Moment of Clarity.

This past couple of weeks has been interesting. Basically, I've been struggling with a question that now appears to have a simple solution.

Q1: If what you thought you wanted is not all that you thought it would be, would you have the courage to do something about it?

Q1a: Would you really care about what other people thought in making that decision?

I don't know why this wasn't quite clear a month ago, but it seems so simple now. Not that I've ever much cared how my actions were viewed by others as long as I could look myself in the mirror, but for some reason, the first part of that question had me at a loss. We probably all do that though...make decisions not necessarily forward-looking, but under the vast influence of events/experiences leading up to it. But just like in finance, how previous expenditures are a sunk cost that shouldn't impact your profitability decisions looking forward, it seems unnatural to look at our life decisions that way, even though we know it's logical.

Back in April or May, I jumped at this opportunity to move to NYC and work for this great airline, thinking it would open all sorts of doors to the world. Now I'm not even 3 months into the job, and it seems my values have changed, or I'm just learning myself better. In the past 30 days, I've been to Boston, Chicago, Singapore, Los Angeles and San Francisco--all for business. I would have thought that was the life a few months ago, but damn, that's NO life! How are you supposed to have real friendships moving around at that pace? After awhile, it's hard to even appreciate these experiences on your own. In my case, it told me everything I need to know when I came back into the office this week and they asked me to go to Singapore again in 2 weeks. Keep in mind, the thought of international travel is exactly why I wanted to work in this industry, and here I am, the second time they're asking me to go, and I don't even want to! I'm dreading it as a matter of fact, flying right over my birthday to go somewhere 9,535 miles from just about everybody I care about. Nah, that's not much of a life. Experience, yes. Life, no.