I am feeling a tad overwhelmed!  As of last Monday, HK and I are making some MAJOR changes in our life!

Lately, HK has been increasingly frustrated with his life path, searching for more meaning and deciding what to do later on down the road. So we decided to watch the budget and begin making plans for an eventual career-break, somewhere between 2-5 years. Using the power of positive thinking, I had no doubt that this would, indeed, happen.

For the past several years, I have been keeping a dreamboard reflecting the things that I want out of life, long and short-term.  Most of it involves travel, relocation, growth and, of course, meeting Ellen DeGeneres (my idol). HK’s dreamboard is still in his head, but I am encouraging him to make it tangible.

SCREEEEEEEECHHH (that’s the sound of a stereo needle dragging across the record album).  After a week of deliberation and heart-to-hearts, what-if’s and why-not’s, HK formally resigned from his job at a Fortune 500 company where he has worked for many years.  This certainly wasn’t the immediate plan, but, well, life doesn’t always pan out the exact way we figure, does it?  So we’re fast-tracking our plans and furiously figuring out our next steps.  We have no schedule, no itinerary, no concrete obligations, and nothing really holding us back, so it just makes sense to move forward now.

Our goal in this journey of discovery is to figure out to how we want to live the rest of our life. We both agree that Atlanta is not our forever home. We want to live near a coast, but no further south than we already are. Mountains are important, as well. We’re not flat-landers. Actually, we’re not convinced that we need to stay in the US, although, with a family that includes 3 dogs, we will be limiting our upcoming adventures to places that are drivable. (This isn’t too far-fetched, as we drove our 2 dogs with us to live in Vancouver for a summer 2 years ago.)  Besides, they need to have a say in where “home” is gonna be!

When Zachary Scott  said “As you grow older, you’ll find the only things you regret are the things you didn’t do,”  he was speaking to me. As I’ve said before, hitting the 50 year mark was a turning point in my life.   I decided to let go of things that held me back and look forward to forging new paths in life.  Surely I’ll hesitate when I come to a difficult crossing,  but instead of turning back to the safety of the old and familiar, I’m going to hike up my britches give it my all.

What are your thoughts on living life to its fullest?  What’s holding you back from following your dreams? How can you make small steps to overcome those barriers and blaze your own trail? Please share. We all have a lot to learn form one another.