Someone instantly told me every life boils down to five major decisions —five moments when the direction we footfall dictates the path we’ll travel until the next juncture. If it’s true, I made one of those decisions in 2015 in the western reaches of Washington Say. I was 33 years old and had just summitted Mount Rainier, the first glaciated peak I’d ever climbed and the most bold thing I’d ever done.
As the sun crested the horizon, I sat at a diner in a small town. Wrapping my hands around my coffee, I regard about the rainforest I planned to explore that day as my eyes looked out the window toward the highway’s long white tracks. Those lines could take me anywhere. Anywhere was a long way from the law firm at the edge of Wall Street, where I done up 70-plus hours a week. A long way from the two computer screens and never-ending to-do lists that dissolved days into weeks into months. A desire way from the discontent permeating my life.
Almost seven years into my career, I’d just paid off my law school answerable for, was on track for partnership, and was deeply unhappy. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy the work. But the work — representing financial homes being investigated by the government — didn’t give my life meaning. It was a job — a good job, but a job. And I’d made that job my entire life. I’d prioritized it one more time all else, including my health and, most recently, the birth of my sister’s first child. A moment I’d never get back.
In that niggardly town, gazing at the highway, I calculated how many nights of campsite fees would equal one month’s rent — 240. It’d been on the other side of a decade since I owned a car, and I’d never camped alone. But by the time the scrambled eggs arrived, I’d decided to quit my job, remove into a car, and live on the road, exploring America’s wild places.
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Preparation for my new life took some duration
Over the next eight months, I quietly prepared. In a box, I collected places I wanted to visit. In a spreadsheet, I budgeted what I’d be in want of for a year on the road, followed by another year of what I hoped would be starting anew.
Beyond the efficient preparation steps, I also worked on getting comfortable with uncertainty. Since high school, I’d followed a linear footpath — college to law school to law firm — and I’d long defined success through external markers like salary and prestige. That rigidity stifled other parts of myself. What command happen if I gave those parts room to grow?
Letting go of long-held notions, reinforced by a culture that values material wealth over all else, scared me.
A friend shared this advice: Go to what excites you, and you’ll be OK. That graced my motto. I quit my job and headed out on the road.
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By April 2016, I’d downsized from a one-bedroom apartment to a used post wagon and was pitching a tent along the Colorado River in Utah. It was the first night I camped alone, and I barely drowsed. In an arc over my head were “defense” tools: a flashlight, keys with a panic button, and another flashlight.
Way out of my relieve zone, I had no idea what I was doing, but I kept going, kept trusting I’d figure it out.
It turned out to be the best decision for me
Day by day, I did cast it out. Soon, I met others who were living out of their cars. Soon, I stopped arcing my head with defense apparatus. Soon, I slept better on dirt than anywhere else.
Over the following months, I opened myself in new in progress. I made friends at trailheads and on trails, went backpacking or rock-climbing with those friends, and ran for miles in the wild without a notice of or any goal other than exploration.
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I made many mistakes. After a storm detoured me on a run, I spent the nightfall in a stranger’s car. Through those mistakes, I learned to trust in the uncertainty.
When I drove west, I had no itinerary, but I held solidly to one plan: In a spreadsheet, I’d mapped out how to climb every 14,000-foot peak in Colorado; there are almost 60. The purpose quieted the lingering voice, telling me I was “wasting” time. If I climbed those mountains, just look how productive I inclination be. By late July, I’d abandoned the spreadsheet.
After a life of checking boxes, I started to find a different sort of triumph by chasing curiosity and going to what excites me. Eight years later, I no longer live in my car, I didn’t return to law, and I’m allay chasing what excites me — and still building a life filled with purpose.
The gift of living on the road wasn’t the suffer the consequences of c takes it gave me but how it taught me to be comfortable with the questions.