Family Life
For a few years, Leanne and I have talked about making a change. It was the possibility of working in Europe, or moving to the Carolinas, or something else. There has been a stir in our hearts to make a change. For me, it’s been a soft stir, I love exactly where I am.
Henderson has been our home for over thirteen years. We’ve lived in four houses, each one being sold helping us buy the next better house. The cost of living, for the most part, has been cheap. Over the last several years, however, it has jumped, but I think that’s happened everywhere in the US. Nevada also has the added benefit of having no state income tax. We’ve raised our children here, the only home they’ve known. We have family, have built a strong community, and live in one of the safest cities in the country. All of this, and more, has provided us with a solid foundation to build our lives.
Work Life
Things at work had started to go stale for me. I’m a Project Manager (PM), and for the most part, I hate project managers. The running theme is that PMs are useless. They ask basic questions like, “is this task done yet?”, “how much of the task do you have left?”, “when is it going to be done?”, and “I need it done today!”. And after all of those questions, the line of questioning starts again, but this time with a different task. Project managers also say things like, “this is hot!”, “let’s reprioritize”, “is it critical path?”, “let’s parking lot that”, and “we’ll circle back to that topic in a different meeting”. Speaking of meetings, that’s the best thing that a PM can do, schedule another meeting! PMs also think they know more than they actually know, and will hold onto this knowledge, and even sink the ship over it. If you love scheduling meetings and task management, Project Management is for you!
All joking aside, I really loved my position. I felt like I was the coach of a team, like Bill Belichick, fostering a team to be their best, then hitting that Super Bowl moment with a project launch or a go-live. My main objective was always to build team camaraderie, letting everyone have a voice, leaning on people and letting them shine, problem solving, strategic initiatives, even prioritizing tasks for the team when they feel like they’re underwater; it’s right up my alley. The customer is the tough part, and that is hit or miss. Typically, if you’re a good PM, you can turn the customer around and have them follow you. But there are those special individuals that go nuclear when you don’t agree with their direction, those folks are fun!
The company that I worked for during the entirety of my time spent in Las Vegas was Sunrise Technologies. They are the best! The culture, the customers that they work with, and the personnel that they hire are all top notch. Everyone that you work side by side with in the organization is so smart. I can go on and on, this company deserves to be on a list of best companies to work for.
Karoshi
But after 13 years of high intensity stressful work, I found myself shutting out the people around me that I loved. I became quiet over the years with my close friends, not communicating in ways that are healthy. One of my buddies said to me, “I know that you aren’t sports betting any more, but you can send texts that aren’t related to sports every now and then”. I was living for the rat race, burning myself out with every 14 hour day that I worked. And what for? I worked from home, which was a blessing. But even being home and seeing my family all day if I wanted to, I’d be cold and grumpy at the dinner table. My relationship with my wife and kids was trivial and mundane. Was all of the money and lifestyle worth it? Was I even keeping the money that I made? Not really. It was spend, spend, and more spend. Burning the days away, marching towards an end.
I am not the first to stumble upon this concept, this feeling. I realized this when I decided to take up advice that an old friend of mine gave me. He said that I should read the book, “Your Money or Your Life” by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez. Honestly, I have not read much of it at the time that I am writing this, but it immediately resonated with me. The book opened up by asking questions about what is your money really doing for you, how are you are viewing your job, and whether your job become your identity. It started to lay the groundwork for a general minimizing of the need for possessions in one’s life. However, the main thing that stood out for me was a concept called “karoshi”, which is Japanese for “death by overwork”. Not only is it fitting that I am reading this on our first stop while in Japan, but it epitomizes this feeling that I’ve been having.
Back to my current status: I am a project manager. I’ve been in this role for the last 12 years. My thought on this is this, I can take a year off and, guess what, a million PM jobs will be waiting for me when I get back. And, what if I want to do something else? I’ve seen lesser skilled and experienced people be promoted over me. What if this experience of traveling the world leads me to bigger and better things in my career? I never wanted to take that leap, I’ve been too comfortable in where I’ve been. It’s time for a change.
The Fall
Leanne and I had been discussing making a change for some time when I had a real life change occur. Of all things, I was hanging Christmas lights on my house when the ladder slipped from underneath me. I knocked myself out for 6 minutes, broke my left hand and my left orbital bone, and obviously suffered a serious concussion. This event was not the primary reason why I decided to pull the trigger on this adventure, but it was the tipping point, literally. (If my close friends can joke about this by asking me to help them hang their Christmas lights, I can joke about this as well.)
This event changed me, even though it’s cliché, it really hit me hard (haha). Life is short. I felt the symptoms of standard concussion after effects. I had a hard time finding words, I couldn’t hold my own in an argument, and the short term memory was not like it used to be. More than usual I would walk into a room and forget why I was there. Most, if not all, of these things lasted only about six months, but the point was driven home for me, much like a smack to the forehead.
Also, like I wrote about in my Japan post, I believe that God is calling our family to take this journey. There is not one specific missional objective. We are not going to an unreached land to spend the entirety of our time trying to spread the Word. But the moments ahead of us, spent family member with family member, makes me realize that there is more to this world then the daily grind. There’s no doubt about it, I’ll have to go back to it someday. However during this time we can seek ways to directly impact the spread of God’s Good Word while we travel And, we can spend the time strengthening our family as well.
The Risk
We are not a rich family, but we’ve worked our way out of incredible debt. We’ve got enough resources to live on, and enough where if we kept on this track a retirement nest egg would be nicely built. But what am I going to do with all of this money, spend it hanging out with my wife once the kids are out of the house? Please, I’d rather be working in my 70s! (Just kidding, just kidding.) What better time to spend the money than now while our kid’s lives are being molded in our image. What better way to spend the money than to use it to travel the world, rather than using it on country club fees 20 years from now.
This could be the biggest mistake of our lives. We sold our dream house. We are taking the kids away from their friends and family. We have to leave our dog behind with our good friends. We are crushing the hearts of the entire community that we’ve built. We are leaving our church and the familiarity of being comfortable attending every Sunday. And, I am publishing this in a blog for the world, and future employers, to read (see my realization about karoshi). These things will not be the same when we get back. Our kids may never forgive us for pulling them out of their comfort zone. We are going to miss the life events of our friends and family. There is a lot to risk.
The Reward
But we wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t believe that there is a lot to gain as well. One whole year of no one else except being together with our family. On most days, the only adult that Leanne and I will be able to talk to during waking hours is each other. We are going to get cozy sleeping on planes and really understanding each other’s idiosyncrasies. Plus, we get to experience some of the world while we do it. Completely out of our comfort zone. About every 10 to 12 years I make a bold, major life change. This is just that time when it’s needed. As long as we stay safe, pray about the right things, and let God move us in the way that He wants, whatever happens over the next 12 months will be a blessing to our family. I can’t wait to experience what happens next!
Peapod on Purpose 