Genesis

In the beginning, there was work.  And it blew.

Well, not exactly.  This story, for me at least, pre-dates work.  Not all work, of course, just the relentless, pointless, soul-crushing kind the “real world” demands.  Before that there was college and an English class studying the Romantic Era . . . Byron, Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelly, among others.  Yawnsville, I know, but how can you not be moved by a great artist employing all his talents to get a girl naked (to be fair it was probably several girls)  . . .

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Tomorrow will be dying.

–  Robert Herrick

I would follow in the footsteps of these great men, I thought, and “seize the day”, throwing caution to the wind while living a life of grand adventure. . . only I didn’t have any money.  And didn’t many of these guys die before they hit the age of 30?  And who wants to be a hippy bum anyway?

So instead I went off in pursuit of a perfectly responsible career path . . . college, work, MBA, career, paycheck.  And I pursued it as far as it went.  But Frost never left me, and I always wondered about the road not taken.  Sometimes daily.  The job was O.K., and I was good at it.  But the hours sucked and the travel sucked even more.  Besides, there were too many hyper-competitive people who were willing to give everything to the job, including their integrity.  I was not one of them.  And although I found I could still compete with the best of them while giving much less of myself, I’d always be at a disadvantage.  I’d always be pressed for more, and I wasn’t willing to give any more.  In fact, I was already giving too much.

So the seed that was planted 20 years earlier has finally hatched into a plan to travel the world, slowly.