A Search For (My) Life

This blog will gradually be changing over the next few months. This is as it should be, since it’s a reflection of my life. I wrote my last post about leaving the comfort zone, and mentioned leaving my job. In truth, I’ve been thinking of leaving my job for a while. It’s been almost a year since I decided for sure, however, since this blog is public, I haven’t been free to write about it. Now that I’ve left my job, I’ll give a quick run down of the process, and what my plans are now.

Leaving my job to go travel was at first a very romantic idea. When I talk with people now, and tell them of my plans, I see that same romantic look in their eyes. “Now’s the time to do it” everyone says. But what they don’t see, is the rest of the story. I decided to leave my job nearly a year ago… so for the first 6 months, I only saw the romantic side of it as well. It was so far off, that I didn’t really have to do any planning, and therefore, the reality had not set in. As the time to leave came closer, I started to see the other side of things. I had paid off all my debts in the first year of working, and had saved a decent amount of money, but for the first time I started looking closer at my finances and wondering whether what I had would be enough. I’ve worked at a big corporation in a high-paying job, so until this point, I’ve never really had a budget. I try to be smart in my spending, and save everything left over. It helps to not have really expensive taste. So finances were the first worry. I did a few quick calculations and had a rough idea that I should be able to live in my current status for about a year or so. But more than doing anything about it, I just worried. Then I started thinking of all the expenses that I don’t usually think about. Health insurance was a big one. It just got taken care of through my work, but without a job… it was a big question mark. Then there was dental insurance, car insurance and weird little expenses like gas money and cell phone bills. These were all things I didn’t think much of when I had a vision of my future that always included an income.