The Life You Want Is One Decision Away

a.k.a. Why waiting for “someday” is the real thing holding you back

We spend a shocking amount of our lives waiting.

Waiting for the right time. Waiting for more money.
Waiting for fewer responsibilities. Waiting to be braver, richer, freer, more qualified.

“If I won the lottery…”
“When I retire…”
“If work slowed down…”
“If the kids were older…”
“If I had more time…”

We build entire imaginary lives on top of that word: if.

But travel has taught me something simple and deeply uncomfortable: most of the time, it’s not some massive transformation that separates us from the life we want. It’s one small change we’re avoiding because it feels inconvenient, uncomfortable, or just unfamiliar.

A mountain doesn’t block the path , it is the path. The question is whether you stop at the base or start climbing.

For me, that one small change happened when I was sixteen.

I left North America for the first time to study in the USSR. No soft launch. No easing into it. Just yeeted myself straight into the deep end. That single decision flipped a switch. I went from spending hours every week paging through the Official Airline Guide (yes, that OAG…pre-internet travel geek kids know) fantasizing about faraway places…to eventually building a life where travel wasn’t a dream, it was the default.

One choice. One yes. One crack in the “this is how life works” narrative.

Everything else followed.

Most “impossible” paths only look that way before the first step.

Travel tends to expose how often we wait for permission that never comes.

We tell ourselves we’ll start living after something happens: more money, more stability, fewer risks…but the truth is, clarity rarely comes first. Momentum does. The smallest change creates movement, and movement creates options you couldn’t see while standing still.

Life doesn’t usually open doors with a grand gesture. It cracks a window and waits to see if you’ll push it wider and let the sun shine in.

Once you stop seeing obstacles as walls, they start looking a lot like invitations.

Travel may be my world, but this isn’t really about travel. It’s about refusing to let if run the show.

So here’s the question I’ll leave you with this week:

What’s the one small change you keep postponing? The one that might quietly change everything?

Because mountains don’t disappear.
They just turn into opportunities once you start climbing

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