Friends from Chicago living vicariously online were surprised and disappointed to see much of the itinerary involved hiking, beaches, and historical landmarks. When I said I was going to see M, there were half-joking comments on raising bail money. We live without intention, and at the same time, and we embrace the purpose of life to be in the moment and yet spontaneous. Somehow we once had deep philosophical conversations with guys In Vegas, who told talked about their careers as arms dealers.

We jump onstage when the local band played. Grocery shopping trips turn into “I dare you” challenges. Hanging with us means we would spend several hours in small coffee shops, sipping and talking about life. Now to understand the deeper meaning of this, when M and I met 10 years ago, we unknowingly embarked on a friendship based on “we just want to experience the moment”. To trade our bustling Chicago suburb for a 12-acre farm, and swap her high heels for hiking boots set the tone for our adventures. To give a bit of backstory, my visit to Boston to see my dear Gal “M”, where she started a new life in a tiny (no, even smaller than what you are thinking) New England country town. She typed “Thoreau” into Google maps and we ended up at… Thoreau’s Farm and Birthplace As M drove along, I spotted a roadside sign for Walden Woods and I got so excited that M thought I was kidding. I was in Massachusetts, catching up with M after a long separation when one evening we were out catching sunsets.

It really drove home for me just how much I had been coasting along, and I promised myself right then and there that I would always be on the lookout for the new and inspiring. I almost immediately developed an intense desire for new adventures and explorations.

I received my wake up call several years ago when I decided to make a career transition and uproot my family and our comfortable (boring) lives and relocate from Chicago to Southern California. It’s easy in our chaotic world for each of us, myself included, to drift along in the same routines without pausing to live each day to it’s fullest. But, what does it mean to live deliberately? I believe Thoreau meant that it’s one thing to be alive, and something else entirely to live. Something about Thoreau’s quote has always resonated with me. “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Henry David Thoreau

Walden thoreau