Why Wait For ‘Someday’?

It is easy enough to have a habit of putting things off that you should go ahead and do now. Putting things off can remove stress from today, but it doesn’t lead to any progress whatsoever. The quote below is one that resonates with me as my family and we reach ONE YEAR of our not so normal living situation on June 1, 2024. Waiting until the situation is perfect often means it never happens.

“‘Someday’ is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you.” – Timothy Ferriss

Our ‘Someday’ became our big chance to chase our own dreams on June 1st of 2023. I think I had personally spent way too long doing what was expected of me and not what I dreamed of doing. Stepping into our new adventure with all three of our kids a part of it was what made it so great.

I am so grateful we made the hard choice to change things up right when we did. I could never have imagined the progress we’ve made over these 365 days. What started as buying property in a small town to moving our RV on site to live in while we started building a new home became an adventure that will always be one I treasure.

It wasn’t easy, and there’s been plenty of negatives from this experience, but I decided to look to the positive and turn toward gratitude to move us forward. Let me give some examples of turning negatives into positives during challenging experiences.

• Living in a fifth wheel camper for six months taught us a lot about keeping only what we need. There is so much that we tend to keep because we spent money on it that we don’t really need or may never use. And a big plus was having much less living space to keep clean!

• Not having laundry machines for six months gave me a consistent opportunity to visit my parents who live 20 minutes away. Prioritizing weekly time together to catch up while the laundry machines did their thing because a weekly habit that continues today. It’s a highlight of my week.

• Living on a messy, muddy construction site has plenty of cons, but getting to witness and appreciate all the hard work that goes into the making of our new home has a way of making you really grateful. Putting our own efforts into the house construction gives us a new level of appreciation as well.

• Having only one shower for five people. Need I say more? Communication is key. Making sure we all show consideration when someone else might need the bathroom is important. We’ve not been perfect at this but it’s getting better. I don’t dare share the time the stomach bug that came to visit. Ugh.

• Not having room for a dining table has meant our makeshift campfire circle in the driveway provided for some great s’mores and awesome memories together. The sunsets are our entertainment and the laughter is our music.

It turns out we made the decision to seek our home last year just before home sales slowed down and rates went up. I can only guess that had we need taken the step toward our big scary goal right then I think we would have had to put it off for another few years.

I only realized the significance of June 1st recently when I saw in my journal writings that my family moved from Ohio back to Tennessee on June 1st. Nine years later on June 1st our current adventure began. Now that it’s been a year of this unconventional living experience I wouldn’t change a thing.

We’ve got two kids in college now but living at home because the campuses are so close. Our youngest is still able to go to the same gym for her tumbling and trampoline  and the same school.  This one was a non-negotiable at the offset. Decide what you are willing to give up and what are the non-negotiable things and take the step of faith. If I can encourage just one person to go ahead and pursue whatever you are dreaming of rather than waiting on ‘someday’, I will be grateful.