I was suffocating.

Now finally both have been lifted from my life. Now I have the time, the space, and the freedom to find out what it is I could be doing with my life. I've known for some time that I needed a new way to earn my living. It's been almost 5 months since I took a trip to New York (when I was considering getting into publishing), and then to Washington DC just after the presidential election (when I was thinking about getting into politics).

Then on New Year's Day 2009, I made a resolution that this would be the Year of No Regrets. My plan was to quit CBS and head to Europe with Sarina in June. My last day turned out to be February 27th and we will leave for Dublin in early June. We'll spend 10 weeks in the UK.

There is a method to my madness and I want to lay it out very clearly here. Too many of our decisions in life are based on fear, not love. I'm not willing to live that way any longer. Too much of my life has already passed me by because I was too afraid to take action in the moment. I cowered in fear instead of stepping out on the edge -- the razor's edge, as I call it.

I'm ready for transformation in my life and it appears to be ordained in the stars. I want to let go of the past, let it fall away like a snake shedding its skin. Every decision from this point on will be based on love, not fear.

There are many things that have led me to this point, but I will name only a few. A major influence in my thinking has been Rick Jarow, especially through his audio program, The Ultimate Anti-Career Guide. Since I first discovered it in early 2003, I'm sure I have listened to it at least 100 times. I just listen to it over and over again. It is so deep and rich and profound that I learn something new every time. When I reach saturation, I stop listening for a while and then I do my best to put the principles into practice and live them. After a few months, a year, or more, I start listening to the program again and I can see the progress I've made, though I haven't yet fully mastered it.

One of the techniques he suggests is creating a 6-month trajectory for your life. "Choose one thing that if you did it for 6 months you would feel good about your life." It should be what is most pressing, what is most important in your life.

So my experiment is this: for 6 months (from today, March 21st to September 21st, 2009), all of my decisions will be based on love, not fear, and I'll see what happens.

What's most important today is to get my life organized so I have a serene and organized foundation from which to work. After that, I have 4 primary goals:

1) Finish the novel I'm currently writing, The Magical Diaries of Lilith Fyerider. My deadline for completion is April 22nd, 2009, the day before the Pikes Peak Writers Conference.

2) Spend as much time in nature as I possibly can -- hiking, walking, running, biking. That's part of my warrior training.

3) Fall in love.

So, we'll see how it goes...