Blast From the Past...

6am, get up, take a shower, get dressed, grab a cup of coffee and head off to the office. Sit there and look at the big world outside passing you by as you slave away over a pile of paperwork. Punch out, head home to mow your yard before your neighbors complain about it being too tall and disgracing the neighborhood. Take a shower, grab supper, check your email and head to bed. Repeat in less than 8 hours. Sound like the American dream to you? Not me. I have fought this concept for quite some time. It's made raised a lot of controversy, made people ridicule me for it and ask me why I was "too good" for this type of life. I was told those who don't work, don't eat. Those who don't work hard don't ever get anything out of life. Those people couldn't be more wrong. I've watched some of my family and some of my friends slave their lives away just to support their families and/or the lifestyle they wanted. And I've watched people who make more money than they can spend be so miserable you would think their house is being repossessed. We are told that in order to have a "good life" we have to have a pile of money. Now why is money such an important factor in the "good life" model? Well, its simple, supposedly if you have money, you can afford to have a good life and take time to enjoy life. But one seldom does such a thing. I was never rich or poor growing up. I was simply "blessed" I had more money than someone my age knew what to do with most of the time. If I was running low, I always had a "backup" plan to get myself out of where I was at and get myself back into the game. Money was always important to me. I never wanted to work, I hated work, I to this day, hate the concept of work. I will never understand why someone would purposely go to a job in which they hate and stay there for eight hours or more. It makes about as much sense as renting a movie you hate every night and forcing yourself to watch it over and over. I associate work with hating life. Life isn't worth living if all you ever do is work. Don't think for a minute I am saying that you SHOULDN'T work, because that is NOT what I'm saying. However, I am saying that I dislike work and if I had the option I wouldn't partake in this action. But, back to the matter at hand, there is this theory that most people subscribe too and I never have. This theory is the "you must go to school to make something of yourself in order to have a happy life" theory. You know what I am talking about. Think. How many of your friends went off to college when the time came? How many of them hated it? How many of them hated their major but continued to go because they "had to" because they needed a good job to have a "good life?" When did living the "American dream" become such a complicated task? Where did this idea come from? Who was the first person that said, "I have to have a good job making six figures a year to have a good life" whoever said that, was an idiot. I can remember telling a good friend of mine that I wanted to be a UPS driver when I grew up. Mind you I was roughly 15 years old at the time so I had plenty of time to think about it. I did research on it and found out from a book I picked up at the library that UPS drivers made around $40,000 a year. I remember telling my good friend that and my good friend said "$40,000 a year is no money" that good friend was my granddad, one of the biggest inspirations in my life thus far. This man was his own success story. He was from a huge family, born poor, worked his ass off for anything and everything he ever owned. Was in everything coming and going trying to make an honest buck but never made it rich. He gave it his all and did manage to retire comfortably and enjoy the rest of his years. Working as long and hard as he did is something I have never been fond of doing. Working two jobs and barely having time to see your family or friends. Working 16 hours out of the day is something I'm not a fan of trying. In this day and age where everyone has to have a college degree just to get a job flipping burgers at a fast food joint, it almost seems like happiness is out of reach. At least for me it did. I was suicidal at one point; depression and anger were the only emotions I knew. I hated school and everything associated with it, I hated my job because it seemed like all I did was make money to pay bills and it went out quicker than it came in. I got myself in debt at a ripe old age of 19 and really had no direction at all. All I knew was that school and work was altering who I was. It was around this time that someone asked me what I wanted to do in life and I said "I want to be a free agent for the rest of my life", at the time I had no idea what that really meant. I was more less being a smartass to the person who asked me the question; little did I realize that the phrase I had just coined would have such an impact on my life. I began contemplating on just what a "free agent" was and what they actually did. To the best of my knowledge this is what I meant when I said that, I want to be able to do what I want, when I want. I want to be able to go where I want, when I want. If I want to go snowboarding in Colorado, I'm going to go. If I want to go trail riding in Utah, I am going to go. A free agent, is a concept more than an actual person. It's the ability to roam freely about the country, even the world as often as one wants. If this was a job, it would be the greatest job on earth. In the chapters ahead I will explain more about this ideology and how it effects you mentally, spiritually, and financially; and how all this affects who you are as a person. Make no mistake about it; your life will change once you become a free agent. It's not an easy concept to grasp, it's an even harder one to live, but the reward far outweighs the risk. The few that grasp this idea and make it their own are the happiest people on the planet. They are the ones that enjoy life and live it to the fullest. They don't take things too serious and don't let life get them down…. and that is what it’s all about. Life is too short to be anything but happy.