➡️ Just a note before I get into my story… Make sure you catch my special announcement in this blog!
I was scrolling my icloud recently looking for a specific set of images I knew I had. The trouble was… where were they? I couldn’t remember the year they were taken, so I spent a good chunk of time scrolling my life away on my icloud.
In my search for my elusive shots, I scrolled past holidays, birthdays, the day I moved to San Antonio from NYC, shots of all the early days of building my business here, the day I dropped my son at college, and of course, tons of Italy photos.
I’ve been spending summers in Italy for 12 years — because each year I take a group of people with me. Here are my trips. When I look at my photos, I’m thinking, I love my scroll! It is full of all sorts of fun, adventure, and special moments — moments I feel so lucky to have experienced.
But the truth is, I created most of them!
I have purposefully been saying “yes” to fun things since the day I was 19 and left my small town in the wilds of Canada for a bigger life in NYC. And of course one can always disregard people who say things like this with a “must be nice” and “what a privilege.” Yes, it is nice and yes, I am privileged, and yes, I’m also lucky.
But there is one thing I have never let get in the way of living, and that is real life! I have always been a “do things before I’m ready” and “do things before I can afford them” and “do things before I know what the heck I’m doing” kind of woman. And that is precisely the point of this note today. Have you noticed that most of the population is mired in what I call “real life”? I’m talking about a life of “I can’t” and “I shouldn’t” and “not this year” and “must be nice” and “have you not heard the news?” and “but what if?” and “wow, lucky you.”
Ugh, how utterly dull.
Of course the world is full of misery, bad news, horrors and injustices and politics that make one want to hide in bed with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s for the rest of our days because the weight of the world’s suffering is just too much. I can very easily be brought to tears about the heaviness of it all. In my life I’ve had best friends pass, and seen people very close to me struggle through cancers, bad health, and depression. Yes, quite normal. I know you have all sorts of stories like these from your circles too.
But we must revolt against this while we still have time! Life — it’s for the living! When I get an idea in my head about something I would like to do, I get to work thinking about how I can pull it off.
I’m making the case today for becoming an utterly impractical person. (SPOILER: Impractical people have more fun.)
I enjoy turning “I would love to” into “how can I?” (After which my subconscious and conscious get furiously working behind the scenes, figuring out just how I can.)
Most of the time I tell no one, not even my family! I don’t want anyone interfering with their “real life” reasons for why I shouldn’t, why I can’t, why it’s really rather impractical, why it’s best I wait.
I know I can’t have everything at once. But I also know that almost everything can be figured out along the way.
Here’s a list of impractical things I’ve done that have brought me boatloads of joy, which in turn has buoyed me during times of disaster, sorrow and grief:
- I’ve traveled a ton (and worked many odd jobs to do it).
- I moved to NYC with about 20 bucks in my pocket (talk about the fiscal wherewithal of a 19 year old. ).
- I moved to San Antonio when it turned out I would be a single parent after all and in SA I found a soft place to land.
- I started a company with no experience or business schooling, with just me cooking alone in my kitchen and driving my car doing food deliveries before (ubereats was even invented) into what is now prime commercial real estate and an award winning company that has employed hundreds of people who live in our city. I held on like a mother to save my small company when the pandemic triggered the “Dark Ages” of dining out. I fought hard to keep my employees paid and fed and our lights on.
I had to be utterly impractical to pull off all of the above. Practical is totally overrated. You can do nothing truly interesting with practicality constantly hanging over you, weighing you down like a wet blanket.
So, let’s talk about travel ….
Traveling to Europe with me this summer is not practical. It’s not “real life.” It’s you living your dreams and getting closer to the person you want to be.
Focus on that — the getting closer to your dreams part. Put your time, money and energy into thinking about the things you can control: what you do with your time, who you spend your time with, who or what you give your money, your attention and your hours to, and how you have fun.
I’m a picky impractical person. Because although I believe that money is a renewable resource, time is not. It just disappears. (And we don’t know how many days we get on this earth.)
So the question is, what will you do with your one precious life?
Would you like to travel more? If the answer is, “yeah, that does sound pretty great,” then I’ve made this so easy for you.
Come travel to Europe this summer with me.
Special announcement!
I’m giving whoever books these last available rooms a deal, ‘cause I love when I hear our guests say, “Screw it, let’s do this!”
Get $500 off on these last rooms:
- 1 room left on the Cinque Terre women-only trip from June 24 to July 1 (join solo or share with a friend)
- 2 rooms left on the Italian & French Rivieras all-adults-welcome trip from July 3 to 11
These trips satisfy your need for adventure, culture, and togetherness, as well as your curiosity. You get to be wonderfully impractical and spend three hours lingering over lunch, with carbs so good you’ll come home a changed soul. You’ll be bumming around in the Riviera sunshine in your comfy shoes (just back from a swim), and you’ll suddenly start to feel yourself care less — about everything. << I love this feeling.
A good holiday makes you… more YOU, a you with a new and improved nervous system. (I’ve been testing this theory for 20 years, and it turns out that some of my most effective me-making holidays have required little more than a bathing suit, a couple days on the Mediterranean, and some salty focaccia out of a brown paper bag.)
⇒ Click here to come to Europe with me. And $500 off posted rates. We have great people meeting me there who have already committed.
As much as I wish otherwise for you, no one is gonna come knocking on your door saying, hey — you’ve won a trip to Europe! This is not the Price is Right. But YOU CAN CREATE your reality, just like all the people you admire who have created theirs and brought their dreams to life. (And does anyone cling to their last breath and wish they had saved $5000 by skipping that vacation? No, I don’t imagine they do.)
This is your invitation to come, but you do need to raise your hand and say “yes!”
⇒ Click here to get these last rooms. And $500 off posted rates. No other options exists in 2023 and I’m not promising any trips in 2024.
Looking forward to seeing who jumps on these last rooms and this great deal of $500 off all rates.
Tim
PS
Cinque Terre details are posted here.
Italian and French Rivieras details are here.
