Shifting: The Next Chapter After Corporate America
Shifting is a word that my wife came up with as a replacement for the word retirement because I haven't really retired. Nope, I've cut the chains, or, as my friend Colleen Miniuk would say, I'm a Corporate Escapee. She's part of my story in getting me to believe in myself and offering wisdom and guidance along the way. If you're not familiar with her, she's a professional photographer and corporate escapee (I think she may have coined the word). Check her out; she's full of life and her images tell that story!
It's been a desire of mine to leave corporate America for several years now and to do it early enough to live a more meaningful life, to have more purpose, and to help others along the way.
Today is my day.
I'm off to Great Places!
In a whole different way!
I'm 55, and that was my magic number - or at least the unrealistic age I had in mind to do this. There is nothing easy about making the leap this early; it's scary and perhaps the most difficult choice I've made in my adult life.
Corporate pays well; there's health insurance, 401K company matching, the bi-weekly "spoon-fed" pay-check, oh, and there's that other thing... yeah, the very thing that sucks the very life from you day after day, year after year. You feel like a cog in the machine, grinding daily until you're worn out and replaced, or shall I say, until they retire you for a newer cog.
Why am I sharing this? What does this have to do with photography? I guess you can replace "photography" with whatever fits for you. Some folks are happy in Corporate and feel accomplished and productive. Others, not so much.
As for me, I'm not looking back; it's full steam ahead. There's much to do and little time for worrying. I've come to realize that the most difficult life decisions begin with a plan and then an execution or action. The action, or what I like to call "Pressing GO!" is perhaps where many of us hesitate while at a green traffic light, afraid to press the accelerator as we watch the light turn yellow, then red, only to wonder what lies beyond the horizon ahead.
We idle and waste more time at the intersection - "The Waiting Place... green, yellow, red... repeat. Pressing Go means you've made a plan, and you've set a date for execution or action.
Pressing Go is liberating as all heck, and it's funny how the fear dissipates as you keep focused on the road ahead, you're moving, you've... "Done A Thing!" The freedom, oh, the freedom to pursue limitless possibilities, it's priceless, "Oh, the Places You'll Go!"
So, if you're idling at that intersection, full of wanderlust and a desire for limitless possibilities, don't wait till you run empty, get busy living, or get busy dying. Make a plan, then Press GO and keep moving.
“In the worship of security, we fling ourselves beneath
the wheels of routine, and before we know it,
our lives are gone."
― Sterling Hayden, Wanderer
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