My goodness! “Where do I go from here?” Have you said that, felt that, ACTED on that? The helplessness builds in your psyche like a consuming fire, devouring what was once good. Perhaps you’re at a dead-end job, struggling to get a business off the ground or trying to get married or have children. The future is mostly, unknown. However, I believe earnestly that we have a say in our own destinies. Yes, things happen that are out of our control. Bad things can and do happen to good people, but it’s what you do afterwards that distinguishes who you are!
So, what is my outlook? (side note: I really struggle with the word “outlook” as Outlook, the Microsoft email app on a desktop is something I loathe, but my current position in IT requires me to not only use it, but know its deepest, darkest secrets. Oh how I loathe thee!) Let’s start with where I am and by extension of Jess, where we are. I work a full time job as an IT MacGyver in a more-or-less stable job, though without much trajectory for growth. It provides enough to support Jess and Elijah at home and due to restraint in other areas, gives us a little wiggle room to occasionally travel. Jess is focused on raising Elijah, bringing him up in a loving atmosphere while dealing with the fact the we humans are very messy. Physically and emotionally. We are both putting a great deal of attention toward our family business. Jess is concentrating on couples photography while I seek out commercial multimedia content creation. We both love seeing small businesses succeed, so we often work together to help promote the ones that we believe in. We are also trying to grow our little family. If you’ve followed us here for any length of time, those struggles have been laid out.
That’s where we are, where do we go from here” The simple answer is, onward. The deeper cut is to wherever our feet are pointed. We have made a decision to point our feet toward a future of greater flexibility. Not to just sit back and relax (though, on occasion…) or to grow our bank accounts (still a goal though…), but to be able to affect change, help people, make something happen. Those are broad goals, yet. You could accomplish those in a regularly scheduled career, it’s mostly attitude. But we are doing it through business. Our dream is a grow this little thing into a bigger thing, one that lets us work while travelling as a family, seeing new places and interacting with new faces. We don’t want to go full nomad, so we’d still have a home base, be that in The Dalles or somewhere else (COUGH: Bozeman).
That’s the dream! So how do you make it happen? I’m glad you ask, because that’s my next point! A METRIC-CRAP-TON of work. It’s not easy, and it comes at a different cost to each one of us. I work a full time job, so it can be challenging to get in proper business development time. I do my best to spend time with Jess and Elijah, but I also stay up late most every night. Jess utilizes nap-time, grandparents and coffee shop play areas to get in hers. It’s a lot of work! But you want to know what? We are seeing progress! It’s been a long time coming, but it’s taken an attitude shift for me and some really challenging situations as a family to realize what it is that we are trying to accomplish here. We both are pretty forthcoming in this journey and are laying out the precious deets here and our respective business blogs.