If a door closes in the woods...

I've always said that our lives are generally in balance.

For every good and wonderful thing that happens to us, something bad is lurking around the corner to pull the cloud out from under us. For every stroke of ill luck suffered, there are good things that happen to us to lift us out of life's pitfalls. A certain area of life falls apart while in another, things coalesce into perfection. Opportunities slip away while others just fall into our laps. And sometimes, things come together so hard and fast that they start to break everything up; great wrecking balls of opportunity crashing into one another with you in between.

Ultimately, whichever side of the ever flipping coin we perceive is simply the one we focus on. There will always be forces pulling or pushing on us at different times and without opposing forces doing the same we'd probably just go crazy: lost in the euphoria that it doesn't get any better this, or crushed under the unbearable weight of knowing that it doesn't get any better than this.

All I can say is this: I won't let greed and insecurity ever be a force behind the decisions that I make. And that is liberating.

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I wrote the above in June 2009. It probably belongs at the beginning of this blog because it really was the seed that grew into this trip, but I was clearing out some old stuff and stumbled upon it now. It was a time in my life when something bad did happen, followed by quite a few good things. The good stuff was mainly in the job market. I had just been hired at my last job and I was receiving some juicy job offers from other places. I didn't know if I would have a job past October, but the idea for this trip was forming in my head, and while it may have seemed a little reckless I decided not to take any serious job offers where I would be expected to work more than a year. No, this was the time to hit the road. Being a consultant meant I was going to have a lot less money and could be let go any time a project was coming to a close, but it allowed me the freedom to get up and go. And while I didn't know for sure I was going to take this trip, and I didn't really know what kind of a trip it would be, I recognized that freedom.