Dear World: If You're Thinking About Giving it All Up to Do Something Different, *This is for You*

I’m Ash, and I’m a writer, traveler, nonconformist & nomad, and every week I’m sharing funny field notes from around the world. Currently, I’m in America writing about what it’s been like to return home to my small town, twenty years after living abroad.

It takes courage to do things no one will applaud you for.

I know, no one thinks they ‘need applause’—but, 50% of the things you’ve done in your life is because you wanted it.

Not because you wanted to.

Think back to choosing your career. I feel so bad for all of the poets who became business majors; all of the photographers who became lawyers; all of the philosophers who became professors.

Hell, even I tried to do it! A thousand years ago I went and got a master’s degree in Linguistics. For what? To say I have a master’s degree in Linguistics? To prove to the world that I am “an intellectual?” (Actually I’m pretty sure it was so I could teach at the university level, which meant I could get a job overseas teaching, which was the whole goal in the first place. So, why not just go overseas? Why must we so methodically plan and credential our way into the life we actually want, instead of just living it?)

I mean, for christ’s sake, how many times have you wanted to say “f*ck it, I’m running away and opening a bookshop in Scotland and living in a teeny, tiny cottage and giving this whole game up?”————but then never do?

I think I should start a new business and it should be this: the LET’S GET YOU A BOOKSHOP AND TEENY, TINY COTTAGE IN SCOTLAND business. Wouldn’t that be a riot? Like, that’s the official name. How much would you want to come enter my storefront if *that* were the title on the front plaque? 🤣

Scotland is where I’m headed next. Once I’ve finished renovating the Pennsylvania property. Renovations take a long time when you’re doing most of the work yourself, because you would be surprised how often YOUR HUMAN BODY GETS TIRED! Like, whattttttt? You simply can’t muster the energy to go paint a ceiling, but certainly at 2 o’clock in the morning you’ll be wide awake thinking about whether you’ve accidentally developed a “phone voice” that makes you sound like a hostage.

Then again, sometimes it just goes back to basic procrastination. The things you imagine taking hours, that only take minutes. So you conveniently convince yourself that you should probably roast a chicken instead. Can you believe that I, Ash Ambirge, would *ever* finding “roasting a chicken” easier than “painting a ceiling?” I KNOW. THAT’S HOW FUCKED UP THE BRAIN IS.

Except we should probably cut ourselves some slack.

You know what I did yesterday?

Excavated the driveway!!!!! From dawn ‘til dusk! With a John Deere 85!!! To make it wider!!!

I wasn’t running the excavator myself by any means, but I DID rent it, and I DID get to run it, and I DID get a lesson, and I DID get to move dirt around, and I DID ride in the bucket. (Which must be how some people feel when they’re on airplanes: sheer terror!)

WILL BE SHARING VIDEOS.

My friend Zack came and ran a dump truck for us that I rented from my friend Greg. Turns out, growing up in a small town means you have built-in connections. I have learned so much from my childhood friends; things that I did not learn in grad school studying Linguistics.

Neighborliness.
Helpfulness.
Hardiness.
Competence.
Skill.
Scrappiness.
Ingenuity.
Humility.
Work ethic.
Accountability.
Self-reliance.
…And the notion that you can learn how to do anything.

You have to.

If your fence breaks, it’s your fence.
If your shovel breaks, you finish the job with your hands.
If your heart breaks, you still show up to stack the wood.

This is something I have found to be true: you gotta get out there and live your way into a new, improved version of yourself. You can’t plan it. You can’t prepare for it. You can’t study “how.” You must simply stop procrastinating. You must go paint the ceiling.

Imagine trying to learn how to run an excavator from a book?

Imagine trying to learn how to run a bookshop from a book?

Imagine how to run a life from a book?

I think about the people who are constantly reading the bible, trying to read themselves into being a better person. I’m not sure that’s how that works. I’m pretty sure you’ve got to go outside into the world, and put yourself in the kinds of scenarios that would require it. This is how you become a better person: by letting life scuff you up a little. By stepping out of the house and into the friction of real life. You can’t become kind by sitting in your living room highlighting verses about kindness. You don’t grow courage reading about it—you grow it when you say yes to something that scares the absolute hell out of you.

The world isn’t a classroom; it’s a proving ground. You don’t learn how to live from the sidelines. You learn by bumping into the edges of things—people, places, choices—and seeing what you’re really made of when there’s no chapter summary to tell you the answer.

Because life doesn’t happen in your head. It happens in motion—out there in the mess, where things break and you fix them. Where you figure it out one ceiling, one fence, one risk at a time.

Someday, I’ll be in a teeny, tiny house Scotland, drinking tea, and laughing about how I once learned to run an excavator in Pennsylvania. But really, it’ll all be the same story:

Learning by doing.
Building by breaking.
Living by trying.

Maybe real courage isn’t about applause at all—it’s about building a life you’d still choose, even if no one ever noticed.

And even if no one claps for you… you’ll have a life that makes their applause irrelevant.

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