How to Find Your Next Big Love Affair With Life

Two years is a very long time to decide.

Anything, really: whether to stay in a relationship you’ve outgrown, if it’s time to move closer to family before you regret it, and definitely whether to risk starting over in a brand-new career at 40.

But two years is what it takes.

Two years is THE MAGIC NUMBER.

I know this because it has taken me precisely two years to do something of the same…and I’m fast. 💨 Not fast at chopping onions, nor fast at replying to texts that only require a ‘yes,’ nor fast at unsubscribing from emails I’ve hated for a decade. And, I’m definitely not fast at folding laundry before it becomes part of the carpet.

But, I am fast in other ways.

Fast at throwing myself into a big, wild career experiment, fast at building the plane while it’s already barreling down the runway, and fast at betting on myself when everyone else is still waiting for a permission slip.

And, still, for the past two years since I bought the farmhouse, I have been—percolating. Considering. Deciding.

Do I want this?
Do I want this new big thing I have been dreaming up?

I have found, in my experience, that we don’t do big things cold. You don’t sit idle in an existence you are displeased with, and suddenly one day show up with a fire in your guts, ready to change the world.

Just like your asshole hamstrings, you gotta warm your asshole brain up. (Said with jalapeño-soaked love, of course.)

And, the only way to warm your brain up? Is by changing what it sees. Feeding it something new. Giving it a new challenge. Giving it something novel to explore.

• This is what I was doing when I bought the farmhouse and the cottage and the 5 acres on a whim. (As a perpetual digital nomad who’s been traveling for 15+ years, this was new!)
• This is what I was doing when I decided to buy myself ALL the power tools. (And trust that I could stay still, long enough to use them.)
• This is what I was doing when I decided to teach myself how to decorate. (And lean into the idea of ‘home’ as a desirable ambition, rather than an ‘average’ one.)
• This is what I was doing when I started researching paint, and color, and British wallpaper EVERYTHING (as someone who chronically wears black, white, and grey. 🤣)
• This is what I was doing when I picked out the tile, and the fixtures, and the light fixtures, and the artwork. (The vintage shops along the east coast are SO, SO sick. Saw a bookcase from 1700s France the other day and nearly walked into the ocean.)
• This is what I was doing when I bought the dirt, and bought the plants, and wrecked my ankles trying to landscape a hill. (For the love, wear supportive sneakers! Do not wear Adidas slides!)
• This is what I was doing when I decided to teach myself to how to make something beautiful, out of a new medium.

Our lives stagnate because our brains do.

Brains need to be fed.

They need to be nourished.

They need to be stretched.

They need to be hot and bothered and flirted with and turned ON.

They need new mediums to work with.

And, that’s really hard to make happen when you’re seeing and experiencing the same exact things, day in and day out, with nothing new to tackle or bat your eyelashes at. 👁️ It’s like feeding your brain empty calories—and then wondering why you aren’t a bodybuilder.

For most people, the things I’ve been learning how to do for the past two years are probably normal, everyday things. Yes, you jerks knew about the washing machine filter and didn’t tell me! But, for me—someone who has lived out of a suitcase for decades—these have been novel experiences that have built a brand-new ‘wing’ into my brain, if you will. Sort of like what will happen to you, if you start spending significant time abroad: your brain accommodates whatever you throw at it. Eventually. :)

And, this brand-new wing of mine?

It’s a ravenous horny little teenager. Has a *total* crush on all of this new information. Sort of like what happens when someone has a baby and then inevitably becomes a baby blogger: it’s all that new input that’s charging ‘em up. Must! Talk! About! This!

And, this new wing of my brain, too, has been seeking a place of its own.

Somewhere to write about and discuss all the things, so we have an outlet to make sense of it all.

This is how we make meaning. This is how we create fascination in our lives. We let our interests take the lead: and then we get the fuck out of the way.

Who am I to argue with my own interests?

Why convince myself out of something that excites me?

Too often, we see the writing on the wall; we notice something that lights us up…and we ignore it. We let the logistics of “but, how?” become the thing that leads.

But, how? But, how? But, how?

You know how?

By trusting that this is true:

You are far more wonderful than you think.

And, so are your ideas. And so are the things you’re excited about. And so are the ways you express them to the world.

Only YOU can express these ideas to the world in YOUR way.

And this Tuesday, August 26th?

I’ll be revealing a brand-new passion project of my own.

It’s a brand-new site, and a brand-new era, and a brand-new shade of orange 😉, and (also!) a brand-new round of Selfish School, my program that helps you take a passion you love and turn it into a $250K remote business from anywhere in the world.

Even from the front porch of a cottage you swore was just a phase…until it wasn’t.

And even when you have spent two years percolating, considering, deciding…it’s not because you’re slow.

It’s because you’re ready.