I so loved my wandering spirit. It took me everywhere I wanted to go with no limitations. I could brave the barriers that froze most others and come out the other side wiser, stronger, happier.

Until I met Amy. A woman I love and want to be with all he time. A best friend and lover. A confidante and adviser. But most of all someone I want to spend everyday with.

A grand thought that quickly led me to follow on musings. Like providing for her and the kids I think I want to raise. These thoughts bring to the forefront the grand challenge of my father and all fathers around the world.

It represents an end of the wild independent and reckless youth. The beginning of the mid life. A time when one should have learned enough to do more than survive. To keep my own head above water as well as a few others.

To many these thoughts and words signal the charge to run. Get as far away from responsibility as possible. To others it represents an acceptable casualty of raising a family. The only way there is to do it.

A crossroads for me you could say. Do I run? Stay and become sterile?

What destiny lies before me.

My most reliable answer has always been to go for neither. To strive for everything I want and sacrifice nothing. In this case I guess that means establishing a semblance of reckless wandering while providing the means to support 3.14 lives (the avg family size).

A side note to say that following the normal path means easy answers and predictable situatuions. Shooting for something wholly new, a life unexcused, means setting the bar and going about jumping over it.

First jump: money. This seems to be the plague that infests all happy marriages, families, and sex lives. A quite tractable problem that I have deigned to master.

It’s pretty simple actually; own property. After all, the adage that property creates wealth still holds true. No matter how many derivative equations or mutual funds can be created, wealth holds forth to old bonds.

In a years time I should have one property amassing wealth and maybe even income for me. In the midst of that year I feel like time is moving through dried concrete. Meaning not at all. Yet it is moving and in scope a year is no time at all. Many of the best success stories I read talk about 5-7 years being the standard time to hit.

The second problem I face is patience: a virtue of mine when it comes to people but a blasted enemy when it comes to action. My lack of patience for one year to accomplish my first piece of property is evidence. After all I know deep in my heart that wealth begets wealth and soon (5-7 yrs) I will have many and a steady income to support my slice of the pi (3.14 people).

Yet it kills me I want a new project. I want a new property. I want life to move at my place. A feeling that no rationalization seems to placate. In other words, the grand challenge of my 30s.

Shall I conquer wealth and patience, will it take the whole decade, should I hope to achieve both by age 35-37 (I am 30 now), how will I ever survive the 5 years, or should I say that patience requires me not to put a time constraint on these issues…

Alas, one more point of discussion revolves around the “semblance of reckless wandering”. To me, a far simpler issue. What I call the vagaries of spending money. To have regular income itself is a blessing. To spend it wisely only means certain planning and limited restraint. Still I feel I should address the issue.

Establish first a monthly budget, free of debt, full of life’s allowances. An obscene challenge for most but something I find no
trouble with. Second, find a way to earn that needed monthly income without working. Property serves this purpose for me and in that abyss of time, one year, I shall have achieved my first.

Third, and final, incorporate plans into the income scheming that support the wandering soul. Namely invest in property that I can rent for income but also live their when I wander into town. Create this in a few cities and I shall have a permanent ability to recklessly wander, like the aristocrats of yonder.

A quick cheat to add in a fourth issue. Learn about money, laws, and taxes surrounding wealth and property. They are numerous and litigous but absolutely necessary. Luckily something I enjoy studying.

Which leaves me sitting here (I am typing this on my phone on marble stairs in a shaded courtyard of the EPA headquarters) pondering why I hate this process so much. I seem to have it all figured out. Problems one and three are known quantities that only require execution (which I am very fond of doing).

It’s that damn number two, my mortal enemy patience of action. Do you know how long 5-7 years seems to me?

Whe I first set about this path I expected three years to be my limit, my upper boundary at which I can permit myself to wait for. Now, I am faced with a reality of 5-7.

Oh god, the more I say it the more it haunts me. Trust me on this when ur only thirty years old, 5 years is 1/6 of all the heartbeats you have felt.

To overcome I am developing all sorts of coping mechanisms. Reading, travelling as allowed, moping sadness, hobbies, volunteering, obsessing!

Will I learn this lesson?

Should I learn this lesson?