Roadmap

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Sitting on a cross-country flight from Portland Oregon to Boston Massachusetts, I reached into my briefcase for a book I purchased the previous day at Powell’s. If you ever get to Portland, you have to visit this independent bookstore. Trust me, it’s worth your time. The book I purchased was titled Roadmap. Although targeted to the millennials (I’ll address this term in a future post), the book addresses the quest to escape the assembly line of contemporary work and to embark on a path rooted in your passions. Ok, I know your eyes are rolling; after all, we have to pay the mortgage. Nevertheless, the authors present a compelling argument that we self impose our own limits and these limits are a product of both covert and overt messages from society and our parents. Get a good education, get a responsible job, raise a family in a nice home in the suburbs, and retire some day to relax (or decay) for the remaining years of your life.

I don’t know about you but something fundamentally changed in me after 2008. It wasn’t just about the financial and economic meltdown, it was also about years of observing my father’s life trajectories and the manner in which corporate America disposed of him after years of loyal service. Then again, he was always a miserable man. In a phone conversation with my older son in 2014, he expressed appreciation for all the things I did for him. He completed the backslapping with the comment; I don’t want to have your life when I’m your age. Ouch! Am I also becoming a miserable man? Roadmap is right; life on the treadmill will break you down in a slow grinding manner until one day you’re only left with regret. You have a personal responsibility to get in touch with what truly inspires you and then find a way to make a living being inspired. So what inspires you? As presented in Roadmap, there are numerous stories of people who successfully rebooted their lives by following their passions. Why not us? When the masses are walking in the same direction we need to walk in the opposite.

#Roadmap