Today I am 22. Time seems to be speeding up. I can remember exactly a year ago writing about turning 21. Yesterday, almost.
The piece titled “First Step, Again” was about getting focused and starting to hustle, again. It was inspired from a journal entry a year prior about my frustration with college and the next step:
Tonight is the first night of my new life. Tonight I am vowing to make a change, to start my new life as someone who is not entitled. Tonight I am making the decision to give it all up, to start from the bottom, to make it to the top. (3/22/10)
The update:
A little more than a year later, I left school, work full time, and earn everything on my own. I am just now fully embracing #2, selling all my material goods: I have 20+ items on craigslist and have donated more than half my clothes to either Goodwill or Buffalo Exchange. Thanks to the Minimalists I am headed down the minimalist route. (4/4/11)
With this declaration:
Especially with how fast everything changes today, [a chosen path] will divert. Mine has changed. I did what I wanted. Now, I need more. I need adventure, ambition, and action. So on the day of my 21st birthday, I am making a new plan, setting out on another journey, building on my resolution to make it to the top. Coming along?
Then and Now
I had a different mindset back then. Over the last two years I have gone from over-the-top-put-my-head-down-and-hustle to a much more laid back let-things-unfold mind set. However, at my core, I still fully agree with the line “Now, I need more. I need adventure, ambition, and action.”
That’s why I am embarking on my 2-year world travel trip. In the same city, same environment, with many of the same experiences: I’m stagnating. I grew up in Austin, it’s time to leave.
Now I need adventure, to stoke my ambition, to seek action. Now I need the next step in my journey. I took a step by dropping out of college. I took a step by starting Action Catalyst. I took a few steps by growing in a new direction. Now, the next step: travel.
I’m 22. That doesn’t really mean much to me because I don’t feel like I am 22. A birthday is just another day marking another event. Another landmark, another milepost. Another year. What will happen this year? I don’t know. I really like the idea of planning it out, of thinking of where I will be, but then again, I don’t. I would rather do a year in review than a year in projection. So…
Things I Started
- Living without Goals
- Building a Meaningful, Lasting Relationship with my Cousins
- Regulating Friendships / Influences
- Pushing my comfort zones
- Living with Less
- Not Caring What You Think of Me
Places I went
- Portland
- New Mexico
- Washington, DC
- Texas Time Traveling
Adventures
- Crane Climbing
- Mueller Tower
- Built a custom fixed gear
Initiatives
- Wild Card Salon
- Texas Time Traveling
- Urban Trek
- Action Catalyst
Looking forward. Curious what I will reflective on in a year.
