Traction

I'm very inspired today.  The feeling I'm experiencing is similar to a bear waking up from a winter slumber.  Waking up at 11 am, my first stop was the kitchen where I prepared a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast, chocolate milk, yogurt with apple and nuts.  Leaning back to a bed of pillows, I watched all four episodes of the new History show, Vikings.

Egg pan, compliments of my mom before I left to college.
Moms never intentionally mean to embarrass us, but are nonetheless very good at doing so.
I kept this miniature pan hidden until now, which I use to make perfectly round scrambled eggs for bagels. 

My wonderful, 3 hour breakfast-in-bed-watching-tv splurge was followed not by preoccupations of how I would make a living after leaving my job, or brooding over how stressful and burdensome life can be (I'm thinking taxes and laundry).  Instead I felt full of life, happily moving my furniture around and redecorating my room, shirtless.  Perhaps that is too much information, but its been a while since I've done that.  My roommate and I aren't that close and the house has been cold all winter.  But I somehow didn't feel cold and I felt that despite the pressure to get things in order before my move, everything would be ok.

Sitting outside on my porch in a hoodie and pj pants, watching the sun go down, I feel a flame of inspiration and hopefulness in me.  I want to do a sun salutation, plateauing in a handstand and ending in perfect formation on my porch.  A relic of my college days when I got hooked on yoga and took every possible class I could.  I'll admit it, I first took yoga to meet girls but by session 4 I was always in the first row instead of the back row.  Needles to say, to this day my male friends don't like to talk about my yoga obsession but my mom is very proud.

Unfortunately I am still going through physical therapy for my right shoulder sports injury.  I opt instead to go back inside to escape the 40 degree weather and plug my laptop to my Bose speakers to listen to some Calvin Harris.

Oh but where was I?  Oh yes, Traction.

Traction

With spring here and April almost upon us, the countdown stands at 11 weeks and 4 days to my departure to Barcelona.  9 weeks, 6 days to my last day at work and 6 weeks, 4 days until I break the news to my supervisor and, harder yet, to my coworkers.  The end of this 9-5 journey is definitely palpable.  I could try and fight it but inevitably I will have to confront those days.  I can meet them prepared or unprepared, and I'd rather do the former.

Deciding to take The Jump really got me going in this new direction.  Buying my one-way ticket to Barcelona marked the transition from thinking to doing and writing this blog reminds me of the promise I made to myself; to explore and enjoy life.

Traction in the world of entrepreneurship means validation by your target market of your product.  In other words, the point when consumers of your product accept and use/purchase the product/service and thus get the ball rolling for your idea.  In my case, my idea is my trip and validation are external events that get me going on my trip going.  For example, having a plane ticket pushes me to look at transportation and other costs in Eastern Europe.  Researching costs helps shape my travel route.  Another example would be the self-imposed resignation deadline and its effect on how I save money and mentally prepare to leave my job.  That, in essence, is traction.  Traction is also comparable to momentum like this seal rolling down a hill.

Traction and Happines

I think that my improved mood this week has a lot to do with traction.  Life is pretty much the same at the surface, yet underneath the mundane I am preparing myself in many ways to leave.  As the light at the end of the tunnel gets brighter, the brighter my days get.