Greetings From the Road

Well, I'm on the road again, though my mode of transportation is a bit different. I'm not sticking my thumb in the wind, waiting for a ride while smiling at every vehicle that passes. I'm driving around in a 77,000 pound tanker truck. A couple years ago, if someone had told me I'd one day be a trucker, I would have laughed at them. Now, I can see myself doing this for a while.

The job: Hauling a tank full of liquid for about a thousand miles and then pumping it out into a customer's tank while making sure that I don't burn myself with acid, inhale something poisonous, detonate a 45,000 pound bomb, or misfile the mound of paperwork that comes with it all.

The perks: I get to hang out in truck stops all over the country, face new challenges, sleep in a different state each night, work my own schedule, travel and earn some good money.

The drawbacks: One wrong move and the liquid sloshes too hard, rolling the truck over and not being home but one week out of the month.

But what's the real reason I'm a trucker? It all boils down to one word, the word that got me started on all this adventures tuff in the first place. WANDERLUST. I have to travel. I have to keep moving. If I don't I get antsy, and we all know what happens when I get antsy. I get moving. This job satisfies my wanderlust (at least for now). And the ability to take all my weekends at once will greatly help me out when it comes to shorter trips.

So why am I telling you this? Because, my change in career illustrates how a person can adapt and change his station to better suit his needs or desires. I was a graphic artist for almost fifteen years, a good run in a career by any standard. But I changed my source of income entirely, spending two months in trucking school and another 6 weeks in training with my employer. Why? Because it works for me.

If you're going to get what you want out of life, you have to be willing to let go of the things you no longer need. There's no such thing as a career, just a string of jobs in a related field. You're not tied to that field. If the day comes that another line of work would better serve your interests, then change your line of work. The idea that one must stick with it because they've invested a certain number of years just doesn't make sense.

The same goes for your home. So your kids have moved out and your house seems empty. So what if you have a lot of great memories in that house. Those memories will remain with you forever. Get a different house better suited to your current situation.

We must adapt in order to be happy. Life is constantly changing and parts of us, some of those details that make up our lives will have to change with it. Your life is a story, it's up to you to write it.

What will make you happy? What changes do you need to make in order to bring more joy to your life? What do you need to add? What do you need to leave behind?

Don't worry about leaving something behind. In the end, it's just a thing. And the world is full of things. Losing one makes room for another.