🛣 I have failed to Exit before

⤴ Off-ramps can be tricky. First we exit to the right along with the crush of traffic trying to get off the highway. A few miles later we realize that we are stuck in the lane of traffic merging back onto the highway we were trying to leave, and that the real exit required another sharper turn.

So it is with exiting the American Dream superhighway. So many of us are trying to find an exit that leads us down a quiet country road where we can breathe the air, find some peace and worry less. And we take the frontage road for a while only to find ourselves merging right back into the rat race lanes of “big bills to pay”.

The sharper turn required to head toward our goal destination of financial resilience, time autonomy and alignment with our values is truly the road less traveled. It is less traveled because it requires us to embrace unconventional ideas, perhaps sacrifice something and let go of our need for status.

If “comparison is the thief of joy” -Theodore Roosevelt, then status-seeking is the flow of traffic crowding us back onto the well paved road of productivity to pay for the big house. The big house is a luxury not a requirement.

Question: Is it the luxury you find most valuable or would control over your time, flexibility to start something new and the peace of knowing your cost of living is low give you greater satisfaction?

Perhaps you, like me, have tried to exit your unsatisfying path before. Maybe you took another job that you thought would be more fulfilling but found yourself back on the same road again. It make take a more dramatic move to align your life with your deepest priorities.