Even a blind man knows when the sun is shining.
In August 2009, I was sitting at a stop light across the street from the bank that I was headed to after a short lunch break. I started thinking about the next 4 hours of time that I was going to waste sitting in an office staring at my computer. I thought to myself, am I really going to do this again?
A bumper sticker on the car in front of me asked a simple question. It was a question I’ve heard before but never really put a lot of thought into it because I am not a very religious man. But today it screamed out to me, “What Would Jesus Do?”
I applied the question to my current unhappy situation. Still waiting for the light to turn green and wondering why I was going to piss away another nice summer afternoon, I asked myself that question. Well, what would Jesus do?
Granted I have a limited knowledge of what he might actually do since my years of religious freedom are now beginning to outnumber the years I was forced into Sunday school. But here is what I decided Jesus might do.
Grow his hair long, walk around in sandals, and share wine with large groups of people. Heck yeah! Jesus would never waste an afternoon sitting in a bank. And why should I.
This, along with hundreds of other moments of seeing that I needed a change led to the best decision of my life. I had climbed the corporate ladder to a position of Vice President of a $2 Billion Financial Institution. But this wasn’t my dream. I never wanted to do this, it just happened. I could have easily sat back and let life pass me by but instead I took the leap and decided to live my life on purpose. After all, life is too short for anything else.
Great post Hawbs!
CONGRATS!!! So happy for your and your family! Good luck and best wishes!
Bring on the wine!
I have always thought this story was awesome.
You do realize that your hair grew a half inch that day?
Drew,
I just found your blog today (via Hip Mountain giveaway on Soulemama). I have already mentioned in to my husband, who of course is in the same spot as you were when you wrote this post. It may already be in your blog, and I will continue looking around at spare moments, but I am wondering. What did you do to position yourself to walk away? Surely, you didn’t just quit one day and start bouncing family checks? What were the steps you took to put yourself and your family in the best position possible to really give this a go? THAT is where he needs inspiration. We know the answers (pay off debt, pay off or sell cars, public school and all that but I would still like to hear someone else’s journey toward these things). Off to look at the site a bit more.
-n
Nicole, Thank you for this great comment/question. I am trying to get to that, but lets face it, there is an awful lot to this story
.
The short answer is that while I was battling through the day to day, I was also helping my wife build a business (Hip Mountain Mama) out of our house. With some savings, some available credit, and a profitable business while at the same time simplifying a few things out of the budget we decided to make the leap.
It was nothing but a ton of hard work, dedication, and a strong belief that it would work.
Check out http://hipmountainmamablog.com/2009/11/08/a-new-beginning/