Tuesday, June 10 – 3:30 AM
We left New York around 12:30 AM. By this time, Lexi (my sister) and I were on I-80 cruising at 65 mph.
Holy shit, what have I gotten myself into? I completely underestimated this drive across the country. We’re 3 hours into 42 hours of total driving. You can still turn back, Tom. We haven’t gotten that far, yet.
I’ve been living in San Diego for 10 days at this point. I still think back to all of these thoughts I had rumbling around as I stared out at a pitch-black windshield, only able to see as far as my dinky headlights can shine. Lexi was sleeping so it was me, myself, and my thoughts. I started becoming terrified of what was happening and I almost bailed. If I had, I would have never learned these 3 life-changing lessons:
Lesson#1: The United States is really fucking big.
The thought, “I completely underestimated this drive…,” was not wrong at all. I totally did. Now it made sense why everyone’s reaction to me saying, “I’m driving there,” was, “REALLY?!” I did not think it was as big of a deal as it really was.
Driving cross country is something everyone should check off their bucket lists. I will be the first to tell you: it is 100% glamorized. I’m not kidding, points of my trip required me to drive 10+ hours on flat nothingness but grass. It was boring and longer than you can fathom until you’re living through it. The magic of doing so, on the other hand, is I completing the trip and fully understanding how big the US is. In reality, I didn’t even see much of it, but still allowed me to grasp the vastness of this country. The United States is really fucking big.
Lesson #2: You are in more control of your reality than you think.
If I turned around at 3 am on the first stretch of the journey, my life would have gone in a completely different direction. I acknowledged the thoughts I was having were irrational. I believed I could do it and I kept going. I remembered I wanted to live in San Diego and I kept going. I kept going. I am in complete control of my reality.
I decided I was moving here and I did it. If you establish something you want, someone you want to be, or somewhere you want to live, and you never lose sight of that, you’ll get it.
As long as you can realign your thought process when you’re doubting yourself, you’ll be empowered and even impress yourself. It may scare you shitless, but if you work a little past that, it’s all downhill. You are in more control of your reality than you think.
Lesson #3: Execution is key to getting what you want.
After I battled my own doubtful thoughts, I realized what I was in the process of doing doing – I was moving across the entire country. Ultimately, this made me realize my decision making process. I don’t think about the emotional part of things – I take an idea, use logic to figure out the steps on how to obtain it, then execute appropriately.
I didn’t want to be in New York anymore, so I wasn’t going to stay there.
Now where do I go? I’ve been to Colorado and I wouldn’t be upset living there. Also, Natalie, a college roommate, makes San Diego look great. Okay, cool, there.
I know there wasn’t really much logic to this decision making; however, it was simply an idea in which I figured, why not? I love new experiences so my first experience there would be moving in. Seemed pretty cool to me.
I wanted to move to San Diego because it appeared to be an amazing place to pick everything up and start my professional life. From there, I figured out the necessary steps to make it there and I executed. Execution is the key to getting what you want.
July 23, 2018 – 10:23 PM
I’m sitting in my backyard surrounded by the sounds of cricket and I can see the stars. Yeah, it’s only been 10 days, but it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life. Now I can happily say, in San Diego, “I’m home.”
On Tom Of The World 