When we first started to share our plans with friends and family of selling everything to buy an RV and travel full-time, we were met with two kinds of responses: “That’s my dream! I have always wanted to do that!” or, “An RV? Like a house on wheels…? Why would you ever want to do that?” Every time I would explain our plan and then our reasons behind it, I was hoping to hear the first response, the affirmation that our plans weren’t completely crazy. Let’s be honest, there is a fine line between brilliant and crazy and Engjell and I like to use it as a jump rope.
Fresh out of culinary school, Engjell and I decided to open our own restaurant at the age of 25. A crazy idea, no question. Traditionally, you would work for years under great chefs before considering opening your own restaurant, but we were given an unusual opportunity and we jumped at it. We also decided to enter the International Pizza Competition in Las Vegas in 2012, certainly not expecting to win, only hoping to learn from some of the world’s best pizzaioli… and trust me, that was crazy. But I have come to the conclusion that life rewards a bit of crazy…
We not only competed at the Int’l Pizza Competition, we placed second in our division! We found great success with our restaurant over six years and were able to open a second one. We put all of our energy and passion into making what we initially thought was a crazy possibility, a golden opportunity. So why bite off another chunk of crazy and sell off our successful business and our comfortable home and our safe life to hit the road?
There’s a meme that floats around social media that says something to this effect: we spend our life working a job we hate to pay rent and to buy things we don’t need to impress people we don’t like. That sentiment really began to resonate with me the last few years. I would see my friends on Facebook copy and paste that meme and even shared it once or twice, myself. I found myself pouring over pictures of places I hadn’t been to and reading Travel magazine articles about cultures I had yet to experience. But to what end? I could copy and paste a thousand memes about life, travel or happiness, each time pretending that a re-post was the best way I could express those desires. But what good did it do me to like a photo on Pinterest or cut out a magazine article if I was never going to take the steps necessary to make those sentiments a reality?
So there we were, living what we had expected to be our American dream come true and finding that success, money and stability wasn’t the recipe for happiness we had been sold on. I wasn’t even enjoying cooking anymore and that was a problem. It was time to take the leap of faith and do the crazy thing…
Oddly enough, freedom took shape in the form of an RV for us. I was gung-ho on traveling the world with a pack on my back and our kids trailing behind us, but when Engjell first pitched the idea of starting out for a year in an RV, I flat turned him down. I can imagine this is a scenario of familiarity for many full-time RV couples…
But slowly, RV life is growing on me. I appreciate the opportunity to see how other Americans live their lives and the beautiful and incredible landscape in which they are doing it. I can see my kids absorbing their surroundings at a furious pace and my hope is that these two years on the road will help mold them into human beings of consequence. I want them to know that happiness isn’t always the big house with the picket fence and high-paying job, that sometimes, many times, it will be something much less predictable and comfortable. I want them to know that it’s okay to do the crazy thing…
So what is your crazy? What’s holding you back? I made a thousand excuses for why we shouldn’t give up what we had to pursue this adventure. It was scary and intimidating and not everyone we told about it gave us the nod of approval, but it was worth it! The days are fleeting and life is waiting for you to bite off your own chunk of crazy! Cheers!!