First Stop - Leaving Lucas
Written on 6:59 AM by John
About two years ago Meredith became fully disenchanted with our lack of adventure and lack of future plans to move past a monotonous life of dull work that neither of us was enjoying. I fully agreed with her sentiment, however after being in the Army, just about anything was tolerable and better than many alternatives that I could think of. The point that I was missing, and the point that she was nice enough to share, is that life isn’t about measuring yourself against lower alternatives, but about measuring yourself against what could be. Or, even better, not what could be, but what should be.
This is when my annoyingly anal accounting side took full control. I jumped on the computer and began creating “The Life Spreadsheet.” As many of you have heard, The Life Spreadsheet has guided much of our activities over the last year and a half. This is proprietary technology at its best, folks. Our spreadsheet provided us many things: traveling options, moving location options, work scenarios, master’s program scenarios, and the budget. Ultimately, the budget became the focus. But, before that happened, we went though more cities to move to, travel options, and work/education scenarios than I care to remember. Finally, we decided on quitting work in October 2008, traveling to South East Asia for 3 months, and moving to San Francisco (I have to say that the moving thing has been by far the most controversial of all decisions).
Ok, so you decide to quit work for 3 months during the most tumultuous time of our country’s economy (at least during my lifetime). And, you really have no idea what you will do once you get back, how long it will take to find a job, or even where to live. What the hell are you thinking? Let’s go to The Life Spreadsheet and see….
The Life Spreadsheet has allowed us to calculate up front travel costs, monthly travel expenses, expected monetary needs upon return, lag time to finance during job search, etc. This gave us our budget needs, so that we could start a monthly savings rate that would be necessary to accomplish our goals. Wow, it actually works out! We can travel for 3 months move to San Francisco and have plenty of rainy day funds for any hiccups along the way or future unforeseen circumstances! The stogy accountant approves and thus Meredith’s travel plans are at the forefront of our thoughts for the next year and a half.
Now the day is here. We have quit our jobs, packed our belongings and are now sitting at a computer in High Point, NC—aka Aunt Lynn’s house. Aunt Lynn has taken on a pivotal role in The Life Spreadsheet. She has taken on keeper of the dog, Lucas, and keeper of the stuff (to be shipped to SF upon our return). How exiting it is to know be well on our way.
We will spend the next two weeks eating ourselves into obesity and drinking ourselves into oblivion to condition our bodies fully for international travel. Joking, of course, we will be visiting family.
Stay tuned! We depart for Shanghai on October 7, and will update the blog as soon as traveling commences.
Where can I get a copy of the 'life spreadsheet'? They don't teach you about those in grad school!