I sadly have pretty much lived my life based with too much caution. I spent twenty years in a profession that I never really liked because I was afraid to be without a paycheck. I never really managed to live my life on my terms until these last few years. I always wore a mask that others expected me to wear. That is the story for far too much of my life.

Yes, I had my moments when I stepped out of my comfort zone, and as a result gained some serious fulfillment, but sadly, they were seldom nurtured to the next level. As a kid, I knew that I was different from those around me, but I thought that was a character flaw that I had to keep hidden. In high school, I was just one of those “shy” kids who lived in the shadows. I had friends but none on any significant level. Girlfriends were nonexistent. I attributed that to my exposure to a narcissist mother who abandoned me at the age of nine. I didn’t understand her and since she was the only female in my life, I thought every person of the opposite sex was like her.

I lived a cautious “safe” life. Twenty years into my work life, it took a Frenchman who was my boss’ boss’ boss to help me to see the extraordinary skill that I had within me. He happened to briefly glance into my office as I was testing a software tool I was working on. He was so impressed that me made me part of his team. I finally spent the last ten years of my corporate life where I should have always been if I had had the ambition to throw caution to the wind and follow my heart from the start.

I am now twenty-two years into the third part of my life, and I am finally learning to throw caution to the wind and seek my dreams. It’s not too late, but I wish I had done this much earlier in life.

Even after almost a year, I still miss my wife, but I also realize that now that I am on my own I can now finally make my dreams become reality. This is nothing holding me back but my caution. It is up to me to push that unreasonable caution to the background, while holding on to the rational part of it. I really don’t know whether I am capable of doing that or not? But, I am certainly going to try from here on out. Especially during this soon upcoming roadtrip across America.